Customer satisfaction and loyalty are priorities of successful organizations. The loyal customer is the one who buys the organization’s products periodically and speaks positively about it, which increases the chances of attracting new customers as well as resists the attempts of competing organizations to lure and attract him/her away. This made the relationship with customers a critical matter recently. Nowadays organizations collect and analyze information about that relationship to manage it effectively due to its vital importance to the survival and continuity of the organization.

What is customer relationship management?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a process that enables organizations to manage their interactions with customers, usually using data analysis to examine and analyze large amounts of data.

Why customer relationship management is important?

CRM helps organizations build a relationship with their customers, which in turn creates loyalty. Since customer loyalty and sales are both factors that affect sales, CRM is a strategy that leads to increased profits and maintains a competitive advantage. At its core, a CRM tool creates a simple user interface for a collection of data that helps organizations communicate with customers and address their needs.

1. Centralized database:

CRM helps collect data from customers during purchases, after-sales services, or even complaints, which provides information that all departments in the organization can benefit from. Therefore organizations that implement CRM systems benefit from this by creating a unified database to ensure that the inputs for all departments are synchronized which helps to make decisions effectively.

2. Automated data entry:

CRM systems depend on the automation of the process of data entry, classification and sorting since the seventies of the last century, which has witnessed great development over time, reaching its peak in the current era with the advancement of communication and information technologies. Which helps to collect and analyze information with almost zero error rates.

3. Tracks all sales interactions:

CRM allows the organization to record all the operations that take place with customers, whether purchases, returns, maintenance, after-sales services, or complaints, which gives the organization a detailed reference about its relationship with customers as a whole and its relationship with each customer specifically, as well as measuring their satisfaction with some products. All of this data is of great importance in the decision-making process.

4. Reminds time of follow up:

Automation of data recording and review systems, and relying on technological means, allows the organization to follow up on its operations, especially those related to the customer, such as delivery dates, installation, or maintenance. The importance of these systems increases in organizations that deal with a large number of customers and receive thousands or millions of requests per second, which enhances the organization’s ability to control and follow-up, as well as reduce the margin of errors to the least possible.

5. Facilitate team/customer communication:

Accurate recording, analysis, and sorting of data in a way that serves the organization’s requirements to get to know its customers are one of the important factors to improve the quality of communication between members of the work team due to the clarity and sufficiency of the data, which facilitates clarity of vision and unification of the work team’s efforts towards improving performance, solving problems or innovation, as well as ease of communication with the customers and understanding their requirements and problems and deal with them efficiently and effectively.

6. Enables forecasting:

This process is characterized by the future prediction of customer trends according to the analyzed data previously collected from customers, whether during purchases or continuous follow-up with them, therefore the more data is sufficient, the more accurate the forecasting becomes along with the organization’s ability to identify and categorize leads and manage them.

7. Continually grows:

One of the advantages of organizations adopting a CRM strategy is the database that increases with the expansion in dealing with customers or attracting new customers, and it is one of the factors of the organizations’ strengths and competitive advantage in the current era under highly competitive business conditions.

Why do successful organizations adopt CRM strategies?

CRM is a comprehensive marketing strategy for managing all organization’s relationships and interactions with its customers and leads

Therefore many studies have been made to determine the benefits of adopting CRM strategy in organizations which resulted in the following facts:

• 25% increase in revenue.
• 25% : 50% increase in marketing return on investment
• 34% increase in sales productivity.
• 35% increase in customer satisfaction.
• 42% increase in sales forecast accuracy.
• 15% increase in productivity.
• Returning customers are likely to spend 20% : 40% more with organizations that adopt CRM strategy.
• 70% of satisfied customers would recommend the organization to family and friends.
• 41% increase in sales revenue.
• 27% increase in customer retention.
• 23% reduction in marketing costs.
• 75% of managers say that using CRM helps to drive and increase sales.

How to implement CRM strategy?

1- Strategy:

CRM is a comprehensive strategy to increase sales and profits, reduce costs, and improve customer relationships (primarily) by using CRM technology in addition to other marketing strategies and customer care models.

The CRM strategy is based on four main axes:

• Vision:

The vision is the state that the organization seeks and hopes to reach in the future and is characterized by the challenge and motivation to urge all employees to make more effort to achieve. It is important to formulate the vision in line with the organization’s culture, values, and current and expected future capabilities, which requires multiple processes of analyzing data and forecasting the future.

• Mission:

The mission of the organization is the purpose for which it was established and what it is working to achieve through its operations. Therefore, the message must be realistic and expressive of the organization and its goals.

• Goals and plans:

Well-defined goals deliver a clear message inside and outside the organization. While plans provide legitimacy for actions, a source of motivation and inspiration, guidance for commencing tasks, a reference for decisions, and a measurement of performance. Goals and plans are correlated. One cannot achieve a goal without a plan or set a plan without a goal. In many references there are five fundamentals for a well-defined goal namely:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timed.

