(MB) Organizing Customer Data Lesson

Organizing Customer Data

Having well organized customer data has many benefits including:

  • Having the ability to identify and target your best customers with marketing strategies.
  • Optimizing information shared by multiple employees and departments (i.e. sales, billing, accounts receivable).
  • Providing customers with the highest level of customer service.
  • Helping employees identify customer needs and build relationships with customers.

A well-organized customer data system can help a company be more efficient and ultimately more profitable. In fact, this business sphere has become so important that it has its own name: Customer Relationship Management (CRM). So crucial is this area of knowledge to a business that large firms spend large amounts of money developing and maintaining a CRM system. Smaller firms usually use online systems.

Traits of a Good CRM

Whether developing or purchasing a CRM program, a business owner or manager should look for certain traits.

TRAITS OF A GOOD CRM EMAIL EFFICIENCY-Rather than sending emails to customers one at a time, a good CRM program will allow sales and marketing employees to efficiently send out mass emails SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING - Whether dealing with negative feedback on a product or amplifying praise of the company, CRMS should be able to accurately monitor social media so that both the good and the bad can be acted on in a timely manner REAL-TIME SALES DATA- Not only should this information be available, but it should be integrated with customer feedback. This gives the company a much clearer picture of what is happening and also what is likely to happen in the future. MOBILITY- Along with tracking real-time data must come the ability for the sales force to access that data anytime and anywhere, because a good salesman needs to be where the customers are, not tied to a computer. USER-FRIENDLY-When purchasing or developing a CRM system an important that users have an Interface that is easy and intuitive to navigate This will cut down on training time and motivate employees to use the system CUSTOMIZED-CRM systems should never be "one size fits all" because every company is different Systems should be easy to customize VENDOR SERVICE-Check out what kind of support your CRM provider is offering. Certainly, they should be there for problems, but they should offer help in customization and training, too

[CC BY 4.0] UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED | IMAGES: LICENSED AND USED ACCORDING TO TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION