The importance of CRM in ecommerce

For those of you who are new to CRM, but have heard so much about it, you should probably stop to see what all the fuss is about. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the practice of collecting data about your client base and customers using it to improve relationships. It covers existing, current and potential customers of your brand/company.

The main objective for any CRM professional is to get better results from every customer interaction that takes place. This can assist the brand in…

• Developing better approaches to sales, customer service strategies and marketing
• Pushing a growth in customer retention which is more cost-effective than customer acquisition
• Determining what your customers want so you can put together better and smarter business decisions (inventory, brand image, demographic)

There is no denying that there has been a sharp growth in ecommerce in recent years and CRM technology, including demand, has undergone a massive evolution in the industry. From a recruitment perspective, we have witnessed an increasing demand for CRM professionals to join companies that are either just introducing the role or are now seeing the benefit and intend to grow their digital marketing teams.

As the competition between online retailers is fierce, the increasing need for an improved and high-quality customer experience is growing; businesses are now, more than ever, embracing CRM systems and professionals.

The question on everyone’s minds, is would CRM really boost profits for an online store? Here are a few stats to get you thinking about CRM strategies…

• An average bounce rate of just 23.75%, compared to 34.4% for new customers (low bounce rates are correlated with high search engine rankings)
• It converts 82.5% more often than new visitors
• It provides more than 60% of the revenue for the top 25% of ecommerce companies

It is not just brands and companies themselves that are investing in CRM systems - it applies across the board. Over 20% of recruitment agencies in the UK have, from the end of 2018, added CRM as a discipline within their business they offer to clients to recruit for.

What other aspects of CRM make it essential?

It is all about having access to relevant and fundamental information. If you own a brand or online retail store, wouldn’t it be helpful to know when and why customers visited your site but, left without placing an order or paying for the items in their cart. Smart and up to date CRM systems can give you insights into data that your teams can use effectively. You can act now to convert visitors into permanent shoppers. The focus for Ecommerce online stores for 2019 should be personalising the experience customers have with their online presence.

Making the best decisions on how to spend your time

‘Did you know that overall for 2018, sellers and ecommerce sales professionals were only able to spend 11% of their total time on active selling.’ The rest of it, as I am sure most of you experience daily, was spent on administrative issues and promotions that maybe didn’t produce the best results.

A customised CRM system for the ecommerce industry can create a selection of self-service processes that can save your employees much needed time to focus on their main role. Work processes within brands need to be a lot smarter, especially those with an online focus, to ensure each decision has the best solution.

Social media is the current trend that is not going away

It’s official. Social media has proven its worth within the ecommerce world and more brands are putting a large amount of investment into their social online channels. If you are managing an online retail business, then you are going to be on top of your social media pages. A huge amount of traffic comes through social media referrals and paid campaigns. It has also been revealed recently that social media is the main source of customer complaints and queries. Your time and quality of response will determine your customer service level (with social media, any comment is there for the world to see.)

‘42% of consumers complaining in social media expect a 60-minute response time’. Using social media integrations will give you the opportunity to manage your response time effectively.

“Look around you. Everything changes. Everything on this earth is in a continuous state of evolving, refining, improving, adapting, enhancing…changing. You were not put on this earth to remain stagnant. The same goes for your business.”