CRM in Retail: Meaning, Objectives

A CRM, or customer relationship management system, is a software system that organizes all your business’s customers and leads so that you can easily stay in touch with them in a trackable way. A good CRM tool is critical to any business, but most CRM software is geared toward a business-to-business (B2B) model, which revolves around a long-format sales cycle that typically requires a deal pipeline.

A retail CRM, on the other hand, is optimized to help support the high frequency, repeat purchasing of a business-to-consumer (B2C) model. A good retail CRM will provide insights on when it’s best to reach out to a specific customer again and what the customer is likely looking for. For example, Endear’s CRM solution informs its users about a customer’s lifetime spend and their average order value (AOV), along with a thorough omnichannel order history so that sales associates know what to focus on in their outreach.

CRM systems are capable of gathering and storing data about individual customers.

Such data can include:

• Shopping patterns
• Demographic information
• Purchase history
• Contact information
• Preferences
• Customer service notes

Role of CRM in Retail business

Segmenting

Collecting all the information about the customers allows it to put your customers in different section so you can attend them accordingly. This way you can segment your market. There might be families, youngsters, vegetarian, non vegetarian, new buyers, long term customers, heavy purchase customers, lighter purchase customers, etc. The segmentation in your market helps you in providing better strategy that suits your customers.

Customer history

CRM stores all the customer information and profile like their last purchase, business cards, phone numbers. This helps in recording all the history of a customer so you know each one of them individually and you know who are your regular customers and what are their needs. Which also helps you in for seeing the demands and getting better business and makes the customers”™ experience better at your store.

Tracking

CRM software helps you in tracking all the customers individually. This provides you the clear information as to which customers are beneficial for you and which are not. And which customers have proven to be loyal which have not. So you can also provide them better service and at times reward your loyal customers to keep up their loyalty and get more buyers indirectly.

Purchase tracking

CRM allows you to track each customer”™s purchase separately so you know their interests and if their product had any issue or any damage. This way you will be able to provide them better service by having their interests included in their sms and emails or newsletters. In case of damage or issue you will be able to provide them with the same item in lower price in their next purchase or even give free service, etc to provide them to gain more customer satisfaction.

Promotions

Promotions helps you target the right audience as it tracks each customer. Therefore, you can manage them putting in groups or even individually. This will help you provide them better service. And when a customer visits your website you can accordingly look into what they are looking for and include the promotion of that particular product in their newsletter. For example you have a sports related store and a customer looked into some fitness wear hence you can include the promotion of that product in their newsletter or emails, etc.

Loyalty

CRM allows you to focus on each customer individually hence you can pay attention to their needs more closely. This way you can also focus on your long term customers and provide them with points, bonuses and rewards which will help you gain customer loyalty. This way you can have better business as loyalty will bring you committed customers which will set the level of your sale and profit in the right track.

New buyers

CRM does not only manage your old customers or existing customers for you. It also has an intelligence that helps you identify potential buyers and convert them into leads which can turn into customers. CRM can help you get their attention by identifying them for your sales department who can then go ahead and deliver their interests to them from your business”™ side with sophistication so they show up at your door soon.

Cost effective

It allows you to manage the customers in the most cost-effective way. You can send out bulk sms and email easily updating them about the upcoming sale, offers and also allows you to take care of them individually by focusing on their individual needs. CRM implementation is a simple and cost-effective process it also saves you more income as you will have lesser staff and lesser resources to spend on.

Benefits of CRM in the Retail Sector

Once you understand the importance of CRM in the retail sector.

• Make your customers happier
• Strengthen customer loyalty
• Improve company performance
• Spend less money on ineffective marketing
• Create successful marketing campaigns with a higher ROI
• Increase customer retention rate
• Encourage repeat sales and return customers