Accompanying the customer throughout their journey right up to their final purchase decision is one of the most important factors for success in today’s market. If you fail to provide potential customers with relevant information and appropriate marketing measures at various points of contact, you will not only find it difficult to attract new customers, but also to retain existing ones.
Your CRM system provides you with effective support to turn the customer journey into a real experience for prospective customers.
We’ll tell you how to use your CRM software effectively for the customer journey!
Customer journey and customer touchpoints
In order to make the best use of our tips, the terms “customer journey” and “customer touchpoint” should first be differentiated from one another. A customer journey is the entire path of a potential customer through various points of contact (customer touchpoints) with a product, a service or a company up to the desired target action (purchase, inquiry, order). Touchpoints, on the other hand, describe every single contact with the customer, whether directly via the website or an advertising spot, or indirectly via review portals, communities, etc.
Know current needs in the relevant purchasing phase
Customers need different information in each individual phase of the customer journey. If, for example, latent customer needs are first aroused with attractive advertising measures in social media, detailed product and price information should definitely be available afterwards if there is interest and a desire for a product.
And this is where the CRM system comes into play: divide your customers and prospects into contact groups based on various criteria, such as previous purchases, purchasing behavior, frequency or demographic data. Analyze which contact points your target groups use, what information they search for in each individual purchasing phase and what they talk about in social media or forums. Based on this, you can plan your marketing activities for your entire customer journey. This ensures that you never become too intrusive and overwhelm your customers with unnecessary data. On the contrary: a CRM system helps you to identify current needs and meet them at the right time.
Customer journey at a glance
If a customer is interested in your product or service, they will try to get in touch with your sales staff to obtain more detailed information. If your sales team can provide tailored information from the very first contact, this will not only increase the satisfaction of your prospective customers, but also encourage them to spread the word. Therefore, use your CRM system to gain a comprehensive overview of the customer before sales meetings and be better prepared for closing the deal – have any interactions taken place so far? What stage of the customer journey is the prospective customer at? What factors have prompted them to make a purchase so far?
Take the initiative in good time
Your CRM system should not only be used in the customer journey when they approach your company, but also to take the initiative in good time and impress them with excellent customer service.
Example: As a car repair shop, you also carry out the “Pickerl” inspection, which is due annually. In order to offer your new customers a great service and turn them into loyal and returning clients, use your CRM software to save the last date on which the customer’s “Pickerl” inspection took place and send them a reminder newsletter before the next due date.
Information with a personal touch
In these times of sensory overload, it is becoming increasingly difficult for customers to filter out important information and interesting services from the mass of information. So it’s no wonder that more and more prospective customers are switching to companies that provide customized offers and personal information. Therefore, make every interaction at every single touchpoint as personal as possible. Of course, a CRM system helps here too. Assign your contacts to a distribution list and use so-called placeholders in your mail templates. This guarantees that your prospective customers only receive the information that is really relevant to them plus a personalized first and last name.
The term cross-selling can also be used in this context: Based on previous purchases (which are of course stored in the CRM system), additional offers can be suggested to the customer and thus additional purchases can be generated.
