In recent years with the sharpened growth of eCommerce and retail stores and m-shopping, cloud-based CRM software technology has undergone a progressive evolution in the B2C space.
Most of the high-quality CRM application providers have identified the evolution of the e-commerce industry as one of the top business models, and are now offering scores of features tailored for this industry. If you work in the eCommerce and retail industry, you have come to the right place to learn about the benefits of CRM for eCommerce and Retail Business.
What is CRM in the retail industry?
In the retail industry, the Customer Relationship Management system serves as a central hub that incorporates sales, marketing, and customer service processes. Thus, by aligning sales processes and managing customer data, retailers can build long-term and profitable customer relationships.
Retail CRM is one solution that every retailer relies on because it is directly linked to the customer and in turn results in better sales and boost revenues.
Features of Retail CRM
Online CRM systems support retailers track all the stages in their sales process, make strategic planning decisions and market goods or services efficiently. Retail CRM software facilitates business transactions, eliminates communication hurdles, and empower sales representatives to boost productivity and close deals.
- Increase channel sales revenues
- Monitor key metrics such as days of receivables, inventory and capital adequacy.
- Enable single point partner portals.
- Garner and incorporate valuable customer feedback to drive product innovations
- Improve target list with accurate data and updated data
- Track stocks and orders to ensure realistic commitments to distributors and customers
- Strengthen workforce management
- Get real-time reports across teams, products and geographies.
- Sales lead tracking and management system captures data about potential customers and sales opportunities.
- The order management system makes it possible to manage customized pricing, optimize lead-to-cash cycle time, and accelerate revenue generation.
- Invoicing and billing system helps send invoices and manage billing.
- Analytics and MIS reporting features generate sales forecasting with configurable dashboards, tracking trends in the purchasing and behavior of the customer.
- Document management and archiving allow to store and share all important documents in a central location with easy access from any location, at any time, and by using remote devices.
- Integration with other systems allows us to exchange data with external applications, email calendar notes, etc.
Read More – CRM System Software: Just not for sales
Role of CRM in retail business
Customer history
CRM stores all the customer information and profiles such as their previous purchase, business cards, phone numbers. This will help in recording all the history of a customer so you know each and every one of them individually and you know who are your regular customers and what are their needs. This also helps you in seeing the demands and getting better business and makes the customers experience better at your store.
Tracking
CRM software will help you in tracking all the customers individually. This will give you clear information as to which customers are beneficial for you and which are not. And some of which customers have proven to be loyal which have not. So you can also offer them better service and at times reward your loyal customers to maintain their loyalty and get more buyers indirectly.
Segmenting
Collecting all the information about the customers allows it to put your customers in different sections so you can attend them accordingly. This way you can segment your market. There might be families, youngsters, vegetarians, nonvegetarians, new buyers, long-term customers, heavy purchase customers, lighter purchase customers, etc. The segmentation in your market helps you in providing a better strategy that suits your customers.
Important Benefits of CRM for ECommerce and Retail Business
#Customer Segmentation
The moment any buyer scrolls through their social media accounts after looking up stuff on search engines, their feed is flooded with highly relevant sponsored ads and they end up clicking on most of them.
As observed we are sure all of us have experienced the same. By learning our search patterns, social media displays ads that we are most likely to click. If you are an owner of an online retail business, wouldn’t you want the same with your end-users?
At SalesBabu, our customers from the retail industry have demanded precise segmented data of their customers in order to provide personalized customer service to all their customers.
By viewing groups of customers sorted by gender, area of interests (fashion, gadgets, etc.), spending history and so on, sales agents are able to communicate with customers in the best possible way.
#Access to Most Relevant Information
How many buyers visit your online store and move away without placing an order or paying for items they added in their cart?
High quality CRM systems provide you deep insights into such data so that your team can take appropriate actions before it’s too late. As per my personal experience with one of the retail shoppers, I have received multiple soft reminders from sellers every time I forget to check out an item. With a high quality implemented CRM in Retail business, you can take action to convert these visitors into shoppers.
#Efficient Use of Time
Turns out, sales agents are only ready to spend very less of their total time on active selling. Most of the time is spent on administrative issues and problem-solving.
CRM Customization for retail business can automate a series of self-service processes that will save your agents’ time and enable them to specialize in their main job. Enterprise workflows now have to be smarter and therefore the best thanks to achieving that’s to accumulate CRM Consultancy services before choosing an answer.
#Centralized Social Media Interactions
If you’re running an online retail business, we bet you are not doing it without actively managing your social media platform. In today’s hi-tech world, the majority of eCommerce traffic comes through social media referrals and paid campaigns. Social media is also an important source of customer queries, and your responses to these queries are how customers judge your customer service.
A large group of consumers complaining in social media expect a quick response time. Our customers have managed response time much better than that through our Social Media Integrations. Moreover, you can also take advantage of the powerful tools that different CRMs provide to their customers. For example, for marketing, SalesBabu CRM Marketing Automation is a game-changer in any retail business.
Read More – CRM For Sales & Distribution Management
#Payment Data
If your eCommerce business site is supporting multiple payment channels, analyzing payment data at once can be challenging. With an online CRM platform, you can handle everything from invoicing and billing to payment failures. You can even integrate your CRM system with a payment gateway.
Advanced analytics in CRM applications can track payment trends, empowering you with the ability to analyze – Best revenue sources, Highest value customers, and a number of metrics that can help you customize your services.
#Order Management
The order management process includes steps from lead generation all the way through to revenue. You can access and take action on order placement, order processing, shipment tracking, delivery, and customer feedback against each product.
If you are looking for a cloud-based CRM for retail business and e-commerce, order management is one of the most essential functionalities to look for. Moreover, if you are just a startup company, you can also leverage CRM software for SMEs to get things in order and grow business efficiency.
Conclusion
In today’s cutthroat competition among retailers, the demand for providing enhanced customer experience has grown steeply; now, more and more businesses are adopting CRM systems customized for online retail.
Nowadays, CRM for Retail Business have revolutionized customer experience and increase your online sales. However, these platforms together with a CRM give you a competitive advantage in your eCommerce, Retails business, given you choose the right CRM.
