CRM marketing - more than just customer loyalty programs

What is CRM marketing?

"Creating regular customers who love our brand and building a relationship with them!"

We’re hearing more about the importance of CRM marketing everywhere. It's still new to some of us, but surprisingly, many of us already know what it is — even if we don't realize it. CRM marketing is the oldest form of marketing in the world and is something that developed naturally through human interaction. Before online sales was a thing, before marketing was even a word, we were managing customers offline.

Here’s a story of a personal experience I had a few days ago:

I went to my favorite shoe store, and the sales associate recognized me and said, "It’s been a while! It was early spring when you visited us last time.” I was surprised she remembered me, but I was even more impressed by what she said next. She remembered my shoe size (250cm), which parts of the shoes made my feet uncomfortable when I bought the pair last time and told me how to make them more comfortable. I felt so cared for that she remembered such a small detail about me, and I ended up buying 2 pairs of shoes that day!

Have you ever fallen in love with a brand and ended up becoming a regular? CRM, also known as building a relationship with customers, is a familiar experience that we take for granted offline, but have forgotten in our online-centric world. If you have a favorite store or brand you go to because of the service they provide, then you already know what CRM is.

Why does CRM online still feel so foreign?

"Anyone can understand CRM if you’ve experienced good offline customer experience"

Unlike offline stores, we don't have as much visibility into who our customers are online. Because of this, we often find ourselves managing customers as data rather than real people, segregating the brand and the customer.

Understanding customer personas and their needs are just as important online as it is offline. For example, if you send a coupon for a skirt to a customer who wants jeans, they'll likely feel confused rather than appreciative. The effort you put into building a relationship could have the opposite effect if there’s a mismatch between what customers need and what you’re providing them.

What if you could do the same thing online — in a brick-and-mortar store — where staff and a customer could have a conversation and get to know more about each other on a personal level?

Is there an online CRM that’s as easy as offline customer management?

"Become an online sales associate using Channel Talk”

Channel Talk’s CRM helps you to:

1) understand your customers before you speak with them, and 2) greet or recommend items to them first — just as an offline salesperson does.

Try to utilize Channel Talk’s CRM (your database of customer contacts) to understand your customers better. This is a feature where customer information is accumulated. At first glance, it looks similar to Excel.

It's not just a simple customer database, however, but rather a very deep and versatile CRM tool that helps collect quality data and simplifies data analytics. Channel Talk’s CRM allows you to manage your customers with three things: their cookie data, conversation history, and membership information.

So it doesn't end with simply showing who the customers are, but it also shows where they're from, what products they're interested in, and even what kind of chat conversations they've had in the past. You can get your hands on many different insights about different groups of customers.

There are 4 main points that make Channel Talk’s CRM different from others.

1. Easily view customer profile information that’s collected

A Profile contains very specific information about a customer. When customers click on the Channel Talk widget, they're greeted by a chatbot that allows you to naturally collect their names, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. from both members and non-members of your store. You can also see how the customer found you, what pages they’ve viewed, how many pages they've visited in the past, and the total number of visits.

2. Analyze what actions customers take on your website

An event is an action that a customer has taken on your application or homepage. By default, Channel Talk provides 'Pageview' and 'UserChatOpen' event information for you.

'Pageview' is an event that occurs whenever a customer views a specific page, and this allows you to track customer behavior. 'UserChatOpen' is created when a conversation starts with customers in the Userchat. In addition, you can classify and collect other important customer behavior indicators. If you are an e-commerce company, you can also create customized events and collect information on how many items are placed in the cart, how many purchases have been made, and how many reward points have been earned.

3. Review conversations you've had with your customers You can see full conversation histories with your customers from the past.

4. Segment customers by detailed filters and characteristics

Once you have a better understanding of your customers based on their profiles and behavioral data, as well as an insightful view of your conversations with them, you can create segments by grouping similar customers together. You can design unique customer experiences for each of these segments using automations, chatbots, and marketing messages, to help your brand and your customer service stand out.

Before starting CRM marketing

Let's dive deeper into the customer information to understand their true needs — that's the beginning of a real CRM!

To see more about CRM at Channel Talk 👉 https://channel.io/en/guides/contacts

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