How Does Cloud CRM Technology Help To Improve Customer Retention?

It’s no secret that keeping customers happy and building long-term relationships is a good recipe for success. Fortunately, a cloud CRM system is a powerful tool that helps distributors to record customer information and ultimately provide the best service.

There are two primary factors in maintaining customer relationships: value and customer service. If you manage those properly, you shouldn't have much trouble keeping your customers for a long time.

Providing good value is as simple as offering your products or services at a competitive price. If your price is higher than the competition, you’re going to have to create additional value that separates you from your competitors, and you must effectively demonstrate that value. Good customer service centers are also vital to responding quickly to issues and addressing them in an efficient, professional manner.

Documenting every interaction with customers is a great way to build a portfolio of the value you add. It also makes it easier to meet your customers’ needs. Track all of your service transactions with a cloud CRM system and monitor whether or not they resulted in billable work.

Many distributors don’t have the technology in place to track relevant customer information. Moreover they don’t see the value in doing so. Maintaining those records, though, is useful for informing clients of what services they’ve received throughout the course of your relationship.

Leveraging cloud CRM technology is the best way to do this because it offers a high level of visibility into the data. Use the data to demonstrate the value you provide, but also to see how valuable a customer is to your business. The margin you make on some clients may be lower than you realize, and this information is critical to setting prices and service levels.

Tracking customer information in a cloud CRM system is also useful if you have turnover in the sales department. With all of the transactions related to service and sales at their fingertips, new sales team members won’t require as much time to get up to speed on selling to or servicing clients. Maintaining continuity is important to keeping customers happy and operations running efficiently.

As an article on the Small Business UK website notes, businesses often are more concerned with bringing in new clients than retaining existing customers. The article highlights insurance companies as a prime culprit. They often offer deep discounts to new customers and then hike up premiums on current policyholders.

With the amount of resources businesses pour into luring clients in, it makes little sense to turn your back on them once they’re in the door. After all, it’s usually more cost-effective to retain your current customers (assuming the relationship is profitable on your end) than to find new customers.

“It’s like running a bath without the plug, and constantly having to fill it up to replace what’s leaked away,” the article notes. “That’s not only wasteful of your time, money and resources, but can eventually ‘contaminate’ your marketplace and see your reputation go down in flames.”

Maintaining long-term relationships with customers is a critical part of any business. That’s why distributors should keep value and customer service at the forefront of their minds as they seek to secure lasting partnerships with clients.