Contact Management for Customer Relationships

Customer Relationships are what we all depend on to pay the bills and refer more business.  Managing the relationships we create with them, and the potential clients we could onboard in our future, is an essential part of the health of our business.  We need happy customers to create revenue.  We need happy customers to create good testimonials.  We need happy customers to create fantastic referrals.  We depend on happy customers more than anything else in our business.  It is therefore a wise investment to purchase a perfect tool to help manage such an important task.

First, let’s acknowledge what it takes to build a strong relationship with a client.  The first communication of importance, seems like the least important superficially: marketing.  This is the foundation of all further personal communication with the individual customer.  It sets the expectation of professionalism and level of service.  It establishes what you know and offers that knowledge to the client base.  It prompts the customer to take action in any given situation, be it a sale, a free gift, or just a phone call or email in general.  It demonstrates to the customer when your business can be of service and encourages the customer to reach out.  A good tool should make marketing easier by managing emails and communications, possibly tracking campaigns and certainly tracking emails and phone calls.

Second, it should track the individual interaction with the client.  Emails, appointments, phone calls, should be easily captured against opportunities or activities that support interaction with the client.  Each client will have a variety of needs that they know are important.  Because these activities vary greatly, they need to be easily classified and ranked so that they can be managed and executed properly.

Finally, consider a CMS, or contact manager system, that can store files, documents, jobs and issues. The system should be able to report information about your contact base.  Demographics, market share, return on investment, and so on.  For instance, “for non-profit and membership-based organizations  (they) should help track constituents, fund-raising, demographics, membership levels, membership directories, volunteering and communication with individuals.” Wikipedia

Next week’s tech tip will include a list of tools that you can consider for such an important job!