Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems and Software
The only real competitive advantage a small business has over the big players, is the ability to be flexible and personal in dealing with its customers. Although large companies have customer relationship management (CRM) systems - call centres, for example - the problem is that there is a gulf between the customer service staff and the decision-makers within the business. You ring the customer service department, they are friendly and polite, but when you request that something gets done, your request disappears into a black hole.
As a small business your unique selling point is that you can respond directly to your customers' suggestions and requests and adapt your products and services to meet their specific requirements much more quickly than a large company ever can. Hence customer relationship management is absolutely pivotal to the success or failure of a small business. It is your only chance of surviving in the competition jungle. The best CRM system is your own personal approach to your customers. However, it really helps if you have good CRM software to start with; a call centre is probably not viable if you are very small!
The basis of customer relationship management is that you make every customer a friend. This way you build customer loyalty. You must aim to exceed their expectations, by endeavouring to help them in ways that go beyond their requests - by, for example, helping them with problems they may be having that may be beyond the specific remit of your company, but within which you have some of your own personal expertise to share with them. This is something that no CRM software can do for you. However, by tracking the history of all your orders with a customer, you will be in a much better position to respond to your customer in such a way as to make them feel that you have remembered them - this is something that CRM software should do.
TOPS is a unique kind of order processing software, because it has customer relationship management at its very heart. The whole system is built around your customers, their order history, rather than being built around your stocklists or accounts (although it handles these too). For example, the very first screen you enter when you log into the system is a customer search screen allowing you to quickly call up a customer and review all their transactions with you. TOPS is Customer Relationship Management Software, plus much, much more ....
In order to find out about how simply and efficiently our TOPS software handles customer relationship management and order processing, please see our presentation.
One other vital and often overlooked aspect of customer relationship management, is that as an unknown in the world wide web you have to convince your potential customer that you are safe to trade with. You are probably going to ask them to send you money on the strength of a few words and perhaps a pretty picture. You are very lucky indeed if your name / business is already known to them. You dont have the advantage of locality where you are known and trusted by people who live in close proximity to each other and to you.
So how how do you reassure this person sat in front of their PC that you are indeed reliable and will supply that which you say you will do. First of all you must make your trading address and telephone number clearly visible in a number of suitable places on your site and who they can contact - and who it is they will be dealing with (probably yourself) should be named. The Internet is a friendly place so make your contact name sound friendly (not Mrs. McNab, but Annie McNab). Explain that there is always a real person there to answer any question or even take orders by email rather than by the 'official order form' if they are bit unsure of themselves.
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