One of the biggest challenges that eCommerce companies face is "customer trust." Doubts about the after-sales service quality can be a major decider when a customer chooses items from an eCommerce Channel.
An important advantage that physical stores have over eCommerce stores is the connection customers can make with the people at the stores. Suppose they have any grievances to be taken care of. In that case, they can go over to the consumer complaints section or speak to any store employees immediately, something they can't be completely sure of in online channels.
The eCommerce Industry has made substantial efforts to bridge this gap and has several unique and innovative solutions. One of them is CRM Strategy. So exactly what is CRM strategy? CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is the process in which a company tracks its customer's data and uses it to provide a better purchasing experience.
A CRM strategy is CRM tactics, methodologies, plans, and ideas that companies use when implementing CRM practices. A CRM strategy looks at the various CRM components and figures out the best way to execute them so that the company and its customers gain substantial value from the CRM practices.
Many eCommerce businesses prefer to use CRM software to organize their CRM practices. CRM software records, collects, tracks, and analyzes all the relevant customer data points pertaining to a customer's purchasing behavior. It acts as a central hub for information and a platform to coordinate, organize and implement eCommerce CRM strategies and improve how you run your day-to-day business processes.
Ecommerce CRM Strategy Explained with an Examples
Below, we discuss some of the best eCommerce CRM strategy examples to streamline your online business' Customer Service Management in complete detail.
1. Collaborate All Channels
It is difficult to keep track of things when scattered all over the place. Take an example as simple as your clothes. There is a reason why they are all kept in sections inside your cupboard and not spread around your house. The same applies to an online business and its customer data. Tracking is extremely important to provide personalized service to a customer. Giving speedy solutions to your customer's problems will be impossible without proper tracking.
Therefore, it is advisable to keep all your communication channels at one location. Your CRM software should center all your communications and customer interactions. There will be a lot of channels of communication through which your customers are going to try to reach out to you (Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Website). Your ecommerce CRM software is responsible for ensuring all those channels are managed in one inbox. This is extremely helpful as it saves your time by collecting scattered information in one place.
It eliminates the need to keep changing tabs and lets you control and respond to all places through one dashboard. Learn more on Omnichannel Customer Service
2. Plan & Create Automation and Self-Service Flows
The importance of creating a personalized experience for your customers cannot be stressed enough, but trying to message every customer personally, especially when you have a huge customer base, is not efficient. This is where Automation comes in. Automated bots that can communicate basic requirements and necessities to a consumer can help you declutter your customer relationship management system.
If a customer has surface-level problems that a bot can solve, you do not have to see them personally, and you can move on to customers with larger issues. Remember, prioritizing is key. If you try and serve everyone simultaneously, you will serve no one.
The benefits of a self-service flow are countless. It saves time and effort for the business. It is easy to use, and customers get quick solutions without waiting for a Customer Relationship Executive to get on a call and then explain their grievances from the beginning.
Investing in customer service automation CRM like Richpanel is the right move to improve your customer experience.
Recommended Read: How to Automate Your eCommerce Customer Service
3. Manage Product Delivery
A CRM software's tracking abilities will keep you informed about the delivery details on all your orders. You can check the status of deliveries through the software and figure out how many shipments will be delivered on time and how many will be delayed.
A good customer service practice is to be transparent and honest with them throughout the buyer journey, from pre-purchase and processing. When there is going to be an imminent delay in shipment delivery, the concerned customers should be intimated about it. There are fewer chances of customer dissatisfaction if they already have prior information about the delay. Customers will appreciate you for being honest and forthcoming, which will aid in customer retention.
Being pro-active rather than reactive is a recipe for success. Follow it!
4. Revamp your Online Marketing Module
The data and information collected by the CRM software can be used to improve your online marketing strategy. The key to reaching your audience and retaining them is personalization. When you optimize your marketing campaigns to cater to the needs of your consumers in a personal manner, you will extract more value from it.
A marketing component where you can make great use of CRM and its data to aid your marketing team is e-mail Marketing. Sending personalized e-mails to your customers is an effective marketing strategy, but for that, you need customer data.
You can leverage data points like purchase history, open e-mail rate, site visits, and preferred items collected by your CRM software to design marketing messages specific to one customer type. By correctly determining your customer profile, you will be able to run targeted marketing campaigns directed towards a particular customer tag. They are much more likely to respond positively to these CTAs over generic marketing messages with a general tone.
This is just one of the ways you can use eCommerce CRM to provide better service to your customers through marketing.
5. Provide A Personalized Discount or Experience
CRM Software can collect and record all kinds of customer data. Therefore, it will have information on a customer's purchase frequency and easily determine how long they have been loyal customers. Moreover, it will also collect information on customers' favorite items they have bought the most times.
This helps you create profiles on loyal customers who have been with you for a long time and prefer certain products. This is highly useful because loyal and frequent customers are the ones who keep your business profitable. We all know the old Business adage based on the Pareto Principle: businesses earn 80% of their income from 20% of their customers. The importance of a strong and loyal customer base cannot be understated.
With your long-term customers' knowledge, you can reward their loyalty by offering them personalized discounts or experiences. Offering reduced rates on their favorite products shows that you keep an eye on your strongest believers and value them deeply. This is a strong customer retention technique as it goes a long way in securing repeat customers.
This can also contribute positively to your brand reputation through word of mouth. Customers love feeling seen and valued, and they would recount their positive experiences with your brand to their friends and family. The eCommerce CRM can be used to maintain strong and long-lasting customer relationships.
