Ecommerce CRM

Guide on Ecommerce CRM and Best CRM Software to Integrate

Team Richpanel

Published on

March 10, 2023

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Building and maintaining customer relationships is one of the pillars of a great business model. However, it can be difficult to stay on top of your customer requirements and expectations, regardless of the size of the business you run and your customer base. The right CRM tool can go a long way when dealing with customer relationships, especially with eCommerce businesses.

Customer Relationship Management systems are essential for any business, including eCommerce stores, as they help convert customers into loyal clients who will continue buying products for years to come. Powerful CRM eCommerce integrations can help your online business grow and expand by delivering excellent customer service and managing customer relationships.

In this post, let us discuss everything you should know about eCommerce CRM and look at some popular CRM integrations with eCommerce you can consider for your store to maximize the value gained from customer interactions.

What is Ecommerce CRM Software?

CRM software has been designed to help businesses manage and use customer data for improving operations. An eCommerce CRM software does the same thing but is created particularly for eCommerce stores. Such software helps store important data about prospective and existing customers in one location for easy access and utilization.

A CRM software essentially gives you an overview of business operations and provides details about customers and leads to help you identify future sales opportunities. It serves as a central location that stores customer information, accounts, details, actions, and other data that you can process to get meaningful insights into behavior, purchasing habits, and interaction of customers within varied channels of your eCommerce store.

One of the unique aspects of eCommerce CRM software is its ability to give you the details of every single visitor to the website. It tells you when a person last visited, interacted with, or purchased from your store. Centralizing such useful information on a single platform with these solutions helps target customers and leads better and improves sales and revenue.

Essentially, eCommerce and CRM will unlock substantial value for merchants, suppliers, and customers. While these integrations remain at nascent stages, they continue to grow briskly at small and large stores, especially with numerous third-party eCommerce CRM implementation services coming to their aid.

Types of CRM

Though all the benefits and uses apply to any CRM, different eCommerce CRM products vary in focus and features. Still, the types of CRM in eCommerce can be broadly classified into three categories.

Operational

This type of CRM helps streamline sales, marketing, and customer service processes to ensure better customer relationships. They offer tools dedicated to helping you visualize and handle customer journeys more effectively. It starts from the customer's first-ever interaction with the business and leads management through the sales pipeline and their behaviors as they become loyal customers.

Operational CRM solutions generally deliver automation features in sales, marketing, and services to reduce the workload of your employees. This would enable them to spend time on personal and creative aspects of their work and take care of tasks that need a human touch. This way, it is easier for companies to provide top-notch services for growth.

Analytical

Analytical CRMs are focused on improving customer experiences based on data collection. Digital tools and solutions provide simple ways to gather huge amounts of data. However, these CRM systems have features that help analyze collected data and convert it into something that proves to be valuable for the business.

With analytical CRM, an eCommerce business can analyze customer data to gain insights into customer habits and behavior and stay on top of the latest trends. With such information, you can understand how you can increase sales, improve customer retention, and solve common customer issues and challenges.

Collaborative

These CRM solutions are aimed at speeding up information sharing within the business. Big eCommerce stores often have separate teams relying on data from other areas of operation. To ensure a seamless customer experience throughout their journey, you need a way to share information in real-time across the organization. Collaborative CRMs will ensure all the teams have real-time access to the same customer data, regardless of their channel or department.

Support and technical teams will sync to address customer concerns promptly. Such an integration saves customers from any stressful experience of repeating themselves whenever they talk to a new person. Each representative can quickly access a record of the customer interactions to know the relevant details and serve them better.

Features of Best eCommerce CRM Software

eCommerce customer relationship management brings together various touchpoints of your online business and allows for a unified approach. While this is the core premise, the features and offerings differ across different products.

Before figuring out the options for CRMs for your eCommerce store, it is important to know what features you want in the software to help you achieve business improvements ranging from customer satisfaction to higher conversion rates. Some of the most important features you should find in the best eCommerce CRMs include:

1. 360-Degree Customer View

A CRM software stores customer data covering their interaction with your site, purchases, email actions, social media mentions, etc. This data lets you understand your customer base better, find ways to improve your quality, and deliver personalized offers and discounts to your customers.

2. Personalized Email Marketing

With CRM software, you can carry out email campaigns while retaining personalization for your customers. The CRM uses customer details in email templates to keep the communication relevant, personalized, and interesting.

