Top tips for retaining your customers

By Janette Whitney ACIB MCMI of Award Winning Business Consultants Janette Whitney & Associates

No business – whatever its size – can afford to ignore customer relationship management. Put simply, customer relationship management (CRM) is a method of record keeping that ensures nothing slips through the net in terms of customer details. It could be a paper based contact list, a simple database or a tailor- made system.

However you approach CRM if you do it effectively you can increase sales, boost customer retention and improve profit margins.

Whatever line of business you are in, Customer relationship management will benefit your business and here are 8 reasons why:

1. Know your customers- Know who is buying from you, how often and how much. You can analyse your customers buying patterns and quantify exactly how much each customer is worth to your business.

Test and refine your marketing – With a simple CRM system, you can easily analyse the success of marketing initiatives and refine them accordingly.

Improve your sales figures – Research has shown that CRM boosts sales. With all customer information at your fingertips, you can target your sales effort more precisely, improve your conversion rate and increase the number of sales per customer.

Boost Customer retention – Keeping good customer records allows you to offer a more targeted and personal service that will improve customer satisfaction levels allowing you to retain good customers for longer.

Up sell and cross sell – Customer buying patterns help to indentify opportunities to up sell and cross sell products enabling you to maximise the value of every customer.

Spot trends and monitor changes in the market- Many small firms are often operating on the back foot, reacting to changes in their market after the event. CRM can help you spot changing customer needs as they happen so you can respond quickly and ahead of your competition.

Find new customers using your data – The information on your existing customers can help you find and successfully sell to new customers that match the profile of your best clients. Keep details of new enquiries and prospects so that you can keep in touch efficiently.

Increase your efficiency and reduce costs – CRM is about efficiency. Sales and marketing costs can be reduced if you improve your targeting and reduce wastage. And by eliminating duplicate processes, you can save further time and money.

Dedicated Customer relationship management systems allow you to join up your sales and marketing data with other records, such as accounts, stock –keeping and delivery. That way you can know everything about a customers dealings with your firm – from whether their goods arrived on time to whether they are a late payer.

However you store your customer information, make sure you have it all in one place.

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