Why is CRM super-important for an Ecommerce Business?
By: Reshmi Menon
Tags: Crm Software, Crm Solution, Sales Development, CRM, Salesforce

CRM for Ecommerce Business

Because of the sharp increase in the Ecommerce Business, customers have a plethora of options to choose from. And the customers tend to choose the stores that are user friendly and provide product recommendations and discounts. They also want the brands to respond quickly to their queries and grievances.

The major factor that makes a company the most loved brand is the WOW experience they give to their customers. Smoother and faster customer interactions lead to an increase in sales. The customers prefer a personalized approach, be it in terms of the ads they see or their shopping experience. Maintaining this is the biggest challenge for Ecommerce Businesses.

What is CRM? Why is it needed for ECommerce Business?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. The main goal of CRM is to maintain existing customers as well as help to acquire new ones. And if the customers are happy then they refer your business to their friends and family.

CRM Software is a platform where the businesses can store their contact details, sales information, and revenue details. CRM Software also helps to automate the process. Thus, helping businesses to increase productivity, sales, and profitability. Presently, users are relying on online shopping and thus the physical touchpoints with the customers are less. So, businesses have to rely on Softwares to understand the customers and give them a better customer experience.

Now, let’s head on to the CRM Benefits for Ecommerce Business.

9 Key Advantages of CRM for Ecommerce Business

9 key advantages of CRM for Ecommerce Business

Gather Customer Data

The first thing that companies need to do is to study their customers and understand them. Thus, comes the need for customer data management. To create a buyer persona of the user, the business must know basic details about customers. This can be anything like the age group, gender, location, and lifestyle.

This information is very important. The companies can then plan their marketing campaigns and contents for blogs and social media pages as per this data. This helps the companies to understand consumer preferences and provides hyper-personalized marketing for different customer segments.

With the help of CRM, businesses can automate routine tasks such as lead generation. And, one can also get detailed information of the customers through reports and dashboards.

Thus the brands can focus more time analyzing and interpreting the data and thus creating effective marketing campaigns.

Increase Conversion rates

Once you understand who your actual customers are, you can create a more effective sales pipeline. One, which leads to faster conversions. It saves time as all the information needed by the sales team, such as important notes, emails, or meeting schedules, will be available at the same place.

With such detailed information about each customer, the businesses can create personalized campaigns rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach.

The businesses can filter out qualified leads. The sales and marketing team can focus their efforts on these leads. And the chances of these leads converting to customers are higher.

Re-Engage with Customers Through Enhanced Marketing

This is the best way to show your customers that you care. Have they kept the cart abandoned for a long time? It is time to remind them of the lovely dress they might have forgotten about.

Statistics from the Business Insider shows us that returning customers generate more value for a business compared to new customers:

The bounce rate of the new visitors is much higher (34.8%) compared to that of existing users (24.4%).

(34.8%) compared to that of existing users (24.4%). Returning visitors had a higher conversion rate (4.4%) as compared to that of returning visitors (2.4%)

With the help of CRM, businesses can store customer information at the same place.

Amazon is the greatest example of how a brand engages with its customers. They not only remind customers of the things abandoned in the cart. But, they also give recommendations for the things that customers might be interested in.

Users might be using different channels to interact with the businesses. Still, the businesses can provide personalized customer service to the customers throughout all channels.

Email Marketing

Gone are the days when you could send mass emails to thousands of people. Now everyone craves for personalization. Personalization is the basis that determines whether your company’s email would land up in their inbox or Trash folder.

Now create marketing campaigns that instantly connect with your customers. Send emails to each segment and collect relevant information. Which emails were opened and which links did they click? This helps the marketing team to understand the customers or leads better. It also helps to filter out the ones who engage with the brand.

Email Marketing Tools like Mailchimp help to segment the customers and test the effectiveness of the campaigns.

And once such tools are integrated to CRM Software, the contacts or leads can be synced to the software.

Help in better forecasting and Inventory management

Inventory Management information gives details about the buying patterns, the products that are trending, accounting information, etc. Once this information is integrated with the customer information using CRM, the businesses can get a 360-degree view of their customers.

This can help the businesses understand as to how their customer tastes are evolving. It also tells the amount spent by customers, their demographics, etc.

This data helps in better forecasting. The Ecommerce businesses can manufacture or source the goods in advance when they see that a certain product is in high demand and soon would go out of stock. Similarly, the marketing team can identify how a campaign is performing. If the results are not good they can direct the marketing spend towards other successful campaigns.

The Products Reports in TeamWave CRM helps the businesses to identify the high performing as well as low performing products and their value. This helps in making the forecasting process more efficient.

Product Reports in TeamWave CRM

Build an Efficient Customer Support

We have mentioned in each of the above points, how the customers can be treated like Kings with Ecommerce-CRM integration. But there needs to be a special mention of efficient customer support. Businesses can have all the information associated with a customer in the CRM.

This allows the salesperson to upsell or cross-sell to a customer or lead. Thus, keeping in mind their tastes and preferences. Thus, keeping in mind their tastes and preferences.

Also, the brands can recommend products based on a user’s purchase or search history. If the brands understand how the customer responds to different situations, the businesses can enhance the customer journey. Thus, increasing customer lifetime value.

Get Satisfaction is a tool that takes the customer company engagement to a whole new level. They engage the customers through community platforms. This helps the new customers to get their queries answered faster by other experts in the group. The brands can also reward loyal customers here. Such tools help the brands to innovate their business strategies by interacting with the customers.

Minimize Losses Involved by Reducing Errors

Gone are the days when you had to handle different business operations manually.

With CRM integration, the businesses can automate the workflows thus saving time and reducing errors.

This prevents “entering duplicate content”. And the whole team gets access to real-time data once the data is entered in the CRM Software.

Maintain Brand Consistency

There are several departments in a business and many employees are working under these departments. Thus, the need arises to automate processes so that brand consistency is maintained through all channels.

So the businesses need to have templates in place that can be used by teams across your company. And at the same time, it can be edited to give a personalized touch.

Be it sending an email, creating content for campaigns, or responding to messages, a brand needs to have consistency in the way they communicate with their leads or customers.

Social Media Integration

Now the customers prefer to interact with the brands through different channels and expect a quick response. And social media is one such channel where the customers are spending most of their time. What is the use of a large social media following if they do not engage with your brand?

Now the customers expect the same level of seamless service through all channels. Thus, the brands have to be available at these channels to give the best customer experience

As quoted by the Salesforce Team, “79% of Salesforce customers reported improved customer service, and 63% increased customer retention — demonstrating that social CRM delivers real commercial benefits.”

Thus, Social CRM helps brands get valuable information about customers. It can be about how they interact with the brand, the products they like, the challenges they face, feedback for services, etc. This helps the brands to understand their customers in a better manner. The brands can create content that is hyper-relevant to their audience. This builds trust and brand loyalty. If your audience can relate to your content then they would share it among their circles. In turn, increasing your brand reputation.

CONCLUSION

Ecommerce Businesses need to integrate their data into CRM software. So that they can understand their customers better and increase efficiency in the way they interact with their customers. The current need for these businesses is to provide a personalized touch to each customer. But, at the same time maintain the brand consistency.

While choosing the perfect CRM Software that suits your business, you need to keep several factors in mind.

Looking for CRM Integration Software to boost your E-commerce business and increase customer engagement? Get started with our free trial right away.