3. Workflow Automation

CRM offers automation capabilities across departments ranging from customer service to marketing. You can, for example, set up automated messaging and send automated emails with reminders to customers leaving the store without completing a purchase.

Read More: Complete Guide on Customer Service Automation

4. Chatbots

This aspect of CRM proves to be valuable to eCommerce stores as customers can resolve simple concerns so that you save considerably on your customer service costs. Chatbots use CRM data to deliver a personalized experience to customers looking for assistance and transfer the chat to human agents whenever necessary.

5. Integration with eCommerce Products

CRM software requires data to be able to deliver the desired benefits. Most of this data resides in the products you use for your eCommerce operations. This is why you need a CRM that integrates well with other products you use and that comes pre-integrated with your key products, so there is no need to waste time trying to connect them manually.

6. Data Analytics and Customer Satisfaction Tracking

The CRM software collects data that you can use to identify the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns, the best customer acquisition channels, the most popular products/services, and the type of customers most active in your eCommerce store.

These data analytics help adjust the strategies and focus better on profitable groups of customers. You also gain insight into where your business stands and what you can do to improve customer experiences.

7. Knowledge and Case Management

CRM's case management feature offers support agents a convenient multi-tab workspace that holds all the essential tools and customer data. The knowledge management feature helps agents share information about the product/service with customers.

Importance of CRM for your eCommerce Business?

While it is easy to believe that an eCommerce business can rely on a regular CRM software designed to handle B2B clients, the benefits of using a special CRM for managing eCommerce customers are unmatched. The traditional CRMs rely on sales representatives' manual information logging for each customer.

An eCommerce CRM, on the other hand, is designed to gather customer data by integrating with existing systems like the store and requires no manual intervention. It also compiles a 360-degree view for customers and helps track customer browsing and interaction to provide meaningful insights. When the store gets many queries, the CRM automatically routes them to agents for better efficiency and productivity.

eCommerce businesses require special CRM solutions that help learn about customer behaviors and expectations. You can analyze their wishes and needs and understand how they will respond to a new product launch. Based on the customer history, you can determine what type of products you should launch in the future. CRM data also helps identify the best-sold products, the best times of the year, and the best prices driving the biggest sales.

Another significant benefit of having a special CRM for eCommerce is the ability to segment customers into groups based on criteria. By understanding how specific groups of customers behave, you can allocate your teams to different categories to get the desired business results and improve customer satisfaction. Implementing a special eCommerce CRM system also helps personalize your marketing strategy for an overall positive impact on the customers.

Best CRM Software to Integrate with eCommerce Store 2022

Now that we have taken a look at the features and advantages of using a special CRM for eCommerce businesses, let us discuss some of the best CRM for eCommerce you can choose from. Each of these solutions has its benefits, unique features, and limitations, so it is important to consider your business needs before deciding on the right software.

1. Richpanel – Helpdesk & Customer Service CRM

Richpanel is a special eCommerce CRM and customer service helpdesk aimed at helping eCommerce stores streamline operations and boost customer experiences. The software uses automation, bots, and customer insight to provide personalized one-on-one support. You can easily integrate your eCommerce store with this solution, and it automatically pulls all your data to build customer profiles.

With Richpanel helpdesk, you can manage all your customer support channels, including phone calls, live chat, email, social media, and more, from one location. It also supports automated workflows for repetitive actions to reduce agents' workload to focus on tasks that need personal attention. It routes conversations automatically between agents based on skills and language. You also get access to reporting features to stay on top of your customer service performance and make timely adjustments.

Key Features & Advantages

White glove service
User-friendly design
Responsive customer service
Smart reporting features
Specially designed for eCommerce

2. Pipedrive

A web-based CRM that enables eCommerce owners to monitor deals and streamline sales processes, Pipedrive is designed with a focus on sales. This eCommerce tool simplifies the activities involved in converting a lead into a successful sale. It is a cloud-based solution that can be accessed anywhere through a browser or mobile app.

Pipedrive helps sales teams get complete visibility into the sales pipeline with the progress of each deal displayed on the interface with all the details. The handy activity & goal feature allows tracking of pending activities in the pipeline. It offers custom reporting tools to analyze data, create reports, and monitor targets. The software integrates with email services, existing CRM tools, and other business products.

