What Are the Benefits of a CRM in Retail?

1. CRMs Help You Personalize Your Approach

A good customer experience is dependent on the service they’re provided, and today the key differentiator between a positive and a negative (aside from the obvious; not receiving an expected service or product, etc.) experience is very often rooted in the level of personalization. 

“A considerable 74% of customers have a chance of buying a product based on a positive CX alone, while 80% are more likely to buy when brands offer experiences personalized to them.”

When you consider the approach that major brands like Netflix, Spotify, or Amazon take, personalization is at the heart of their customer experience strategy because of the opportunities it creates in customer retention. 

This, in turn, has led to consumers holding higher expectations for the level of service and degree of personalization they receive from businesses.

In order to personalize communications, touchpoints, and marketing opportunities, companies must leverage the audience data they’ve collected to inform their business’ messaging customers, including things like who to target and where to place a specific campaign. 

2. Improve Your Customer Service

Responding to complaints and queries is one trademark of a customer-centric organization.

It might seem simple enough, but the fact of the matter is that one poor customer experience can have serious ramifications for a retailer.

“When given a positive customer experience, 72% of customers will share their experience with six or more people...[yet] Following a poor customer experience, up to 89% of consumers have switched to a competitor.” 

In other words, investing in your customer experience and CX technologies is a two-fold strategy that not only makes consumers excited to tell their friends about your brand but also helps you avoid ugly churn rates and customer loss.  

CRMs centralize everything, so an email will never go missing or unnoticed and customer queries can be addressed in a timely fashion. 

3. Segment and Manage Contacts With Your CRM

The best thing about a CRM in retail is that it acts as a centralized repository for all your customers and allows you to put their information to good use.

For example, it offers you the opportunity to segment your audience according to the information you have. This means you can far more effectively target customers and prospects by having a better understanding of what different audiences are demanding.

The benefit to retailers is the ability to run marketing campaigns back on the needs of your contact base—whether it’s for a specific product or prospects who are at a certain point in the funnel.

This makes conversions a whole lot easier for retailers, while at the same time improving customer experience by creating the opportunity to establish relationships with contacts based on data—in other words; you’ll no longer have customers unsubscribing from your email list because they’re being bombarded by irrelevant emails.

“Segmented email campaigns drive 30% more opens and 50% more click-throughs than unsegmented ones.” 

4. Increase Customer Retention  

Retaining customers is crucial for maintaining and growing your market share, and one of the benefits of a CRM in retail is that it provides visibility into your current customer base while also providing you with tools that enhance the customer journey and keep your consumers coming back again and again.

Using a CRM allows you to design the buyer’s journey and track data indicative of the consumer response both pre-and-post-purchase.

On top of that, the more times a customer returns to your business, the more information you’ll be able to gather, meaning you can create tailor-made campaigns that are more personalized and do a better job of resonating with specific individuals.

All-in-all, a personalized experience creates a happier customer and a happy customer is much more likely to become a repeat customer. 

“A massive 96% of customers say that customer service is an essential factor in brand loyalty. This aligns with the fact that 89% of customers will switch brands following a poor experience and that CX drives over 60% of brand loyalty.”

Using a CRM to gather data, personalize experiences, and foster consumers along the customer journey will do a lot of good for your customer retention strategy both now and into the future. 

5. Streamline and Automate Customer Communications

We noted before that a CRM helps businesses address customer queries efficiently and improves customer service by attending to queries and complaints in a timely fashion, without letting a single one slip through the cracks.  

A CRM is also a conduit for communication, both internally and externally.

Externally, you can utilize a wide array of communication channels to engage with customers, like:

• Automated emails
• Online/live chats
• Social media
• Text messaging

These channels are distinct from one another but CRM solutions come with a library of ready-made templates specific to each medium that allows you to optimize your content, whether it’s an informative newsletter, an automated text message receipt, or a simple appointment confirmation ping.

“A Benchmark report found that 90% of companies do not acknowledge or inform the customer that an email has been received.” 

For internal communication, CRMs are designed to unify information in a central database, meaning staff doesn’t have to create ad-hoc methods for processes. In other words, everything they need to communicate and share information regarding tickets, orders, campaigns, and everything in between is right there in the CRM. 

6. Efficiently Manage Inventory Levels

Managing inventory and having complete visibility into every stage of order fulfillment is another major benefit of a CRM solution in retail. 

It’s not uncommon for retailers to have two distinct systems for their customer relationship management and their inventory management—having both in one allows for a better customer experience.

Knowing where your inventory levels are is crucial, and if, for example, a customer calls to ask where their product is, you’d ideally have a way to check on that information instantly. Your CRM can do just that. 

Combining these two systems is a good example of how retailers can install modern technology that streamlines processes, all in the name of delivering customers an exceptional experience. 

It also means that data entry tasks from two different systems are alleviated from employees and, in turn, a reduction in data errors—an integrated CRM system can automatically update, in some cases bypassing the need for inventory data entry altogether.