Critical Thinking Strategies for Business Decisions

Redefining relationships with customers

In recent decades, a significant and lasting shift in customer behavior has been realized. The shift has been largely associated with technological advancements, which have led to a change from interpersonal to online business. Consequently, customers have found themselves communicating with their goods and service providers online at the comfort of their homes (Monahan, 2000). However, the trend of increased customer demands for digital experiences has pushed many businesses to a tough corner, especially those that have been relying on physical locations for their business activities. For such businesses, finding customers, understanding their needs and preferences was reliant on personal interaction. However, the recent shift in consumer behaviour requires that such businesses changed redefined their customer relations if they wanted to gain back their market share.

The first step in redefining customer relations should be introducing Customer Relationship Management (CRM). A CRM system empowers a business to productively gather an abundance of information on its customers' practices and preferences. After sufficiently understanding its customers and their preferences, the business can rapidly react to information through customized communications. The solutions may also play an important role in helping the business adjust to its marketing and sales practices. Putting resources into a CRM framework may be one of the best ways to expand customers' commitment and retention in this digital era.

Riedmann-Streitz (2018) argues that entrepreneurs ought to carry out CRM frameworks to gather every information they hold on clients. Such data may include sales in the previous period and the interactions that may have occurred between the customers and the customer service teams. The more a business thinks about its clients, the simpler it becomes to meet their future requirements. Having an entire outline of every one of a business' clients also assists a business to create segments of its customer base and foster different strategies for each.  

The data collected and analyzed in real-time as offered by CRM tools make it possible for companies to collect straight-away information on their customers. For SMEs, getting an all-around view of customers in real-time is important, especially where there may be a likelihood of a rise in economic uncertainty. CRM programming will help entrepreneurs execute appropriate sending, onboarding, and progressing customer loyalty initiatives that give anticipation for revenue. While using CRM tools to redefine customer relationships, there would be more success in marketing tactics and strategies if the resulting decisions were made based on data and customer-centered information.

Sound customer knowledge and perspective in marketing campaigns facilitate an increment in customer relations. When a business creates positive customer interactions, a situation of confidence encourages repurchases and unshaken loyalty all result. Consequently, higher customer lifetime values result.  One of the vital patterns in CRM programming is consumer satisfaction. However, customer satisfaction exceeds pure good service. This chain response of customer-driven development begins when the marketing and sales teams understand customer expectations, the reasons for such expectations showcasing, and outreach groups know what clients are expecting and the best way to deliver products or services to customers in a manner that goes beyond their expectations.

The same case is what applies to an expo or a company conference. Instead of launching a sales pitch as an attempt to close the deal, it is more important that entrepreneurs become acquainted with their customers and interact with them in a more individualized manner. The result is the be benefit realized by using a CRM platform to redefine customer relationships.

There is a quick evolution of the dynamics of customer relationships in the business world. As a result, experiences are winning over transactions while satisfaction goes past experience. CRM solutions give organizations the information required to automate their processes and improving customer experiences. A CRM framework can be lacking part required by businesses in moving closer to their customers, generating more leads, and increasing their revenue in the current strained market.

However, there are potential drawbacks of subscribing to a CRM system while trying to redefine customer relationships. According to Matovic, however, implementing a CRM solution may be a great way of making the most out of a business's assets; it may cause serious problems to the business. He argues that CRM solutions are costly to implement. While implementing the solution, a company will be required to implement it along with other software and pricing plans. The attachments make the process even more costly and unaffordable for many businesses. Other factors such as data migration and conversion of business operations may make the process even more tedious, especially with their effects on the cost of CRM implementation. Moreover, Matovic argues that CRM implementation is likely to face culture resistance, especially in a business that may have an established business culture that has existed for a long time. Consequently, as the management enters into a tang of war with the employees due to the implementation of the CRM, customer relations may end up breaking down even further rather than getting the intended results of the redefining process.

Conclusion

Matovic's argument, to some extent, does not beat logic by especially because he considers the costs of implementation, overlooking the losses that may be realized when customer interactions are broken down, especially in the present world. In their opposition against Matovic, Peel & Gancarz (2002) argue that a business will incur more costs when its customer relations are disintegrated compared to implementing CRM solutions. Moreover, an effective CRM system comes with options that can be used to counter resistant business culture. Consequently, as opposed to Matovic's argument, it is easy to beat a resistant culture to implement CRM solutions using an effective CRM system. Indisputably, it is important for businesses to regularly redefine their customers' relationships, and a CRM framework is the most effective tool for the process.

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