6. Loyalty Programs
While we are on the topic of rewarding loyal customers, let us go deeper into this and think bigger. Businesses find a lot of success by creating their community. The community does not have to be large and widespread. It needs to be filled with people who genuinely enjoy your brand's products and services. These customers respond to your marketing CTAs and act by making purchases.
When you find customers like these, it is in your best interests to keep a hold of them and never let go. This holds especially true for eCommerce businesses. Since an online business' presence is completely online, it is not possible for them to reward their customers like in brick and mortar stores. They have to double down on their online channels to create a strong community.
A great way to nurture and maintain strong customer relationships is by setting up loyalty programs and clubs. Use your eCommerce CRM software's data and single out your most frequent customers. Then, by targeted messages, give your frequent users a chance to sign up to an exclusive club or group and gain bonuses and rewards through the club's offerings. Give your customers discount codes, extra brand credits, and other cashback offers to incentivize them to purchase more items frequently. When they get rewarded for doing an action, they will certainly act again!
7. Measure Your Customer Satisfaction
Feedback Feedback Feedback! The best way to keep track of your eCommerce CRM initiatives is to collect and take in user feedback and criticism. Your Customer Relationship Management system can be judged by asking consumers to rate it by filling out surveys. Once the customer's interaction with an AI or a customer relationship services executive is over, you can ask them to fill out a survey with questions regarding the whole purchase experience.
To make the process less time-consuming, you may use questions that can have Likert scale answers. The survey does not have to be limited to questions about Customer Service. They can also be about how much they liked navigating the website, the speed of service, logistics, etc. While some questions may not be completely necessary, other vital questions in assessing your eCommerce CRM strategy should be compulsory.
How Create a Great Customer Experience with CRM
When customers log on to buy a product online, they are looking for more than just a product or service in today's world. They pay a lot of attention to the entire purchasing experience. In other words, even if you have the best products and the most enticing deals, if your website is not up to the mark, customers are probably not coming back.
UX or User Experience is one of the most vital factors determining an eCommerce store's success. A website's booting speed, navigability, design, and general appearance have a long-lasting effect on the user's perception of your brand. It is important to keep your website customer-centric. With the data collected by CRM, you will understand the profile of the customers you attract and then modify and make changes to your UX design accordingly.
With CRM, you will be able to record all interactions with your customers. It provides you with a lot of information on each category and each customer. You will be able to figure out what kind of format, messaging, tone, and conversation style work best for particular customers. This will let assist you in making the right calls when deciding on your UX design.
One of the most important parts of this experience is the check-out process. Customers should be able to add and edit items in their carts without constantly switching tabs. There should be buttons facilitating this so that the customer can have a seamless check-out experience. In the check-out stage, customers may be prompted to buy items that are similar to ones that they've purchased before.
You want to set up your Customer Experience so your customers can flow through the purchasing cycle as smooth as butter, and CRM can help you do that!
1. Train Your Employees to Make Use of CRM Features
CRM software is not very useful if your staff is not proficient in it. It is worth the time and effort it takes to hold training sessions using the CRM software's interface. A good eCommerce CRM software should be designed to be easy to grasp and understand to ensure the success of your eCommerce CRM strategy. The user should be able to find information on a customer profile or an order's transit status quickly and easily.
- The first step to training your Employees to Make use of CRM Features is to determine which employees need training. Depending on the kind and purpose of the CRM software, different departments may need CRM training. It can be your Marketing team, Sales team, accounting team, HR department, or customer service team.
- The concerned manager should be given the responsibility of conducting the training sessions. As the prime decision-maker, the manager can decide on the timeline, scheduling, and training methods. On top of that, employees will be much more motivated to take the training when their team leader is handling operations.
- Having a clear training strategy is important. There should be set guidelines for both your trainers and trainees to follow. A training module designed according to the employees' assignments should be implemented.
- Proper evaluation should be conducted. There should be procedures set in place to gauge the effectiveness of the training programs. This can be done through general trainee and trainer feedback. The newly trained employees' ability to work with the software should be kept under close evaluation for a stipulated period after the training program.
- Training can be done by external agencies also. Trainers can be employed by the organization providing the CRM software to hold regular training sessions for new employees and update the existing team when new changes are introduced to the software.
- All kinds of training resources should be utilized. Video sessions are the preferred training mode as it will be convenient to show all the CRM software features in video form. Employees should also be given a chance to use the software while training to understand the system better.
2. Avoid Spamming
While it is a useful practice to always be on your customer's minds, you do not want to spam your customers with thousands of marketing messages. No one likes to be constantly spammed with promotions and offers from brands to a point where it can be deemed as nagging. It creates a negative brand image, and customers may associate your eCommerce business with feelings like "annoying," "pushy," and "desperate." You certainly do not want to be called any of these words.
So, it is a thousand times better to space out your e-mails or messages across a wider period. The main content of the message should be the prime focus. The customers appreciate clever, witty, and thoughtful content. Quality over quantity should be your motto when thinking of e-mail marketing strategies.
At the same time, you should be empathetic and respectful of your customer's wishes. You should always give them the option to stop receiving notifications from your brand. You do not want your customers to feel crowded.
With the eCommerce CRM Strategies explained above, any online business can exponentially improve its Customer Service Module. The simplicity and usability of CRM software, coupled with its utility and undeniably positive benefits, make it a prime asset to invest in.
You can not go wrong with CRM software, whether you are a new business just coming up or an established leader in your niche already. The savings you will make on manual effort and overall time will be worth every penny you spend on setting up your business's activities around an efficient eCommerce CRM system, software, and strategy. Try Richpanel for Free
