Share what you know with millions of people
Focus is the best place to turn what you know into remarkable content
0
How can one use a CRM system to increase customer loyalty?
I own a chain of 3 boutique clothing stores in the SF bay area. We've recently implemented a CRM system to help us track and keep in touch with repeat clients. I'm wondering how else we can use our CRM system to increase customer loyalty? What suggestions do you have? We already send out a monthly newsletter and contact set lists of clients when certain brands come in. What else could we be doing?
Events
- Dos and Don'ts of Small Business Marketing May 29 @ 11 am PT
- Lead Nurturing 202: The Next Generation May 31 @ 11 am PT
- The Tricks to Paid Media June 6 @ 11 am PT
- Display Advertising for Brand Awareness June 20 @ 11 am PT
Related Activity
5 Answers
The CRM system is never more than an enabler. If you have an established loyalty program, and a strategy for either increasing the commitments of your customers to you or getting your customers beyond loyalty and to advocacy, then the system becomes valuable beyond just the pure operational requirements of running sales, customer service and/or marketing.
What you can do is to capture the kinds of data that provide you with the raw information you need to gain deeper and deeper insight into either your individual customer or customer segments. So for example, by capturing the transactional data that most traditional CRM systems allow you to capture, you can analyze the purchasing behavior and patterns of your customers which can down to an individual level provide you with some insight into what offers make the most sense for you.
Depending on which system you are using, the tools can be highly automated or usable but with some manual entry.
Additionally, if your strategy is advocacy, you can, for example add a points system that is based on (depending on your own outlook and also how complex your needs are) that rewards your customer for not only repeat purchases but for recommending others who then purchase goods To do this, you would have to have a CRM system that can handle unique IDs and can track activities that sometimes go beyond transactions.
The difficulty in answering your question is twofold. First the use of the system depends on the loyalty programs you provide which are based on the strategy you have for your customer. Second, without knowing which system you use, its hard to know what functionality beyond the hard core basic functionality you have and even more so, which components you are using e.g. sales, marketing, customer service, social components if they have them.
But fundamentally, the most important aspect of the CRM system will be the insight gained by you based on the increased information that you have on the individual customer's customer record as they continue to interact with you.
I've restricted my answer to what the system could help you do to some extent - and thats a generic thing since I don't know much about your company. But that said, there are many things that you can think about when it comes to increasing the loyalty that are not driven by your CRM software but will be supported by it. I'll write a Focus brief either this month or next month on loyalty and CRM that I think will help you figure out more.
If you need more please feel free to contact me here via Focus.
I can only add a little to what Paul has already suggested because he is dead on. Capture transactional data and begin to gain an understanding of their behaviors. One of the most powerful things you can do with this data is not to engage them through newsletters, but to understand the behaviors of customers who don't return. Stated another way, if you know what your average customer's behavior is over time, you can target a message to those that appear to be starting a trend in a nother direction.
Simple unsegmented scenario: Your average first time customer returns for a second purchase within 60 days. The make a 3rd purchase, on average, 90 days after the second purchase - and so on and so on. If you can identify at which point defection escalates, you can target those customers with a unique message, based on an understandng you will gain regarding the reasons for defection. It coudl be a discount. It could be inclusion in a program. That I don't know.
The cost to retain customers is lower than acquiring them. It's a no-brainer relative to ROI. As for loyalty, what better way to maintain loyalty than to expand it by retaining customers that would have left? If you've figured this out, you're dealing with loyalty by really understanding your customers.
Check out www.drillingdown.com. There are some great ideas there from a guy who really understands this topic.
As Paul mentioned, you can use CRM as a tool to help you organize data about your customers, but it's how you use that data that actually moves the needle in your loyalty efforts. The key is collecting the data - both reactive (what they purchased which you capture at the time of transaction) as well as proactive data (other poll/survey questions you ask, i.e. what they would like to purchase that they haven't yet which you can ask at the register or via email/social media). Through CRM, you can utilize marketing automation capabilities to engage your lists not just with one-way "boutique-centric" email newsletters but with "customer centric" touches, highly customized messages and offers based on what you know about them (their style, their purchase and browse patterns, their cost thresholds, etc.). These targeted communications are much more likely to engage your customers and create loyalty than sending out a generic blast.
So you wanted a few concrete action items for building your loyalty program:
1. Start progressive profiling: each time you have contact with your customers (in-store, online or via email) ask them something new to help build a comprehensive profile to give you ultimate personalization and relevancy in your messages.
2. Consider a marketing automation platform that integrates with your CRM (contact me if you want some suggestions) so you can send targeted and even behaviorally-driven communications.
3. Remember the easy stuff: birthdays, special occasions, etc. And keep in mind that hand-written snail mail is a great way to make people (especially women) feel important and valued. When they feel valued, loyalty is sure to follow.
I would say Joy , Mike , Paul have included the most of it..Customer Loyalty is covered almost,
Other uses of CRM could be... use your CRM to track performance of your internal and field sales representatives.
Being Director Marketing, and conducting a session on “How United Bank can increase the customer’s loyalty with the help of CRM?” How you will convince you participants that CRM can bring loyalty and organizational commitment? You are supposed to write the arguments in the favor of CRM and loyalty.
Answer This Question