How To Use CRM To Strengthen Your Customer-Service Offerings
by Selling Power (Fitness Business Resource)
You've spent a lot of time and money to win your customers, so you can't afford to lose them.
Ideally, you want to provide your customers with service that differentiates you from your competition, helps you generate additional sales and, in the end, creates deeper customer loyalty.
The best way to achieve all three of these goals is to use your CRM system wisely. Here's how:
STEP 1: Turn customer service into a sales function. A recent survey by AMR Research noted that aftermarket services represent approximately 24 percent of a businesses revenue and often contribute 40 to 80 percent of its profit. Because your customer service representatives (CSRs) are in constant contact with your customers, they're the perfect candidates to up-sell and cross sell your offerings.
STEP 2: Free your CSRs to do some selling. If they're going to sell, your CSRs will need to engage in personal dialogues with customers who call in. Integrate your CRM system with your telephone system, so the customer calling can be identified by telephone number and the appropriate record can be automatically pulled. This allows the rep to greet the customer by name and scan the history in order to speak intelligently with the customer.
STEP 3: Flag relevant up-sell opportunities. During a routine call, a natural up-sell opportunity may present itself to your rep. For example, a customer having trouble locating ink cartridges for an old printer calls customer service to complain. Your CSR should be able to pull up the purchase history and determine that the printer has been discontinued. He or she should then be authorized to offer a significant rebate for an upgrade.
STEP 4: Develop proactive up-sell opportunities. Using the data in your CRM system, you can discover customers who need certain upgrades. Proactively send a rebate offer to all customers who might be interested, so customers can dial an offer-specific phone number and be routed directly to the CSRs responsible for execution. Note that this requires you to integrate your telephone and CRM systems.
STEP 5: Create no-brainer cross-sell opportunities. If your company has found an undeniable purchase pattern of product combinations, enlist your CSRs to engage in cross selling. For example, perhaps you've found that customers who purchase a specific printer model consistently add on a scanner. When routine calls come in regarding the printer, a business rule triggers a call script to pop up on the CSR's screen, enabling the rep to gently introduce the new scanner.
These suggestions are based on material provided by FrontRange, the makers of the award-winning GoldMine CRM package.
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