CRM Strategy: 8 Steps To Design And Implement An Effective Strategy

CRM strategy determines how you manage your customer relationship and often determines whether your buyers become loyal, repeat customers. However, getting there usually involves a lot of effort and strategic processes. We explain step by step how to develop a successful CRM strategy for your company.

What Is A CRM Strategy? – Definition

A CRM (customer relationship management) strategy is a strategic plan for shaping a company’s relationships and interactions with its current and potential customers. The main objectives are:

1. Growth – Increased sales thanks to better customer retention.
2. Productivity: Improve products and services by increasing the knowledge base about the customer.
3. Quality: Greater customer satisfaction thanks to better service.
4.  

As an example, a CRM strategy in a company usually covers the areas of sales, marketing, and customer service. 

What Advantages Does A Good CRM Strategy Bring To Your Company? 

A good CRM strategy has numerous benefits for your company:

1. A better customer experience throughout their entire journey 
2. Greater collaboration between sales, marketing, and customer service departments 
3. Quickly identify your potential customers and increase opportunities
4. Track your leads as they move through the customer journey
5. Run targeted marketing campaigns 
6. Collect hard facts and figures to drive future business strategies

How Can You Develop A Successful CRM Strategy? 8 Steps

If you want to develop a good CRM strategy, you should not skip detailed planning that includes a wide range of analyses. The following 8 steps serve as a guide:

1. Define Your Goals And Objectives  

At the beginning of your CRM strategy, you should always find your goals and objectives, because only if these are clearly defined, can you also achieve them. 

Ask yourself what you want to achieve with your CRM strategy, and consider how the strategy can contribute to the success of your business. 

Increasing customer satisfaction, improving customer retention, or reducing the customer abandonment rate are common goals in a CRM strategy. 

Recognize that your CRM strategy is not an ending in itself, it is there to navigate company ideals. Therefore, it must be integrated into the overall strategy of the company.

2. Specify Your Target Group 

To clearly define your audience, now is a good time to create Buyer Personas that represent your ideal customers. 

Personas should be as detailed as possible and contain information such as demographic and behavioral characteristics, interests, challenges, and desires. 

To make Buyer Personas as realistic as possible, you can use the following sources of information:

1. Interview your sales and customer service teams
2. View different customer profiles and interview customers directly
3. Send customer surveys online

Maintain strong customer relationships and attract high-quality leads, you need to understand exactly who is buying and why. 

To become a customer-oriented company, having a clearly defined buyer profile is essential.

3. Take A Look At The Customer Journey

To execute efficient customer management, you need to know each step of the customer journey. This is the only way to create a first-class customer experience at every point in the customer journey.

Start from the beginning and record every customer interaction from the moment the customer first discovers you. 

This can be done through digital advertising campaigns, email marketing, direct contact with team members, or other processes. 

Here you can identify areas with potential for improvement and determine who is responsible for what.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. What equipment/process is in contact with the customer?
2. How can these interactions be improved?
3. Take a look at the Buyer persona developed in Step 2 and consider what you know about your customer: Do they use their preferred form of communication?
4. What does the client want to achieve?
5. What challenges is the customer-facing? How can you provide better support?
6. What content of your brand does the customer come into contact with?

4. Design A 360° Customer Experience

Your CRM marketing strategy to date has identified areas that can or need to be improved. 

Now is the time to get to the structure of your internal processes. Do you have the resources to provide a complete, 360-degree customer experience?

Perform a roles and responsibilities audit to ensure all the necessary basics are covered.

These are examples of areas where processes can be optimized:

1. Pre-sales: How do the analysis of customer needs, the collection of information, and the creation of business cases work?
2. Sales processes: What sales tasks can be automated to increase efficiency?
3. Customer relationship management: Are your offers tailored to the needs of your customers? Is your communication personalized and relevant?
4. Post-sales: Do you have the support systems you need to resolve customer issues quickly? What feedback do you get about the quality of your customer service?

Quick, ask yourself: “What can I do nicely?” and then make the necessary changes within your company.

5. Conduct S Market Analysis And Determine Your Positioning

Not only your internal processes must be analyzed in detail, but also the external environment. Take a look at what your competitors are doing and think about how you can do better.

As a good example of a successful CRM strategy ask yourself:

1. Where is your company positioned in the market?
2. How is it different from the competition?
3. What are the options for your company?
4. Can you learn how your competition treats customers?
5. What are the current trends in your industry?

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6. Know Your Product Or Service

Take the time to review your products and services and craft your value proposition.

Important questions:

1. What are the messages you want to convey?
2. What advantages do you want to highlight?
3. Why should a customer choose you and not your competition?

Communicate this narrative internally and conduct employee training as needed. 

Everyone needs to be on the same page and deliver the same message. This is also a good opportunity to set your brand tone and introduce best practice guidelines for communicating with customers.

7. Use CRM Software

If you want to execute a successful CRM strategy, you shouldn’t skip buying the right customer service CRM software to help you collect data and maintain and manage customer relationships.

Define your CRM software requirements by evaluating your existing business processes and gathering feedback from your teams. 

The most important factors to consider when choosing CRM software are price, functionality, and ease of use.

It’s also important that your CRM software can be integrated with your existing tools.

8. Define KPIs

Your strategic goals and objectives should also be tangible and above all measurable, this is where KPIs come into play. 

All strategic steps must be backed by figures and data, including your CRM strategy. This is the only way to measure success and progress and make any adjustments.

When setting goals for your team, remember to call them SMART ( specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound).

Some examples of performance metrics to include are:

1. Customer satisfaction
2. customer retention
3. Customer abandonment (when a customer leaves the company)
4. Profits (total, totals per customer/account)

Get your employees happy and on board right from the start. Keep them informed, trained, and up-to-date on all aspects of your CRM strategy.

CRM Strategy – Focus On The Customer

Accurate analysis of the target group, the product/service itself, and the external competitive situation form the basis of your CRM strategy. 

However, never forget that, in your strategic planning, the customer must always be the center of interest, the most important thing is to improve their experience with your brand. 

Equally important: Always share goals and objectives internally with all your employees and maintain transparent communication.

And last but not least: Invest in a powerful CRM system. With Fresh sales, powered by Freddy KI, you can discover the best leads, improve customer engagement, grow your business, and maintain existing customer relationships with one smart, comprehensive solution.

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