As the world collaborates to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, organisations are forced to handle formidable challenges. On the demand side, the loss of income (from quarantines, morbidity, and unemployment) has reduced investments by organisations and household consumption. On the supply side, COVID-19 has reduced productivity and labour supply while business closures, lockdowns, and social distancing have caused supply disruptions.
The extreme uncertainty about the magnitude, duration, path, and severity of the pandemic has already resulted in a vicious cycle of tightening financial conditions and dampening consumer and business confidence. The global crisis and circumstances have made customer experiences more important than ever and this is where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is helping organisations to put the interests of customers ahead of everything. By doing this, it guides organisations to help their customers go through the crisis.
CRM helps organisations stay true to their purpose and brand
During challenging times like today, every interaction with your partners and customers is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate what your brand is all about and tell them how you are staying true to your brand and purpose.
There is no denying the fact that these are exceptionally challenging times for everyone, and these are the times when a purpose-based organisation that demonstrates empathy can emerge as the industry leader. CRM can help marketers and sales reps create purpose-based marketing campaigns and sales strategies to win customers.
CRM helps organisations stay connected with all
It is important to stay together in a relationship in challenging times and business relationships are no exceptions. During challenging times like today, organisations must make it a point to stay connected with their customers, partners, vendors, and communities even if they are not buying much or anything at all. By making sincere efforts to stay connected, organisations can forge even stronger bonds and relationships that can be endured for years.
CRM solutions can be leveraged to create, send, and promote:
COVID-19 and other awareness materials and supplies
Product and brand awareness videos
Webinars, whitepapers, newsletters, and much more
CRM enables effective remote management
One of the biggest hurdles before business leaders is to find innovative, out-of-the-box ways to effectively and efficiently manage their business even remotely. Management can only be meaningful, effective, and purposeful when it has a clear vision of business operations. Without visibility - especially considering the constraints inherent with challenging conditions and a new remote workforce - business leaders and executives may be forced to create strategies or allocate resources without having any visibility of the effects of their decisions.
CRM systems offer three big advantages to business leaders and managers:
CRM platforms can be accessed at any hour of the day or night, and from any device or location. This advantage gives business leaders an invaluable management capability. Today, most people are working from home and don't have access to the same resources they would have if they were at the office. CRM platforms help business leaders and managers get access to employee performance and other insights including key performance indicators with dashboards.
CRMs help in the smooth and effortless integration of information. The centralisation and presentation of the collected information in ways that improve customer service, drive new business, and empower people to help the management gain access to a strategic weapon.
CRM systems help business leaders quickly adapt to evolving business conditions. Most CRM platforms have an extensive ecosystem of extensible solutions that are capable of being implemented remotely and offer new capabilities and methodologies required by your organisation.
The ability to clearly and accurately understand the relationships of your organisation, leverage them, and create new and profound business opportunities was one of the basic ideas in the creation of customer relationship management. In today's difficult times when in-person, face-to-face interactions have all but disappeared, more and more organisations are looking at CRM platforms (such as Microsoft Dynamics 365) as mission-critical applications.
CRM capabilities such as cleaning and enriching existing contacts, automating contact creation, offering customer sentiment data, best actions and practices for sales and business development teams, and measuring business relationships are guiding organisations. The value of proactively pursuing these value-driven, purposeful capabilities would be the key factor for organisations that want to stay relevant and afloat. Remember, most people will always steer their business in the direction of people and organisations that were with them, through the tough times faced, those who they know and can trust, and those who helped them make informed decisions. Focus on the present with CRM capabilities to take your organisation to the future!
Find out how we at C.I.G Consultants have been helping organisations across the world get future-proof and stay ahead of the competition in challenging times.