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Let’s face it, customer retention is a hot objective for any business model. In fact, it is far easier (and cheaper) to retain an existing customer than it is it gain a new one. Repeat customers are essentially the “bread and butter” to creating residual income and a reputable source for word of mouth advertising. In what ways can you improve your customer retention to maintain these loyal buyers that have a huge impact on your overall bottom line?

The good news is that your CRM software (like ACT!, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zoho) has the features to help you create an exceptional customer service experience through being proactive in handling customer concerns, keeping your customers happy, and influencing them in a way that they write rave reviews about you on their social networks.

The following are 3 tactics you can implement in your customer service model to boost customer retention.

#1 Be Engaging

Now that your web-based CRM system is integrated with your social networks and email software system, you can engage with customers much faster in addressing complaints, concerns, or even feedback. Take advantage of this feature to be more interactive and involved with your followers. It just shows that behind the company name you are indeed a real person who genuinely cares about the customer.

Here are a few tips to becoming more responsive with your customers:

Reply promptly to complaints with a plan of action of what you will do to correct the issue (or direct them to someone who can)
Try to answer each question/comment…even if it’s a simple “thank you”
Ask questions to get feedback on a certain topic to create involvement
Send birthday wishes …these gestures can make a lasting impression on how your customers view their relationship with you

#2 Delivering Outstanding Customer Service

There’s a lot that can be said in providing incredible customer service. However, the best kind of service is creating a unique, personalized experience that is catered to that individual customer. You know, the kind of treatment that makes someone feel special because you’ve gone out the way to discover their exact needs and pain solutions.

You can deliver amazing service by:

Ensuring your sales force has mobile access to CRM when meeting face-to-face with customers so the details are readily available for retrievable
Having a system in place that all sales members input accurate customer information as it is given to them for fresh, up to date records
Using CRM to email customers when there is an open case regarding an issue or complaint…this keeps customers in the loop on the status and progression
Segmenting high-value customers using groups or list features within your CRM so it is visible to your entire sales team

#3 Reward Team for Excellent Performance

Customer service and retention essentially begins with your sales team. Your CRM system can keep track of individual team members, tracking information such as production, revenue, complaints handled, engagement, etc. Use these numbers to reward your team on a regular basis to keep them motivated and excited about the vision of your business.

Creativity goes a long way with developing staff incentives! In addition to, a great suggestion here is to have ongoing training in the area of customer retention. All sales members (and anyone who has interaction with customers) should be familiar with these strategies to be utilized fully for business objectives.

These simple yet valuable tactics will certainly help improve your customer retention, thus sustaining a loyal customer base and steady residual income. Please contact us for additional tips and tactics on more CRM strategies to retain your customers in your business.

There are many guides out there today telling you how to purchase the right contact management software. These articles often stress choosing software that's sold by a reputable vendor or buying based off of your friend's own personal experience. Some guides will even tell you to purchase the same contact management software that your competitor has if it worked for them.

Now, these indicators aren't necessarily wrong. The best contact management software for you might be sold be a reputable vendor, recommended by a good friend, or used by your competitor. But at the same time, none of these automatically mean that the software will be right for you.

You have to accept that your business is unique and what works for you might not work for anyone else. Conversely, what works for others may not be effective for your business.

What you should really do is come up with a way to empirically evaluate potential contact management software (ACT!, HubSpot, Saleforce, Zoho). According to a recent LinkedIn article, this is a better way to purchase something as opposed to blindly following other people:

"The CRM that’s best for you and your business should be based off of the careful definition of your operational requirements, not vendor hype, golf buddies, frenemies, free trials, or any other silly reason. If you find yourself falling prey to these, get back to evaluating empirically."

The reason you should choose a contact management software based on your own evaluation is because your management style, sales process, and customer service are all unique.

There are many articles and blogs telling business owners to buy contact management software or CRM software based on what other people are doing. But in reality, it's better to decide for yourself based on your own empirical evaluation.

To talk more about contact management software, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.

The proper hosting plan for your business will produce several things that are cost prohibitive for your business. 

Back Up - Proper hosting requires on site back ups through a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID). The RAID backup programming prevents data loss due to a hard drive crash. Additionally, your hosting plan will back-up servers off site so that you will not lose more than 24 hours of data in the event of a catastrophe. Redundant back-ups cost money, someone else's system used on a subscription (SAAS) basis reduces your capital expenses.

Security - Using an ACT! Hosting plan reduces the amount of 3rd Party Hardware your customer's information will pass through. This reduces your security footprint, and reduces the chance of breach of privacy. Your costs increase as you have to ensure security on your hardware, website hosting plans, and more.

Physical security - An ACT! hosting plan has to meet physical security requirements. These requirements are easier to provide on scale, and create value for your business that would require an inordinate amount of capital.
Customer support - Building an in-house solution requires you to pay technical support to do on-site repairs. Most hosting services provide free or cheap customer support for your users' end and do all their in-house technical support on the back-end hassle free (on your part).

History - Any endeavor takes time to learn. An ACT! certified partner has shown 6 months of successful hosting via customer recommendations. Your business gains value by using a hosting service for your ACT! CRM software because you gain that experience.

Adequate hardware - With all the experience, backup, security and system requirements required to be an ACT! hosting provider, your business gets substantial gains in the time it takes for trial and error on your own systems. This increases value while decreasing costs to you, since you do not have to upgrade any of your own hardware.
Gold Cost Advisors offers certified ACT! hosting. Please contact us for more information on how a hosting plan can work for your business.

To talk more about your ACT!, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.

So what are the things you should focus on in your marketing plan? It's all about finding your target audience and articulating a specific need that they have. Your goal is to convince consumers that your product or service fits that specific need.

A recent Business 2 Community article walks you through the steps of planning a marketing strategy:

"Plan your marketing using a strategy-first approach to clearly identify your target market, define your positioning and create an identity. Discovering your target market or ideal customer is a foundational element of getting any business on track. Your marketing requires a positioning strategy for success. You’ve got to carve out a mental position in the mind of your target market or ideal customers."

These are just the basics, and they were established decades ago. The new factor businesses need to focus on is technology. Marketers now have more tools than ever at their disposal. What counts is how you use them and incorporate them into your marketing process.

CRM software like ACT!, HubSpot, SalesLogix, and Zoho, are popular solutions for marketers. Sales representatives use it on a daily basis, but marketers can learn from the information and data it collects. With CRM software, you can find out:
•Patterns in clients' behaviors.
•Which demographics buy which products
•How often clients return for repeat orders
•Who your loyal clients are

With this information, you can optimize your marketing process. If you find out that your target demographic is a little younger than you expected, then you can start to incorporate more social media in your marketing efforts. Whatever you find out from CRM software, you can use it to improve your marketing process.

To talk more about your marketing process, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.