How to optimize your CRM System

We have already explained in an earlier post why an individual customer journey is important and which functions marketing automation software should definitely cover. This blog post now explores the question: What exactly is CRM and how can I optimize my measures even further?

What is CRM?

The underlying idea behind CRM (customer relationship management) is to distance yourself from mass marketing, and instead go for personalized treatment of each and every existing and prospective customer. This strategy focuses on systematically building up and managing sustained and profitable customer relationships in three dimensions:

• Communicative CRM refers to managing all communication channels between you and your customer to ensure that they are applied in a targeted manner.
• The aim of operative CRM is to contact customers, gain valuable information, and then cultivate it.
• Analytical CRM strives to systematically save and evaluate the data/information using BI techniques like data mining.

CRM to help optimize your enterprise’s processes

The operative facet of CRM acquires most of the data for assessment by the analytical facet of CRM. The newly gained knowledge flows back in the sense of closed-loop BI to help optimize your business processes. This knowledge is added to at least the following applications:

• Customer assessments
• Market segmentations
• Cross-selling and up-selling
• Follow-up in sales
• Development of customer self-services

Customer orientation, relationships, and improved processes

Especially in this age of digitization, it is critical for your enterprise to focus on customer relationships and intensive customer orientation. You cannot afford to overlook the human factor. The goal of your enterprise must be to retain the customers over the long-term. For sustainability, a part of your strategy should be to optimize customer relationships and related processes – because, customers, both new and current, are a central and valuable element of your enterprise.

Optimize processes to cuts costs and risks

Your enterprise needs to utilize processes, which are optimized in terms of the customer lifetime value (CLTV), to counteract the loss of current and future customer value, while cutting costs and risks:

• Customer acquisition and activation: CRM applications help you to resolutely optimize your enterprise’s customer orientation and the long-term thrust of customer relationships and processes. Accordingly, they enable you to satisfy potential customers and to reactivate current customers.
• Extend contracts and win back customers: count on b.telligent’s support to optimize the loyalty of your customers and win them back, while empowering you to fully exploit the great potential of such processes.
• Complaint management: as a part of your CRM program, the primary goal of your system to manage complaints is to make your customers happy again and minimize any negative impact on your enterprise.
• Manage the collection process: optimize your system for collection through standard automated processes, and achieve the maximum return on revenues at a relatively low cost.

Want more insights into the marketing universe? Our new campaign "The Next Generation of CRM - May the MarTech be with you" takes a look at the future of marketing. Stay tuned!