After the World War era, companies mainly focused on manufacturing products in huge quantities. This made nations economically independent and filled the coffers of manufacturing industries to their brim. The parameters of deciding market winners were simple and straightforward – The more you produced, the more you gained. This was the age of mass production.
Then came the age of variety. In the 1950s-70s companies tried to differentiate themselves by producing different versions of products. Now a tuxedo of size 30 manufactured by A was different from a tuxedo of the same size produced by B. And they were available in different shades, fabrics, and colors. This helped small companies with fewer resources to outcompete big traditional players.
A few decades down the line, from the 1980s-00s, companies formulated competitive strategies and became more vocal for their products. They participated in trade shows, displayed advertisements on T.V and Radio, and roped in celebrities to promote their products. This was the age of association. The more you associated your brand with culturally acceptable standards, the more eyeballs you gathered.
Today, yet again, the market dynamics have changed. We live in an age of online socialism and instant feedback. Everyone – from babies to boomers – is interconnected. Companies fear distressed customers more than consumer courts. Thanks to social media, a slight mistake on the company’s part spreads like wildfire and results in millions of dollars of losses.
This article throws light on whether you are equipped to serve your customers in today’s day and age. And if not, how you can do so.
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Make Customer Profiles
Before building a new product, it’s necessary to make customer profiles. They help you to focus your resources, strategize your workflows, and make a proportionate saving in costs gained by an increased level of production. All in all, by making relevant customer profiles, a company increases the competitiveness of its products. Following are some parameters that help build relevant customer profiles:
- Geography:
- Based on where your customer’s stay (Urban/Rural areas, developed/developing countries, etc.)
- Demography:
- Based on your customer’s education, religion, nationality, age, income, etc.
- Psychographic:
- Based on human traits (lifestyles, opinions, attitudes, personality, interests, and values)
- Purchase history:
- Based on what products your customers’ have purchased in the past and what services they have subscribed to.
- Buying patterns:
- Based on what they prefer buying most/least
- Creditworthiness:
- Based on whether they pay back their loans on time or are a habitual defaulter.
This is where ERP and CRM software comes as a savior. It builds customer profiles based on the above patterns. These profiles serve as a guiding light during the entire product manufacturing stage.
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Collect real-time feedback
While building a product from scratch, do you have a picture of the end consumer in your mind? Do you have an idea of what they are looking for? It is an essential step because it allows you to fine-tune your offering and increase its salability. Think about the following example. You launched a mobile phone in the market and it received a lukewarm response. Instead of collecting feedback from end-users, you decided to trust your gut-feeling and introduce a new version of your phone. The new version had a sleeker body, was available in 3 new colors, and had more battery life. If only you had collected customer feedback you would have come to know that what people wanted was a better camera.
This is where CRM software comes into play. It collects real-time feedback from your customers that enables you to bring the required changes in your products and make it market-ready.
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Design customer retention strategy
Customer retention has quickly become one of the hottest topics in the world of business. This has happened because of the availability of myriad social communication channels where people share their opinion in the blink of an eye. Owing to such a huge community and lightning-fast flow of data, companies cannot risk losing this opportunity. A customer retention strategy is the need of the hour. It helps businesses to understand customer problems, provide them instant solutions, gain feedback on-the-go, procure market knowledge, and supply products at competitive prices. CRM software can take care of all of that and help build a healthy and long-lasting relationship.
Today, CRM software is a must for any business. It brings you closer to your customers and allows you to listen and understand their worries. It reveals how your target segment is evolving and also solidifies your understanding of the market.
Author Biography.
Nishant Joshi likes to read and write on technologies that form the bedrock of modern-day and age like machine learning, data science, AI, and robotics. His expertise in content marketing has helped grow countless business opportunities. Nishant works for Sage Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a leading provider of CRM and ERP Solutions to small and mid-sized businesses in India.