Before any great entrepreneur begins his or her journey in the corporate world, there are a few things they need to learn before they could think about creating an empire. And one of those things they need to learn, is the fact that your customers are your company’s bread and butter. If you want to determine the success of a firm, all you need to do is determine how happy its customers are with their services and products, and that will be the true metrics for its success. Keep them happy and you are destined for greatness, but let them be dissatisfied and you are doomed to fall before you could hit those big heights. Thankfully, in the 21st century, when science and technology have advanced so much that they can offer you help in every aspect of the business, you have applications and software products that allow you to make your job a whole lot easier when it comes to satisfying the customer and keeping them onboard. But how does technology does that? How does advancement in technology affect the customer relationship management of a firm which is only in its garage phase just yet? Let’s find out.
- Social Media:
With over 3.2 billion people worldwide, using the internet, and almost 1.2 billion people using some sort of social media platform, the fact that social media plays and will continue to play a vital role in influencing CRM, is probably a no-brainer. Be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even Pinterest, interacting with your customers on these social media platforms and building connections while engaging them, is a brilliant way to move in the right direction. Social media allows you to not only interact with your customers in the most basic way possible, but it also offers you the chance to solve their problems, listen to their suggestions and complains, and improve your own firm both, internally and externally, so that you get to retain those customers.
- Mobile technology:
Gone are the days when people only browsed the web with their personal computers. Now, there are so many devices on which your customers can surf the web, giving you the chance to interact with them while building a rapport. iPad, iPhone, Android phones, tablet PCs, and even laptops are using mobile technology that allows you to connect with your potential clients and customers on the go.
- Specialized CRM applications:
The use of specialized applications has had a positive impact on the CRM landscape, with so many great applications and web apps, giving you complete insight on what is going on with your company. Using these software applications, you can keep track if your customer engagements, keep close tabs on the customer retention, focus on generating leads, and then work towards converting those leads into genuine sales.
- Management information Systems + Business Intelligence:
For years, Management information systems (MIS) have remained a vital part of every organization. They allow upper management to view detailed information about every aspect of the firm, including CRM of course. But now, due to technology upping its game, MIS had to keep up, and so they did. In recent times, firms are using MIS in collaboration with Business intelligence and decision support systems (DSS) to help them take better decisions about customer engagement and help retain customers for longer periods of time.
- Open Source CRMs:
Everyone likes open-source software, they are clean, rapid, easily customizable, and free of cluster that you don’t even need. Thanks to modern technology, open-source CRMs are becoming quite the norm, replacing even the most advanced and comprehensively packed CRMs. Names like Suite CRM and SugarCRM are the leading faces when it comes to open source CRMs, and they are currently quite popular.
