Freedom and Equality – are you treating all of your customers in the same way with the right Customer Relationship Strategy?

With the roaring success of social media today, customers are much more able and likely to shop around. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a term that is often referred to in marketing but really it is the basis of good business practice which is to ‘know thy customer’ and ‘build customer relationships’.

A successful CRM strategy should follow these three steps:

Understand who your customers are. Is your product or service designed for a niche market or is it something that could be blanket marketed to a much wider audience?

Understand what your customers need from you. Strong relationships are based on good communication and a knowledge of what is expected. Are your customers looking for ongoing after-sales service from you or will it be a one off purchase where they will walk away?

Put the right systems in place to support your customers. Although the relationships you build with your customers will be personal, you need to have systems in place that help you to manage these relationships. Find out how your customers want to be contacted and establish these channels early on.

Becoming customer-centric is at the heart of running a successful small business. Having the right CRM strategy can completely transform the way your business runs and will include your people, processes and the technology you use. Understanding these three key areas is essential – ignore any of them and your CRM programme will hardly get off the ground…

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