Commerce & Marketing: CRM at the heart of a win-win relationship?

Companies seem to have understood the benefits of implementing a CRM system. However, it is clear that many of them are not fully exploiting its potential. This problem is linked to the fact that sales and marketing departments are finding it rather difficult to adopt CRM.

The causes? Incomplete customer files, errors in information, and time-consuming task completion. As a result, marketing and sales departments pass the buck on these difficulties. The result is a poor working dynamic, impinging on productivity and good relations.

It's high time to pay attention to these issues. With the cancellation of sales appointments during the lockdown, their schedule has become lighter. Why not take advantage of the coming weeks to update your CRM?

A major challenge: continuous database updating

It's a fact: CRM alone is no longer enough. Even if it's feature-rich and intuitive, it won't be of any use if the data isn't qualitative. Continuous updating of the database is essential to the long-term viability of CRM.

Information such as the contact's name, exact function, telephone number or e-mail address must be filled in as fully as possible. Of course, any other data required for your prospecting should also be included in the CRM.

Marketing teams can, for example, send out sales surveys. These provide essential information, such as whether the e-mail address is correct. If this is not the case, finding the right contact details will maximize email deliverability. Otherwise, it's a good idea to ask your prospects/customers directly if the information you have is up to date.

However, manual database cleansing can be time-consuming. As the Introhive survey shows. According to 88% of sales reps, complete contact details are not entered due to lack of time.

To maximize your sales force's time, play the automation card! An intelligent CRM has features that automate information retrieval. It can feed itself with data from société.com or Infogreffe, for example. A real advantage, since these databases are up-to-date and complete.

To help users update the CRM, there's a very good indicator: the completeness rate. This indicator monitors the overall quality of the database. It's very simple: you start by selecting fill criteria. The better the associated fields are filled in by sales reps, the higher the score. In addition to providing an indication of data quality, it's a great managerial tool for motivating teams to be more objective about CRM completeness.

A duo focused on performance and results

Marketing needs an up-to-date database to generate qualified leads. Without access to this information in real time, it's impossible to launch high-performance campaigns. For their part, salespeople need to receive qualified leads from marketing. It's a real virtuous circle.

Marketing automation is a good example of this virtuous circle. Its primary objective is to detect qualified leads and generate sales. It automates the sending of e-mails based on prospect behavior and CRM data. The salesperson is then alerted and can personalize his or her telephone approach according to the prospect's history.

Better still, marketing can implement lead scoring. This technique enables prospects to be rated according to certain criteria. A great advantage for sales staff! They can focus on prospects who are likely to convert quickly.

As far as CRM is concerned, marketing automation offers a real advantage: constant updating of the database. Statistics such as unsubscribes and rejects for each mailing make it easy to clean up the database. This action ensures that your database is not corrupted and that you are not blocked by anti-spam filters. As a result, it will be much easier to make an accurate analysis of your results.

Finally, this synchronization between marketing actions and CRM increases sales performance on the one hand, and improves customer knowledge on the other.

A common goal: optimizing customer relations

Keeping your database up to date and properly exploited offers a benefit just as valuable as good sales performance: better customer relations.

All the data collected within your CRM ensures better after-sales follow-up. Purchase history, customer journey and preference data are all essential for building customer loyalty. By strategically segmenting your database, you can personalize your customer relations. Send communications according to customer profile and create a stronger sense of proximity.

Using a customer's purchase history, you can better target the offers you send out to boost additional sales. This could involve proposing a new subscription or additional options, for example.

It can also be used to estimate the likelihood of a customer terminating their relationship with the company. You need to take into account data such as: billing incidents, product or service usage levels, transaction history... By focusing on the customer journey, you can anticipate and implement the right actions.

But customer care doesn't stop there. Optimizing customer relations will enable you to identify potential ambassadors. The advantage is twofold. A customer who is satisfied with your company will talk about it to others and become a real business contributor. You can even ask them to write testimonials for your website. Through their experience, the aim is to reassure visitors by clarifying areas of doubt.

Conclusion

Today, prospecting and customer loyalty no longer depend solely on the sales department. Collaboration with marketing is the key to success.

CRM reinforces this collaboration incredibly well. It centralizes information and gives teams instant access to it. Good data management coupled with automation promotes better sales performance and appropriate marketing actions. In this way, mastery of the customer experience improves customer satisfaction and loyalty. A good customer relationship will be measured by its lifespan, a source of maximized ROI.

Sponsored article. Expert contributors are authors independent of the appvizer editorial team. Their comments and positions are their own.