CRM Makes Managing All Types of Relationships Easier (Except Maybe the One with Your Spouse)

2/8/2011 at 2:58 pm by The Sage ERP Team

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, which has us thinking a lot about what it means to successfully manage a relationship, whether it’s with a wife, a husband, a girlfriend, a boyfriend … or a customer.

Obviously, these two types of relationships are wildly different. One is intimate and loving, while the other is distant and not quite as personal. Still, just because your customers might never meet you, specifically, in person, doesn’t mean that they don’t feel a connection with your brand and want to be treated with respect, compassion and sincerity. Right?

Dealing with consumer feedback is an area where your company has an opportunity to truly shine and set yourself apart from your competition. Failing to properly address a consumer’s complaint or question, for example, can result in the loss of that customer – possibly forever. That’s why customer relationship management software is so crucial.

Managing your relationship with your significant other can be difficult enough (at times)– and now you have to come to work and manage thousands of relationships with all of the people who enjoy your services and products? Exhausting!

Lucky for you, CRM takes a little bit of the work out of the process. That’s why major companies, such as giant financial services provider Barclays, are investing it.

“We are challenged with the complexity of cultivating millions of individual customer relationships across multiple channels, with increasing volumes of data,” said Matt Harris, head of CRM for Barclays Bank.

However, he continued, thanks to CRM “we are confident that we now have the tools for effective marketing, and we will have lowered the total cost of ownership substantially over the next three years, whilst also providing the potential to improve the value of our customer relationships.”

CRM is designed to make the daunting process of handling hundreds, thousands, even millions of customers an easier task by creating a database of information on the preferences, concerns and questions of the consumers who use a given product. With this database at your fingertips, you company will be able to take a holistic view of a customer, rather than relying tropes and generic stereotypes to try to relate.

With CRM on your side, you can provide each customer with a tailored experience and the appropriate answers to feedback and questions.

And they will appreciate that special attention ALMOST as much as your spouse will appreciate that special dinner you’re planning this weekend. You are, aren’t you?