In the past few decades, the main competitiveness of enterprises has come from product performance or price advantages. But now, consumers have higher choices and information transparency. They not only value product quality, but also value service experience, brand interaction, and personalized care.
In this context, enterprises can no longer just be “product providers”, but must also become “operators of customer value”. Whoever can establish a stable customer relationship has long-term competitiveness.
This is also the reason why Customer Relationship Management (CRM) was born and rapidly developed. It is not a single software, but a set of systematic management concepts, technical tools, and business processes centered around customers.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategic approach for businesses that helps provide consistent, efficient, and sustainable management throughout the entire lifecycle, from customer acquisition and development to retention. Its core goal is to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, thereby improving the profitability and market competitiveness of the enterprise.
As early as the 1990s, American companies began experimenting with CRM systems in order to optimize their sales processes. Nowadays, CRM has become an indispensable part of digital transformation.
Customer demand is fragmented and requires more precise services
The cost of acquiring customers has increased, and improving customer retention is more important than “attracting new customers”
Data resources have become a new asset for enterprises, and whoever holds customer data holds the initiative
Expanding customer influence, positive and negative word-of-mouth affecting brand image
CRM can help businesses address the above challenges by establishing a clear, systematic, and operational customer management system.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems can be divided into three main types in practical applications: operational CRM, analytical CRM, and collaborative CRM. Although these three have the same goal of enhancing customer value, their focus is different and applicable to enterprises at different stages of development and business needs.
Firstly, Operational CRM mainly focuses on the execution efficiency of frontline work such as sales, marketing, and customer service for enterprises. It helps enterprises achieve automation of business processes, such as sales lead management, order processing, customer service recording, follow-up reminders, and other functions. This type of system is very suitable for enterprises that want to improve daily operational efficiency and manage a large amount of customer information, especially when the sales or customer service team is large, it can significantly reduce manual intervention and improve follow-up efficiency.
Secondly, Analytical CRM focuses on data processing and insights. Its core value lies in utilizing data analysis technology to discover patterns and trends from customer behavior data, transaction records, and interactive information, helping businesses better understand customers, conduct precise marketing, and make scientific decisions. For example, by analyzing customers’ purchasing frequency and preferences, companies can push products or design marketing plans in a targeted manner. This type of CRM is more suitable for medium to large enterprises, especially those with strong data dependence and segmented market strategies.
Finally, Collaborative CRM focuses on the unified coordination of information sharing and customer communication. It breaks down the information silos between various departments such as sales, customer service, and marketing within the enterprise, achieving cross departmental collaborative operations. At the same time, it also strengthens the multi-channel linkage between enterprises and customers, such as integrating social media, call centers, and e-commerce platforms into CRM systems, forming a closed-loop customer communication experience. Collaborative CRM is particularly suitable for enterprises that require multi touchpoint and multi departmental collaboration, such as e-commerce platforms, chain brands, or large service-oriented enterprises.
In summary, different types of CRM have their own focuses, and enterprises should flexibly choose or combine them according to their own scale, business model, and management goals to build the most suitable customer relationship management system for their own development.
Customer relationship is not a one-time transaction, but a dynamic process:
Acquisition stage: Attracting new customers, such as through advertising, social media, and channel sales.
Growth stage: Improve customer contribution, such as cross selling and upselling
Maintenance phase: Maintain relationships to prevent loss, such as customer service follow-up and member maintenance
Recovery phase: reactivate lost customers, such as promotional recalls, questionnaire follow-up
CRM supports enterprises in implementing precise policies through data recording and automated processes.
According to Porter’s theory, a company’s competitive advantage mainly comes from the following three aspects:
Cost leadership: delivering value at lower costs
Differentiated competition: providing unique products or services
Customer Concentration Strategy: Focus on a certain type of customer to enhance stickiness
CRM supports these three strategies through digital means: optimizing processes to reduce costs, analyzing data to achieve differentiation, and deepening customer engagement to enhance stickiness.
The specific operation process is as follows:
Customer segmentation: Hierarchical management based on dimensions such as consumption amount, frequency, preferences, etc;
Personalized marketing: Different customers push different content, discounts, and activities;
Service differentiation: VIP exclusive services or green channels are set up for high-value customers;
Behavior tracking and optimization: Continuously optimize content through click through rates and conversion rates.
The key to differentiation is to make customers feel like they are taking me seriously.
CRM can bring the following benefits during the service phase:
Information consistency: Complete recording of historical interactions, reducing the annoyance of “repeated explanations”;
Faster response: customer issues are automatically assigned to the correct personnel, reducing processing time;
Proactive care mechanism: regular birthday greetings, service reminders, etc;
Promote referral: Set up referral rewards to guide customers to actively spread the message.
This mechanism is not a one-time promotion, but an accumulation of customer trust.
Recommended process:
Establish a unified customer entrance (connecting online and offline)
Set data fields and label system
De duplication, cleaning, and standardization of data
Set security permissions and backup mechanisms
Data visualization display, supporting decision-making
Operation suggestion:
Small businesses: Recommend lightweight SaaS systems (such as Fenxiang Salesman)
Medium and large enterprises: can choose customized systems (such as SAP CRM)
Key points: Scalability, data integration capability, user friendliness
Before deployment, it is necessary to clarify the usage goals, budget, and docking requirements to avoid a “one step solution” system idling.
Execution process:
High level recognition, strategic priority;
Establish a project team and clarify the responsible person;
Layered training for employees, with key positions being ‘hands-on’;
System pilot operation → collecting feedback → comprehensive promotion;
Establish an assessment system to ensure the quality of implementation.
Operation process:
Before marketing: customer modeling → crowd segmentation → developing content strategies;
Marketing: Channel push (SMS, WeChat, email, phone);
After marketing: track behavior → collect feedback → transmit data back to CRM system → optimize the next round.
Automation+personalization is the key to improving customer reach and conversion rates.
Customers are increasingly concerned about how to use their data. Enterprises must comply with laws (such as the Personal Information Protection Law) and achieve:
Clearly inform the purpose before data collection
Establish access permissions and encryption mechanisms
Regular data audits to prevent leaks
Solution suggestion:
Launch in stages and modularity to reduce initial investment
Set key indicators such as increased customer retention rate and repeat purchase rate
Validate actual benefits based on business data
The underlying reasons may be habitual work habits or concerns about being supervised. Enterprises can:
By piloting successful cases, employees can ‘see hope’
Incorporate system usage into performance evaluation
Establish incentive mechanisms, such as the “CRM Star” selection
CRM is no longer an “optional” option, but a “mandatory” one. Whether in B2B or B2C industries, as long as customers are the core of your business, CRM is the capability system that you must build.
The key to truly doing CRM well is a customer-centric long-term mindset. The essence of CRM is not technology, but mindset transformation. Only by prioritizing customer success can CRM systems truly realize their value.
The future of CRM: smarter, more automated, and better understanding of customers. With the development of artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, CRM will have the following trends in the future:
Intelligent recommendation and prediction of customer behavior
Customer churn warning
Automated interactive robot (Chatbot)
Real time customer satisfaction monitoring
The next generation of CRM will not only be ‘customer management’, but ‘customer management’.
This article "How to enhance enterprise competitiveness and customer value through customer relationship management" by AcloudEAR. We focus on business applications such as cloud ERP.
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