Most of the time when people talk about CRM software it’s from the perspective as a sales and marketing tool. However, CRM software can also enhance in-house customer service. When it comes to not only winning business, but also providing your customers with exceptional service, a CRM solution can be a valuable tool. With an increasing interest in customer retention and delivering higher levels of customer lifetime value, the value that CRM brings to customer service has become increasingly important.
How does CRM enhance in-house customer service?
Manage Service Contracts and Case Management
CRM software lets customer service teams store all service contracts, service contract numbers, and links them to the associated accounts. Additionally, every issue that arises by customer and account can easily be tracked and recorded. This makes it simple for your customer service team to have a record of all past problems, how it was resolved, and the hours of work provided.
Bug Tracking and Knowledgebase
Bugs don’t just impact a single customer, they have the ability to impact all of your customers. Bug tracking lets your customer support staff have a complete record of all bugs that are going on, and push those bugs to your development team to resolve. Other issues that customers may face can be resolved and stored within a knowledgeable to provide a resource for existing customers to find resolutions to issues as soon as possible.
Referral and Customer Advocacy
Businesses always talk about customer acquisition and outbound sales as if it is only the form of revenue. However, customer service plays a vital part in new customers through referrals and customer advocacy. With a CRM, customer service professionals can easily track satisfaction of current customers and determine if they’re primed for generating testimonials or giving referrals. The happier the customer the more likely they are to recommend your business/products or refer friends, which can further enhance revenue.
Customer Retention
By providing features such as case management, bug tracking and more, a CRM can further enhance in-house customer service by giving your staff the tools they need to track and followup with your customers in a timely fashion. This can lead to increased happiness, which leads to higher rates of retention. Within your CRM software, customer support professionals can accurately track each and every communication such as emails, phone calls, physical mailings, etc. This enables them to easily followup on or present new promotions to increase customer satisfaction.
Enhance Customer Service Strategy
From a strategic view, CRM software can provide valuable insight into your customer service interactions. With every single interaction being tracked in the CRM, you can easily see which interactions or customer promotions led to a more engaged customer or increases in their purchasing capacity. A bad interaction with a customer can ruin a relationship, which is why your CRM becomes valuable in analyzing and creating a strategy that strengthens relationships.
Are you Ready to Enhance your in-house customer service?
Purchasing and implementing a CRM solution is the first step in enhancing your in-house customer service, the next is getting your staff to adopt and leverage the tools at their disposal. Prior to rolling out the solution make sure that you have provided ample training and your team knows exactly how the CRM will help them track interactions, cases and the customer lifecycle. Once they know about the various features of the CRM, then start creating a strategy leveraging the data from each interaction to increase customer retention and promote customer referrals/advocacy to boost your overall sales.
