Not without my customer data

Technical report by Dario Waechter

CRM system: single point of truth for marketing and sales

Data is one of a company's most valuable assets. It is an indispensable basis for all marketing and sales activities. In order to be able to work in a data-driven manner, a modern CRM system is required that acts as a single point of truth in the five phases of the customer life cycle.

Phase 1: Define the persona

The existing customer data in the CRM system forms an optimal basis for the persona definition. The tool consolidates the heterogeneous, difficult-to-understand data, which can be combined and analyzed with information from connected third-party systems. Modern CRM systems not only offer reporting and analysis functions, they also present the results in a clear format and provide a 360-degree view of the customer. Personas derived from this are very accurate and realistic.

Phase 2: Generate leads

If you know your buyer persona, you can target potential customers with suitable information about products and services. Ultimately, the provider who offers prospective customers what they are looking for during their research will be awarded the contract. If the CRM system is connected to digital data sources, it records all touchpoints with the respective lead and accompanies them throughout their customer journey. This allows companies to provide prospective customers with relevant information as part of multi-stage marketing campaigns, for example - until they are ready for sales.

Phase 3: Acquiring new customers

In the initiation phase, the CRM system supports sales in collecting all relevant data in a targeted manner and optimizing the process until the deal is closed. Based on algorithms, it is possible to select recorded leads according to their quality and relevance in order to then automatically assign them to the right sales employee. With the help of the CRM system, sales tasks can be prioritized as soon as they are created, follow-up calls can be planned and sales opportunities can be recorded to shorten the sales cycle. In this way, the most promising prospects can be quickly and specifically acquired as customers.

Phase 4: Supporting existing customers

Once the customer has been acquired, it is important to retain them. Optimal service requires a 360-degree view of all customers and associated processes. Ideally, all service requests are recorded in an integrated ticket system. This allows conclusions to be drawn about customer satisfaction. Combined with information from other sources, the customer history forms a solid basis for customer care. Measures initiated from the CRM system, such as newsletter campaigns or discount and bonus promotions, strengthen customer loyalty. In this way, satisfied customers gradually become loyal brand ambassadors.

5. reactivate old customers

To counteract the impending end of a business relationship in a targeted manner, the CRM solution regularly checks which customers have not been in contact for some time and reports them to marketing and sales. Companies can also use the CRM data to identify churn trends among customers whose status is not yet set as "inactive" or "lost" - based on automated workflows and parameters such as the time elapsed since the last purchase, the frequency of orders and the number of complaints.

Optimizing processes and consolidating data

What sounds easy to implement in theory is a challenge in practice in many places. Companies must bear in mind that the five phases merge seamlessly into one another and cannot be separated exactly. It is therefore a great advantage to map the relevant processes end-to-end and to continuously optimize them by using robotic process automation (RPA). By automating repetitive and therefore time-consuming tasks, software robots allow marketing and sales to focus on their core tasks: Generating leads and acquiring new customers - supported by adequate software solutions. Starting with a prospective customer's Google search and the download of content, through ordering in the store and invoicing, to the dispatch of the ordered goods and after-sales support for existing customers - all processes must be modeled end-to-end. If solutions such as marketing automation, CMS, CRM, store, ERP, accounting and logistics are integrated via middleware, companies can consolidate all customer-relevant data in one central location: in the CRM system as a single point of truth.