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 has to be said that many of them are not fully exploiting its potential. This problem is linked to a rather difficult adoption by sales and marketing departments.

The causes? Customer files that are often incomplete, errors in information or tasks that are deemed too time-consuming to complete. As a result, the marketing and sales departments pass the quid on these difficulties. The result is a poor working dynamic that impinges on productivity and good relations.

It's high time to pay attention to these issues. With the cancellations of sales meetings during the lockdown, their schedule has been lightened. Why not take advantage of the coming weeks to update your CRM?

A major challenge: continuous updating of the database

It's a fact: CRM alone is no longer enough. Even if it is feature-rich and intuitive, it will be of no use if the data is not of high quality. Continuously updating the database is essential to the long-term viability of CRM.

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

Marketing teams can, for example, send out commercial surveys. These provide essential information, such as whether the e-mail address is correct. If this is not the case, searching for the correct contact details will maximise email deliverability. Otherwise, it's perfectly appropriate to ask your prospects/customers directly whether the information you have is up to date.

However, manually cleaning the database can be time-consuming. This is demonstrated by the survey conducted by Introhive. According to 88% of sales reps, complete contact details are not entered because of a lack of time.

To maximise the time of your sales staff, play the automation card! An intelligent CRM has functions that automate the search for information. It can feed itself with data from société.com or Infogreffe, for example. This is a real advantage, as these databases are up-to-date and complete.

To help users update the CRM, there is a very good indicator: the completeness rate. This indicator monitors the overall quality of the database. It's very simple: you start by selecting the completion criteria. The better the associated fields are filled in by the sales reps, the higher the score. As well as providing an indication of the quality of the data, this is a very good managerial tool for motivating your teams to complete the CRM.

A team focused on performance and results

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

Marketing automation is a good example of this two-way process. Its primary objective is to detect qualified leads and generate sales. It automates the sending of emails based on the behaviour of prospects and CRM data. The sales rep is then alerted and can personalise his or her telephone approach according to the prospect's history.

Better still, marketing can implement lead scoring. This technique enables a score to be assigned to prospects based on certain criteria. A great advantage for sales! In effect, they can concentrate as a priority on prospects who are likely to convert quickly.

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

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

A common goal: optimising customer relations

Keeping your database up to date and using it correctly 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 personalise 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 offering 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. It is necessary to take into account data such as: billing incidents, level of use of the product or service, transaction history, etc. By focusing on the customer journey, you can anticipate and implement the right actions.

But customer care doesn't stop there. Optimising 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 on your website. Through their experience, the aim is to reassure visitors by clarifying any areas of doubt.

Conclusion

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

CRM is incredibly effective at reinforcing this collaboration. It centralises information and gives teams instant access to it. Good data management coupled with automation promotes better sales performance and appropriate marketing actions. Controlling this experience improves customer satisfaction and loyalty. A good customer relationship will be measured by its lifespan, a source of maximised ROI.

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