Key Features & Advantages

Visual display of lead growth
The free plan offers powerful features
Easy to use
Wide range of integrations

3. Copper CRM

An easy-to-use CRM software intended to serve businesses that need to manage sales and improve customer relationships, Copper, is a powerful solution for eCommerce stores relying on Google. It is specifically built to integrate with Google Workspace and mimics the look and feel of Google products. It syncs with Gmail, Calendar, Contacts, and other Google tools and logs all your interactions right within your inbox.

One of the most amazing things about Copper CRM is automation capabilities that help businesses save time, minimize errors, and improve customer experiences. You can benefit from its workflow and task automation to eliminate manual, repetitive data entry and other administrative tasks. Copper is designed with simplicity, giving you quick access to all the customer info within Contacts. It also comes with a simple mobile app. You also get some solid lead management features with the software for nurturing leads.

Key Features & Advantages

Google Workspace compatibility
Robust security
Automation
Simple to use
Customized reporting
Quick onboarding

4. Salesforce Pardot

Salesforce was one of the first companies to introduce a CRM and remained a popular option. Pardot is a widely used CRM solution in the eCommerce industry and facilitates marketing automation for B2B businesses, regardless of their size. Its most outstanding features include lead scoring, list-building, contact tags, and other automation capabilities.

Though equipped with the most advanced features, Pardot is designed to be easy to use. Many eCommerce businesses can benefit from its robust email marketing solution that packs all the latest capabilities. It comes with impressive integrations with existing Salesforce applications. It also includes a social media marketing tool that allows scheduling posts for different channels. You can even use its search marketing tool to keep track of your marketing campaigns.

Key Features & Advantages

Wide range of features for email marketing and automation
New user onboarding support
Seamless integration with existing Salesforce apps
Easy way to manage customer data

5. Freshworks

Freshworks is a CRM offering advanced sales and marketing tools in an easy-to-use eCommerce solution. The cloud-based system enables businesses across industries to manage customer interactions. It offers 360-degree customer profiles and allows creating multi-channel outreach through chat and email campaigns to boost customer engagement. The most outstanding feature of this software is the AI-based assistant and automation.

With powerful features like AI insights and contacts management, Freshworks creates a robust platform for sales and provides you with salesforce automation whereby you can automate outreach across channels. The CRM allows you to import your contacts and data through a CSV file and customize the view. The software also integrates with modern applications like Facebook and WhatsApp.

Key Features & Advantages

Clean and easy-to-use interface
Track user engagement
Customization options
Easily configurable automation
A variety of integrations are available

6. Keap

A cloud-based business solution that offers multiple powerful tools in one, Keap helps small businesses across industries streamline their operations and manage and improve customer experiences. The eCommerce CRM solution packs a wide variety of impressive features and functionalities.

With this CRM, you can track customer interactions, segment customers and leads, send emails and messages, and run marketing campaigns with personalized triggers based on clicks, emails opened, and other actions. The software also facilitates managing eCommerce operations from order fulfillment, online shopping carts, and inventory management to sending invoices, quotes, and receipts and tracking storefront activity.

The system also comes with powerful analytics and reporting tools that help perform analysis on different parameters, including ROI, campaign performance, and emails. The platform can also be accessed from iOS and Android devices and integrated with Gmail, Outlook, Salesforce, and Quickbooks.

Key Features & Advantages

Customer segmentation
All-in-one business solution
Sales and marketing automation
Tag-based CRM for lead categorization
Customizable email marketing
Simple interface

7. Zoho CRM

A popular CRM solution in the market, Zoho is known among eCommerce owners for its suitability for all the business sizes. It offers state-of-the-art customer experiences, multi-channel campaigns, and financial forecasting tools.

What makes this tool different from others is its high customizability. You can get it working for your business requirements regardless of its size. Moreover, it integrates readily with Zoho Desk, Zoho Books, and multi-channel customer service solutions.

Key Features & Advantages

Good free tier
Ease of use
User-friendly interface
Powerful mobile application

Related Read: Zendesk Alternatives and Competitors in 2022

In Conclusion

Customer relationship management in eCommerce has been undergoing exciting changes in recent years, giving entrepreneurs extensive insights and control over the various customer-facing touchpoints across their business.

With a dedicated CRM eCommerce integration, small online stores and retailers can provide industry-leading customer service experience at par with larger and better-capitalized players. This represents a democratization of the playing field in some senses.

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