Can’t seem to retain customers? Having problems building long-lasting customer relations? Follow these 5 simple steps for implementing an effective customer relationship management (CRM) and increase your profits by improving brand loyalty.

CRM is the key player in retaining customers and building long-lasting relationships, however, it is important to detail, for effective client relationships the whole company's functions must be aligned to this concept.

So, What are the 5 steps of the crm process? Before starting, first, you need to understand the meaning of the CRM process and what it entails.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) process is steps to approach how companies manage their customers or what is known as the “customer life cycle” in order to build long-lasting relationships that go above a single shopping experience.

This approach looks for permanent entry into the customer’s life by implementing brand loyalty, with the goal of increasing customers retention and upgrade; thus enabling the brand to build awareness, increase profits and concretize its brand name.

Effective CRM can lead companies to not only increase sales but also their brand name; this is one of the most important goals a company has because brand positioning allows companies to maximize their margins and be proclaimed as the leader of a business section: enabling companies to attract more clients and expand their business portfolio.

This approach should not only be a companies function, it should also be their motto; which is why we are here to help you reach an effective CRM:

The first step on how to introduce prospective clients to your business is by building brand awareness through effective marketing campaigns; to start this step, you should segment audiences by analyzing their consuming habits and qualities, such as:

• Age
• Gender
• Hobbies
• Salary
• etc...

In order to understand them and have a clear perspective on their likes and needs to captivate them when making the first appearance.

Tip: For an overall effective CRM process, data compilation is the most important part, this will allow the marketing and sales team a picture of their targeted users, allowing them to make better-informed decisions according to the needs of their audience.

Following a marketing campaign, the engagement part can and must be made via all communication channels in a unified way: mail, SMS, email, telephone, social networks, etc, however, being multi-channel does not mean replicating your communication on all media, it is a question of adapting one's communication according to the different spaces of exchange.

Tip: Users feel more engaged with the brand when they make quick responses or comments on social media. Ex: friendly banter, daily jokes, sudden offers, etc. platforms for community management are imperative to manage all communication channels in one place, furthermore, you’ll have the ability to save time by planning all your channels publications, time, and information ahead for automatic posting.

This is the step where you actually see the profits of an effective CRM approach; the purpose of this step is to convert an audience or lead to an actual client. For this step, you must be very cautious and do extensive research on future clients, in order to offer a quality service.

Remember: A very important part of client retention is the whole service experience, every day it is more difficult to achieve brand loyalty, because of new competition; it is imperative to offer the user a unique value experience.

This is the step where you should really use CRM as a motto instead of a function; after the conversion period where clients received their goods or services, it is of extreme importance to know the client’s user experience in order to optimise your offer and understand what changes to make for improved customer experience.

Observation: This is an imperative step for maintaining consumer relevancy, this is a measure that, if not taken to account, can lead companies to bankruptcy and overall profit loss, due to a lack of innovation and not understanding consumer trends, making users lose interest in what they have to offer.

Tools allow companies to efficiently manage their contact centres by offering intelligent automated responses through different communication channels, as well as data recompilation for automated reports.

Finally, the key step in the CRM process is the support you provide to your customers. By definition, customer relations are cyclical: your objective is to reduce your attrition rate (loss of customers) to a minimum by offering customer support, when it is responsive and when requests are well managed it can be a strong brand loyalty factor, making the customer feel valued and grateful for the special attention you’ve given them.

In addition to retaining customers for increasing profits, another way is to focus on upgrading their purchasing order by switching their shopping habits to more luxury products or services. This way offering the users a unique and valued experience while increasing customer spending.

Because data recompilation is the most important key player in understanding consumer habits, it is imperative the use of adequate tools that will provide all departments with automated and optimised information for better decision making.

Meaning that by following these 5 simple steps and the use of adequate tools you can implement the best practices that will eventually improve your customer relations and increase your turnover. This is the approach that separates leader companies from their competition, because they don't only offer the client a product or service, they have an added value proposition of the whole shopping experience.

And you, what are you waiting for? Follow these 5 simple steps and become a valued company!