It is usually known as SMART or S-M-A-R-T, Therefore In order to apply the SMART goal concept make sure to transform it into numbers. Divide it into smaller objectives. Set a time frame or a deadline. This will help to measure progress and evaluate the situation. Also, it is important that goals are within the organization’s capacity; otherwise, capacity building should the goal.

• Implementation mechanism:

It is a set of programs, procedures, and processes for defining roles along with the powers and responsibilities of each department in the organization in order to achieve the strategy.

2– Customer service:

Customer service is the support that organizations provide to customers both before and after they purchase and use the products or services that help them have a satisfying experience, however other organizations offer self-service support so customers can find their own answers whenever they want.

Basically, there are three important factors of successful customer service which are the three Ps: professionalism, patience, and a people-oriented attitude. Although customer service differs from customer to customer, these guideline offers a rationale for actions and keep the organization on the right track.

• The three Ps of customer service.

 3- Social media:

Social CRM or social customer relationship management is the integration of social media channels into customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. CRM platforms are increasingly supporting social media alongside traditional channels so that customers can interact with organizations through their preferred channels. Therefore interaction rates increase as the organization provides more channels for customers to interact with according to their desire through telephone calls, text messages, e-mails, or through pages on social media, therefore 24% of companies witnessed an increase in sales productivity by using CRM mobile apps.

4- Marketing:

Marketing is all aspects of activity that transfer goods and services from the producer to the customer.

Why marketing is important?

Marketing is important to both the producer and the customer.

• The importance of marketing for the producer:

For the producer, successful and effective marketing leads to:

1. Distribution of production for all goods and services.
2. Achieving profits.
3. Enabling the producer to identify the new wants and needs of customers.
4. The possibility of increasing the quantity of products, which leads to a reduction in prices.
5. The possibility to specialize in the production of one distinct product, through the continuous development of this product.

• The importance of marketing to the customer:

For the customer, successful and effective marketing leads to fulfilling his/her needs of goods and services with the following benefits:

1. Fair price.
2. Proportionate amount.
3. Good quality.
4. On the right time.
5. In the right place.

Benefits of Marketing:

• Time Utility:

It means that the marketing activity provides all the goods at the right time. That is, storing it at a time when there is no demand for the product and displaying it at the time when the customer needs it.

• Place Utility:

Goods can be provided everywhere through various means of transport (river – land – air-sea – …) to transport the product from the place of production to the place of distribution.

• Possession Utility:

It means the transfer of ownership of the product through purchases and sales from the producer to the customer.

• Form Utility:

Marketing allows production management to identify customers’ desires for goods (and services) in the form and quality that they desire.

The Marketing Mix (8 Ps):

The marketing mix includes a set of policies or marketing activities that integrate and interact with each other in order to produce a successful and effective marketing activity. The mixture includes a number of basic elements, known as (8 Ps):

1. Product.
2. Price.
3. Promotion.
4. Place.
5. People (personnel).
6. Process.
7. Physical evidence.
8. Performance.

All of these elements represent the marketing policies for organizations in order to prepare their integrated marketing plan. Also, each of these policies includes a set of sub-policies that are integrated with each other to make these policies successful.

1. Product:

It means all the goods and services provided by the facility to customers, whether or not the facility aims for profit. This is usually done through practicing a number of sub-marketing functions, the most important of which are:

• Production of a distinct commodity (distinguishing products, that each commodity has a distinct name)
• Packaging design
• Availability of quality standards in the product.
• Providing a product that meets the needs and desires of customers.
• The importance of studying the life cycle of products which usually pass through several stages which are:
  •  Introduction to the market.
  •  Growth.
  •  Saturation.
  •  Decline.

Understanding these stages helps organizations to address the need to develop their product, develop their packaging, produce a new product, or reconsider the marketing mix as a whole.

2. Price:

Pricing policy is intended to determine the appropriate price of a product in accordance with the variables of supply and demand in the market, as well as the ability of customers to purchase that product. The pricing policy includes a number of sub-policies, the most important of which are:

• Determining the basic price of product.
• Price discrepancy in relation to transaction size (quantity discount)
• Installment sale or deferred sale
• Cash sales.
• Determining the policy of discounts (quantity discount – season discount – loyalty discount… etc.)

3. Promotion:

It is a set of policies that interact and integrate with each other through the so-called promotion mix, which includes a number of activities, which are:

• Advertising.
• Personal selling.
• Sales promotion.
• Publishing.
• Public relations.

4. Place:

It means the distribution channels through which all goods and services are transmitted from the producer to the consumer, which includes the following activities:

• Direct selling (through the producer’s outlets).
• Selling to wholesalers.
• Selling to retailers.
• Authorized agent.
• Broker.
• A combination of the previous activities.

The distribution process is linked to both transportation and storage policies.

5. People (Personnel):

The marketing team and all employees responsible for marketing in the organization along with their thoughts and aspirations will have a crucial effect on marketing efforts.

The first step in developing an advertising and marketing plan is to grasp who your target market is. It’s vital to understand your target market and create detailed customer personas.

