How to create a robust CRM Strategy

Creating a CRM strategy has two purposes. To enhance your Customer Relationships, and to provide a holistic plan for the entire company. This will grow revenue and profit and reduce costs. A robust CRM strategy will help your business gain insight into the behaviour of your customers. This lets you know what they are looking for and anything they may need in the future. This will also allow you to target them with upgrades and/or new goods and services.

As with any plan, a CRM strategy will have several steps and should be communicated to all your staff at each point. It should be aligned with the company’s vision, and part of the company culture. Implementing a CRM solution like Dynamics 365 CRM or ACT is the most effective way to manage your strategy.

Following the steps outlined here will put you on the path to a healthy CRM strategy for your business:

Audit your business – You should conduct an analysis of your internal and external processes, highlighting areas that need improvement. This is the foundation of your strategy. You must know your strengths and weaknesses and those of your customers.

Define your goals – The goals you want to achieve with your CRM strategy should complement the goals of the business. The audit you’ve just conducted should have refreshed everyone as to what those goals are. This allows you to set out a clear vision of what you want to achieve. This could be:

• Increased CSAT
• Increased sales
• Higher productivity
• Increase in Customer Retention

Know your product – knowing your product means you can really highlight what it is that sets you apart from competitors. After your audit, you may even realise that you need to work on your product narrative. This narrative should be communicated to your staff so that everyone in the organisation is relaying the same message.

Know your target market – for most places this will be ‘Existing Customers’ and ‘Prospective’ customers. You need to know who is buying what product and why and you should know exactly the type of customer you want to target. To find this data interview your sales team, create customer profiles and send surveys to existing customers.

Detail your customer journey – For a superb CRM strategy you should know each step of your customer journey. Beginning with the first moment they interact with you, whether that’s on your website or through an email, right through to the closing of the deal. You should also know who is interacting with the customer each step of the way (sales/support), how interactions can be improved and any challenges they might face.

Invest in a CRM Solution – For a strong CRM strategy, you need software. It is essential for collaboration between teams, storing your customer data and keeping track of customer interactions. If you have followed all the steps above, you should know what it is you’ll need from your software. Whether that’s an off the shelve programme or a bespoke one created especially for you.

Set your KPIs – To be able to better evaluate the success of your strategy you need to set targets for your teams to meet. These targets can be in line with the goals you set when you started planning your strategy. As with any project or plan, success depends on the engagement of those carrying it out.

A solid CRM Strategy will lead to customer satisfaction and retention as well as a lower cost in servicing your current customer base and hopefully, an uptick in sales. Reputation is everything in business and thankfully customers talk, and happy customers refer!

We offer a range of CRM solutions, our experts can help you figure out exactly what it is that you need from your CRM.