Every eCommerce Business Should Use a CRM – 5 Reasons Why!

The e-Commerce market is soaring at a great pace. In 2017, B2C E-commerce sales hit $2.3 trillion worldwide, while B2B E-commerce reached $7.7 trillion, noticing a 234.78% difference in market size.

Companies are trying to put their best foot forward to succeed in the eCommerce landscape. With the progressive evolution, the competition is getting fiercer in this market. Providing an excellent buying experience has become imperative for the sellers.

Best value has always been at the top of the buyer’s priority list. Think about this, wouldn’t you want an optimum quality product that renders utmost satisfaction?

If you want to generate more business and excel in this competitive market, then you need to understand your customers, meet their expectations and offer satisfactory results. Besides you need to keep track of the buyers who are keeping you in the business.

Wondering how you will do all of this? Well, a customer relationship management (CRM) tool can help. A CRM tool can improve your online store sales and aid in building long-term relationships with your buyers to keep them coming back.

CRM applications can help increase sales by up to 29%, sales productivity by up to 34% and improve sales forecast accuracy by 42%. (source)

Decoding CRM- the ultimate sales tool

Customer relationship management software is popular in various industries with abbreviation – CRM. It is a smart tool that supports the sales efforts of the sellers and helps them in increasing their conversion rate. It enhances customer experience and aids in keeping everything organized. Using CRM, businesses can track and measure each aspect of their sales. With this advanced tool, users can aggregate information from multiple sources and store it in a centralized repository. Sellers can easily access customer data from anywhere using any devices.

81% of CRM users are now operating CRM software from multiple devices.

“Corporation invest in sophisticated CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, programs to effectively oversee their relationship with their customers at every point during the buying process” – Marc Ostrofsky

CRM in the eCommerce landscape

CRM can show your eCommerce business the route to profit. It gives you a panoramic view of your eCommerce sales. CRM is the best way to gain control over your customers, leads and multiple sales channels. With this advanced tool, easily get access to customer insights and understand their preferences. Find out what’s working and how are things progressing in your sales cycle. With detailed metrics, you can explore various buying patterns of the customers and make necessary amendments in real-time. By making the most of the information it provides, you can even upsell and cross-sell more products to the customers. This high-end sales tool can be integrated with third-party apps for seamlessly handling your payments, logistics, and returns.

65% of the sellers who adopted the mobile CRM could hit their sales quota (information source)

Benefits of using CRM for eCommerce

Haphazard management and unorganized processes can jeopardize the future of your eCommerce business. Streamline your sales process and embrace multiple opportunities with CRM.

CRM tool comes with a wide spectrum of benefits:

1. Add more time to your day with automation

Salespeople are loaded with an extensive number of tasks in this digital world due to which they fail to focus on selling.

As per a study sales reps spend only spend 35.2% of their time selling and 65% on non-selling activities

Benefits of using CRM for eCommerce

Haphazard management and unorganized processes can jeopardize the future of your eCommerce business. Streamline your sales process and embrace multiple opportunities with CRM.

CRM tool comes with a wide spectrum of benefits:

1. Add more time to your day with automation

Salespeople are loaded with an extensive number of tasks in this digital world due to which they fail to focus on selling.

As per a study sales reps spend only spend 35.2% of their time selling and 65% on non-selling activities

Your workflow needs to be smartly managed if you want to expand your profits. Avoid wasting your precious selling hours and automate most of the repetitive tasks with CRM software workflow automation feature.

By setting some simple workflows in CRM you can automate most of the activities. Like sending emails and updating records. For instance, if you are a service-based eCommerce platform, then you can set a workflow of sending introductory emails after a website visitor signs up for a free trial.

With automation, you can increase your productive hours and efficiency. You get more time to concentrate on lucrative deals.

2. Gain access to the most relevant information about your web customers

You can offer better services to your web customers when every information about them is easily available.

A CRM is like a warehouse of data where all the vital sales information is stored. Everything from the user activities to their purchasing history and personal details is systematically stored in a single place.

74% of CRM consumers accepted that CRM software had improved their access to customer information

With the essential information in front of your eyes, you can coordinate better with your customers. You can keep a track on your buyer’s need and address them in real time. It helps in strengthening the relationship with your customers.

3. Measure the effectiveness of your processes

Customers’ expectations are escalating; they have become more cautious while making buying decisions.

86 percent of customers pre-research their buys before making a purchase

Meeting the expectations is essential to be the frontrunner in your domain. Customers are only interested in investing in the best. Constant improvements are necessary for attracting such buyers.

You need to find out why people aren’t buying from you. Where are you lacking? Understand your strengths and weaknesses to offer a better buying experience to your customers.

A CRM helps in creating a set of customizable reports to spot loopholes and identify opportunities. It allows you to scrutinize your sales activities for learning about the gaps in your performance. With an intelligent CRM solution, you can track vital metrics and make informed decisions.

4. Stay on track by segmenting customers

Customer segmentation adds more clarity; you’ll know where you need to target your efforts.

“Take some time to play around with segmentation. If you can pinpoint your best and worst customers it’s well worth the time” -Des Macaffe

With a CRM you can segment customers using tags. These tags help when you are targeting different industries or have multiple products. You can segment customers by their value, preferences or buying history.

You don’t need to struggle for information when you have systematically segregated your customers. Based on the tags you can easily sort and find the information you need for connecting with the customers.

5. Empower sales reps

CRM is a complete sales solution. It empowers sales reps and helps them in winning more sales. Instead of relying on multiple tools for managing and increasing their eCommerce sales they can function efficiently from one platform that has everything.

• Sales professionals can track their emails to know if the customers are opening and reading about the offers or discounts.
• They can successfully manage the inventories. With CRM, they can know which stock is low and from which location are they getting maximum revenue. This helps them while planning new strategies.
• Using CRM, they can prioritize their sales leads and manage them efficiently in an organized sales pipeline.
• With clear visibility of the sales pipeline, they can identify stalled opportunities and address them quickly.
• Most of the CRM software comes with a built-in virtual phone system so they can easily get the numbers of desired countries and target their local customers.
• They can record their sales calls and listen to it when required for improving their performance.
• With a CRM they can automatically get a customer’s profile enriched with missing data like contact details or company information.

Wrapping up

If used effectively, sales CRM can help in boosting the growth of your eCommerce business. However, it is necessary to choose the right CRM for your small business. The market is flooded with multiple options. You need to evaluate the needs of your business and find out the features you really require.

Moreover, be careful while selecting a CRM as most of them have a hidden cost attached. You might have to pay extra for getting the advanced features that are required for closing your sales. So, consider everything and then select the apt solution for your business.