This will help you communicate immediately to a variety of needs and goals of your goal market with readability and purpose. That’s why innovative content takes a human approach. Respect and empathy are extra than simply keywords. They are the foundation of a sustainable advertising strategy.

It’s integral for all and sundry concerned in marketing products, which include affiliates. Each performs a function in the organizational image and reputation.

6. Process:

It includes all procedures necessary to deliver the product from the manufacturer to the customer in addition to after-sale services, such as transportation, maintenance, spare parts, supply, and warranty. In addition to the installment of all the various equipment for the goods that need such installations. Therefore, customers’ satisfaction relies on the efficiency of the process and limiting errors and variations.

7. Physical evidence:

The physical evidence elements of the marketing mix refer to the tangible items related to the product or the place where the product is delivered or manufactured. This could include:

• The design of the product along with the interior and exterior design of the building, shop, office…etc.
• The theme of the website.

Design and layout are important as they need to be expressive and representative of the organization’s activity and values. For example, a sportswear retailer needs to ensure that the display, lighting, and internal design present an image of activeness and motivation.

The following processes can be completed to ensure the physical environment gives a positive experience for customers:

• The store should be clean
• The design of the store should reflect the image of the business internally and externally.
• Availability of facilities such as parking, toilet, kids’ area…etc.

The same for websites:

• Easy to navigate
• Products should be displayed with sufficient details.
• Providing information about the company and customer service should be responsive and effective.
• The layout should use colors, text and images that demonstrate the personality and image of the business.

8. Performance:

Here, this means the performance of the product that the customer obtains after the purchase process and its conformity with his expectations, whether through a mental image of the organization or the information provided by the seller, whether in person or on the website. In this matter, the after-sales service and feedback are vital to the marketing mix process, which directly affects customer loyalty and the image of the organization.

The 7 Cs as a modern perspective of marketing mix:

Along with the mentioned approaches and strategies, there is a modern approach that emerged in the field of marketing which is called the 7 Cs:

1. Clients.
2. Convenience.
3. Competition.
4. Communication.
5. Consistency.
6. Creative content
7. Credibility.

5- Technical support:

Organizations provide technical support services to their customers after the purchase process, whether in cases of installation, maintenance, or repair, as they are vital factors influencing customer satisfaction and loyalty, while the organization’s ability to provide technical support service efficiently and effectively is one of the competitive advantages and strengths that can be relied upon in marketing and promotion operations, as well as expansion and s and entering new markets. Thus the efficiency of technical support relies on the efficiency of data analysis to provide the service in a way that meets or exceeds customers’ expectations.

6- Sales:

Sales are a reflection of the extent of the success of the CRM strategy that aims to increase sales and profits in the first place. Therefore, organizations resort to promotional processes and study customer behavior and trends in order to create a promotional mix that suits their requirements and culture as follows:

The promotion mix:

The promotional mix includes a number of basic elements that aim to stimulate the sales process, the most important of which are:

1. Advertising
2. Personal Selling
3. Sales Activities / Sales Promotions
4. Publicity.
5. Public Relations

1. Advertising:

It is a non-personal means of providing goods or services by a known entity. That is, it is an activity that leads to the dissemination or broadcast of advertising messages to the public to urge them to buy the goods and services that are being advertised.

Conditions that must be met in the advertisement:

• The necessity of defining the audience to whom the advertising message is directed.
• Choosing the technical points that have the greatest impact on the audience of buyers or consumers to whom the advertising message is directed.
•  Choosing the best appropriate methods for the audience to whom the advertising messages are directed, by comparing the costs and benefits of these methods.

The difference between information and propaganda:

• Information: means that it disseminates facts, information and news among the public with the aim of spreading ideas among its members and developing awareness among them.

• Propaganda: It is an activity that leads to influencing the ideas and thoughts of the audience in order to make them believe in the contents of that advertisement. Propaganda can be done in more than one way, visible or audible alike information, however the information in propaganda is usually subliminal.

• Personal selling:

It is a personal communication that takes place through sales representatives who meet customers, present products to them, and highlight their advantages with the aim of convincing them and urging them to buy the product.

• Sales activities/promotions:

And that is through non-advertising and direct selling. The most common sales promotion methods are Samples, free gifts, special offers, promotional vouchers, and sale seasons.

• Publicity:

It is intended to raise the demand for the purchase of goods or services by publishing commercial data about them in one of the publications such as newspapers, radio, television, and internet without payment of any fee by the party concerned with publishing these commercial data however, the company may provide the publisher with samples or a free product. For example, social media influencers and reviewers.

• Public Relations:

Public relations has an important role in marketing activity in general and promotion, particularly that it develops relations with other organizations through special offers to their employees along with cooperating with similar and complementary industries.

Bottom line:

Customer relationship management is one of the modern trends in management, which began from in the seventies of the 20th century with the increase of the use of computers in business organizations. Many studies have proven that the use of this strategy has many benefits, whether in increasing profits, customer satisfaction, or the organization’s ability to predict the future trends and needs of customers, providing a competitive advantage and a reliable element of strength to ensure the organization’s survival and continuity in a highly competitive business environment.