An Introduction: What is CRM?
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CRM is vitally important for online companies, which lack person-to-person interactions.
- What is CRM?
- Quick Description
- Example Services
- Dynamic Filters
- E-Commerce Uses
- Service Promo
CRM, or Customer Retention Management, refers to the practices a company utilizes (in this case, an online company) to keep customers happy, engaged, satisfied, and returning. A company with good CRM procedures will see much higher volumes of return customers than a company who puts little to no effort into CRM. If all else is equal, why not go to the companies that treat us (and hopefully everyone else) best? CRM is how a company achieves this. As with SEO, some companies are devoted solely to helping other companies with CRM (at least in some form). [dephoro] uses HubSpot, for example, but HubSpot is far from the only CRM service.
Customer Retention Management is a very broad subject, spanning across many smaller, specific subjects. For example, email marketing can be used for CRM. A chat bubble on the bottom corner is a form of CRM. The algorithms happening behind the scenes to group customers according to arbitrary metrics is also a form of CRM (depending on how those groupings are used and acted upon, of course). This subject is quite the rabbit hole, so let’s dive in.
To help clarify how expansive CRM is, we have compiled a list of services that pertain to CRM. These services have been grouped into 3 categories: Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service. Marketing: Ads, email, landing pages, social media integration, website SEO tools, campaigns, marketing templates, and lead capture tools. Sales: Prospecting, deals, forecast, tasks, documents, invoices, meetings, payment tools, playbooks, products, and quotes. Customer Service: Tickets, feedback surveys, and knowledge bases.
HubSpot allows users to filter contact form submissions dynamically. These filters send form submissions to the appropriate teams (according to what the filters are for) automatically. The chat bubble that appears on all of our sites functions in a similar manner. Also worth noting, the entire [dephoro] Network runs off of the same HubSpot account which has proven to be extraordinarily convenient.
The [dephoro] Marketplace, in particular, utilizes CRM (via HubSpot) in an astonishing number of ways. Purchase patterns are tracked and analyzed. As customers purchase merchandise from their favorite creators, the customer’s data reflects this. Titles are granted to customers based upon those metrics. For instance, a customer who buys frequently might earn a title like ‘Rank 5’. We can use this data to directly target specific customer groups with specialized campaigns (like coupons for frequent buyers). We can use this data to check on a customer who has not returned in some measure of time, hopefully bringing them back. The HubSpot systems allow us to do a great number of things, all revolving around making sure our customers are, and remain, happy and satisfied.
CRM is broad and complex. Even the tools like HubSpot usually come with rigorous tutorials and it can still seem overwhelming. [dephoro] Host is more than happy to spend some time explaining everything and helping you integrate it all into your site; regardless of which CRM company you decide to use (if any at all). We worked tirelessly for years to learn about CRM, and both you and your customers stand to gain from this experience. We have experience scaling CRM up to projects the size of an online marketplace, which has two forms of clients. Feel free to reach out to the specialists at [dephoro] for CRM implementation assistance!
