What is a CRM system and why does your e-commerce need one?

The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology helps your business manage relationships and interactions with customers. It achieves this via multiple processes to cover customer data and interactions. 

CRMs are often leveraged by businesses to build outstanding business relationships with innovative and efficient solutions. 

In the past few years, e-commerce solutions have experienced an unprecedented growth, collecting over $4 trillion annually. In fact, it has grown so much it is considered one of the fastest growing industries in the history of industrialization. Thus, this remarkable fact calls for businesses to leverage smart and effective solutions to better manage customer relationships in their online business. 

Rapid growth is tied to evolving technology. This is where CRM comes in.

Online stores must now operate at an increasingly advanced rate to keep up with industry trends. Online shopping has woven itself intricately as an everyday activity to so many consumers that it is vital for businesses to keep up with demands.

Next, we’ll break down the many ways CRM is essential to serve your e-commerce needs.

How does CRM work for e-commerce?

E-commerce CRMs are fundamental to your online business and here’s why: they work. E-commerce is complex and continuously evolving, much like the interactions your customers have with your businesses online.

If you want to run a business without an e-commerce CRM software solution to help you navigate consumer relations, you may want to rethink strategy. Now more than ever, the e-commerce industry needs a sophisticated tool to understand data and analytics to further your success. There is a wide variety of CRM solutions that can help you do just that. 

Why use the CRM solutions and platforms?

We’ve done our research and here are the top ways a CRM solution can help you get ahead in the game.

Data collection

Arguably, one of the greatest assets in a CRM solution. Data collection has become a necessity for any modern e-commerce that wants to leverage information to create meaningful responses and solutions. Data collection is the building stone that lays out the groundwork for all the other amazing functionalities you can leverage from a CRM software. You can effectively use the collected data to build trend reports of any flavor you want from your e-commerce. In essence, it turns a sea of information into actionable results.

For example, in the Cordial case study, the value delivered via the CRM solution is measurable and helps the business improve their current offering to its customers.

Deeper analytics

Robust analytics are complex. It’s a simple fact. And this simple fact can turn into a simple action with a CRM tool.

While you can easily access fundamental data, it’s important to realize that the more information you have, the better. This is where deeper analytics comes in. You have the opportunity to delve as deep as you want into customer information to better formulate strategies to boost sales and marketing campaigns. Overall, deeper analytics helps you elevate your online presence.

For example, in the Container Logistics Platformcase study, the configuration of customized features helped the business address customer needs in an improved fashion. The customer receives a superior business interaction and you create a lead for your business that is measurable and profitable.

Better communication in the team.

All businesses want positive results. Fast.

What better way to create a collaborative workspace where people productively work towards a common goal? Improve communication. Core communication has proven to be critical and tremendously helpful. There is a multitude of tools to help you keep teams integrated and communicated, such as Skype, Slack, and more. 

A CRM solution offers you an in-house communication solution. Teams are capable of actively tagging each other in specific goals and tasks to help track progress in a more seamless, and organic fashion. Data can be handled and discussed in real-time, which fosters efficient time-consumption, superior productivity, and results.

Task management

Now that we’ve got your attention on the importance of a well-communicated core team, let’s talk about management and all it entails in a CRM solution.
Project and task management is a vital ingredient to elevate your game.

With a suitable CRM solution, you are able to have a consolidated place to manage all aspects of team projects and tasks, while ensuring a high-level of consistency, accountability, and productivity. As previously stated, the team benefits from the CRM solution with improved communication. The manager benefits from being able to hand-in tasks, measure results, and save time by having a centralized and seamless solution to encompass all of the team’s needs.

Risk management

Now more than ever, you need to have a tight-knit risk management strategy in place.

We mention now because, with the current ever-growing multi-channel e-commerce environment, it is becoming increasingly challenging to handle everything with a single effective method. A powerful CRM tool provides you with the ability to manage risks seamlessly and effectively.

You can actively identify, monitor, and manage risks from the pool of data available at the tip of your fingers, within the CRM solution. Thus, you can proactively strategize to minimize or eliminate any type of negative impact on your online business. For example, in the GoodHire case study, the end-to-end solution that is provided helped the customer optimize the coordination between clients and the online shop via synchronization of data.

Segmentation

To further success, you must identify each type of customer. This classification can be broken down in as many subcategories as your strategy requires. 
A key element of CRM is to engage in segmentation.

This grouping of customers helps you easily identify high yield segments, which ultimately leads to profits.  Segmentation via CRM enables you and your business to identify and monitor trends, observe buying habits, detect lead origination, and ultimately, build optimized attraction strategies to grow your business. The market is all about actionable data, and segmentation via CRM gives you the tools to act on it.

Building loyalty

Have you ever bought something online with no post-sale interaction from the company? It’s a clear sign to steer away from that ship. E-commerce companies should always actively seek the customer to walk alongside them in every step of the buying process and afterward. It’s those happy customers, who enjoyed the seamless ride and who received an outstanding post-sale experience, which will return to your online shop.

With a healthy CRM solution in place, one of the many benefits is that you can easily cultivate and build loyalty from your customers by engaging with them. 

Tips from the experts

Target online customer service and care.

Nowadays, online customer service has grown exponentially. Managing information sourced from online customer service can be tricky on its own, but with a CRM platform, it’s a breeze. As Investopedia remarks, CRM is described as “the principles, practices, and guidelines that an organization follows when interacting with its customers.” CRM enables you to harness customer data from online interactions to gain insights about customer behavior, experience, and habits.  

CRM marketing

In a nutshell, CRM makes your marketing effort easy and simple. As Ben Harris, CEO at Decibel Insight, states “Digital commerce marketers should pay attention to the data that their digital experience analytics technology provides on a daily basis.” It is with valuable market information and insights that you can build a robust CRM strategy to grow your target market rapidly.

Conclusion

CRMs are not meant to reinvent the wheel. But it is no secret that strong relationships are key to further success in your online business.
With the right CRM solution, you can achieve just that with enough potency to build and nurture customer relationships effectively. The e-commerce industry is comprised of fleeting moments of opportunity, and your business must be well-prepared to seize those opportunities in the best way possible.

CRMs help you identify customer needs as well as they why behind shopping behaviors. This is major for any e-commerce business.
We’ve scraped the surface of what CRM can do for you and how to leverage those functionalities. Without the shadow of a doubt, CRM helps you further your success and be ahead in the game of online shopping. Play to win with CRM.