According to the report "Seeing Beyond the Loyalty Illusion," 83% of consumers stated that their loyalty to a brand is based on specific experiences. Therefore, it is essential to ensure positive experiences—loyal customers are more likely to return and make repeat purchases, directly contributing to revenue growth.
The importance of CRM
Research conducted by Bain & Company showed that loyal customers spend 67% more than new customers. Furthermore, loyal customers are more likely to recommend the brand to others. It’s no wonder that CRM is the fastest-growing software in digital marketing (Webfx 2024).
CRM in numbers
- 13% of companies claim that investing in a CRM platform is one of their top sales priorities.
- 92% of companies confirm that CRM software plays a significant role in achieving their financial goals.
- 65% of companies start using CRM within the first five years of operation.
First signs indicating the need for CRM
Increased number of customers and difficulties in managing them
As a company grows, the number of customers increases, which naturally leads to challenges in managing and servicing them. If you notice that it is difficult to maintain personal relationships with customers and information about their preferences or needs is scattered and hard to access, it's a sign that it's time for CRM.
Role of CRM: A CRM system centralizes data, enabling easy access and management of customer information from one place.
Problems with organizing customer data and interaction history
If customer information and their interactions with the company are stored unsystematically, often in various places and formats, the risk of mistakes increases, and work efficiency decreases.
Role of CRM: CRM allows for organizing and automating data collection, which is crucial for effective analysis and marketing strategies.
Difficulties in tracking sales metrics and marketing effectiveness
The lack of clear data on sales, leads, conversions, or ROI from marketing campaigns indicates that internal processes are not adequately monitored. This makes it difficult to draw conclusions, make changes, and track indicators necessary for improving marketing efforts.
Role of CRM: CRM offers tools to track and analyze these metrics, enabling more informed business decisions and optimization of marketing activities.
Need for automation and streamlining of sales and customer service processes
When manual sales and customer service management becomes inefficient and time-consuming, it's time for change. This problem is particularly relevant in light of consumer expectations, as customers don’t want to wait, and the speed of service is often associated with professionalism. According to a HubSpot study, companies that implemented customer service automation saw a 33% reduction in response times to customer inquiries.
Role of CRM: CRM automates routine tasks such as sending emails, reminders, or status updates, allowing the team to focus on more strategic tasks.
How to Recognize It's Time for CRM?
- Conduct an audit of internal business processes, focusing on those that directly involve customer interactions.
- Identify pain points and bottlenecks in these processes. This could be, for example, a long response time to customer inquiries, difficulty maintaining interaction history, or lack of effective customer segmentation.
- Assess whether the currently used tools (such as spreadsheets, databases, traditional office software) meet the company's needs for managing data.
- Check if there are problems with integration between different systems that could lead to errors, data duplication, or information loss.
- Consider whether current tools allow access to real-time data.
- Review various available CRM systems, analyzing their functionalities, integration capabilities, scalability, and costs.
