Customers vote with their feet
Anyone in business has heard the “fact” that it costs five times (or seven times or ten times) more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. Whatever the actual multiplier – which is going different for each industry and company, there is an undoubted amount of truth in the basic sentiment.
It’s not that businesses don’t know this and it’s not that businesses forget it, as such, but often they just don’t end up looking after their existing customers as much as they should. Part of the reason may be that it isn’t anyone’s specific job. Sure sales make sales, order processing handle the fulfilment, accounts send out the invoice and so on. But once outside of that loop who is looking after the customer?
The other reason can be that there is no “system” in place to make it happen. Order processing is good at handling orders but not at following up afterwards. Your accounts system may tell you who hasn’t paid their bill, but it won’t necessarily tell you who hasn’t placed an order lately.
This is where a CRM (Customer Relationship System) comes in. It is a system that is designed to help you keep an eye on your customers current, future and past. When your CRM is attached to the accounts system, you can start to ask questions like “who has bought more than £10k from us but has not placed an order in the last three months?”
Many customers will actually be expecting you to make contact again after an appropriate period. Part of the service you are offering them is a reminder so that they don’t run short of whatever you provide. You would probably be annoyed if your home insurance company quietly allowed your cover to expire and they did not send you an offer to renew in good time to maintain continuous cover.
Why should other types of business be any different? Why should the customer have to run out stock or check for themselves? They may even know they need to place a new order, but this may not be their top priority and by calling you actually save them time, and help shorten their to-do list. If a competitor called instead, then you would no longer be their current supplier.
Every contact record in the system can be given a status and each status can be set to remind you if there has not been any activity on the record over the period that you set for that status. During the sales process, a contact can be given ‘prospect’ status and if the reminder is set for seven days, the contact will appear in the reminder list if you have not chased them for a week or more. Once a contact is set as a customer, that status can be set to remind you about them if you have not interacted with them for 90 days, or 180 days, or whatever would be a sensible interval.
Before making contact, you can look at the timeline view for the contact to see all past interactions including tasks, orders, invoices, change of status, support tickets or other notes or calls.
There is a lot more to CRM and it really should be core to any business regardless of the size. That is why CRM is a standard module within Brightpearl. It helps you to remember your customers and to keep them happy, in the same easy way it helps you manage your bookkeeping, accounting and other key business functions.
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