Tag: Retail CRM

How CRM helps retailers reduce risks and strategize business/product development accurately!

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ETP blog CRM for retail

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) may be perceived as an enhanced customer retention and loyalty strategy. Modern day CRM systems can help retailers achieve much beyond that. Using an efficient CRM system, retailers can now strategize the demand increment while optimally planning the supply or resources required at every process stage.  The key methods here are:

CRM KPIs: Retailers can deem a retail operation successful on the basis of profitability (short-term or long-term). Through CRM, retailers can redefine the rationale behind his retail activities and ascertain how they should affect the end consumer. This entails defining the purpose of the activity and attributing the right resources to the right opportunities by studying the past, present and future business positioning. Armed with this knowledge, retailers can better understand the viability of his CRM definitions with respect to the market dynamism.

Customer Segmentation: This refers to the segmentation basis the demographical/geographical and physiographical/behavioral parameters pertaining to the customers. The former presents the ‘visible’ characteristics which can be derived through registrations; while the latter constitutes characteristics which can be derived through deeper analysis. This helps retailers administer the right amount of engagement through the right channels and even define the business rules which allow different customers to be treated differently.

RFM Analysis: Although this forms a part of the customer segmentation process, the exceptional value derived through this analysis validates its special mention. RFM stands for Recency, Frequency, Monetary Analysis; Recency denotes how long ago the customer last made a purchase, Frequency specifies how many purchases the customer has made (within a specified time period), Monetary is total monies spent by the customer (within a specified time period). This analysis helps retailers to optimize their marketing and promotion spending, ensuring accurate targeting of key customers, basis the activity strategy.

Good customer relationships are the result of ‘the right product, for the right customer, in the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity, in the right condition, and at the right cost’. CRM is a way to identify each of these ‘rights’ and to segment customers accordingly.

Mobile Technology Redefining Retail

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Recently, Flipkart – India’s leading e-commerce marketplace offering over 15 million products cross 70+ categories, announced it would convert into a mobile app-only format within the year. Flipkart’s mobile traffic was at 6% a year ago, but it has increased more than 10 Times since then. The move makes sense as India is the third-largest internet market in the world with more than 243 million users, trailing China and the US in that order. Boston Consulting Group expects more than 580 million people in India to use the internet by 2018, 70-80% of them accessing the web on mobile phones.

Mobile technology has brewed exponential change in retail operations. We dive deeper into the main and most successful components of the same:

Mobile Point Of Sale (mPOS) technology has removed physical limitations on a sale check-out and created more in-store floor space. mPOS technology empowers the in-store staff to use wireless, intuitive mobile and tablet applications to accept payments on the spot. For example, the ETP MobileStore MPOS application integrates in-store item record, customer data, sales person information, product barcodes and multiple payment transactions with electronic invoice capability. This enables features like queue busting, mobile CRM, easy customer/inventory lookup, price check, quick customer service, customer registrations and promotions gratification. mPOS reduces walk-outs and reverses the trend of small basket check-outs through up/cross selling, based on personalized customer profile and secure, faster modes of payments.

Beacon is a hardware technology of nominal cost and it is small enough to be installed anywhere in the store. This battery-friendly device uses Bluetooth to transmit messages or prompts to smartphones and tablets around the store location. With the requisite permissions, beacons integrate with the company’s analytics software and access the customer’s buying history. The messages can be targeted according to past sales, current customer location, average time spent in the store, and more. It seamlessly combines the data captured from both online and physical store, directing online preferences to the retail store. According to customer research, 63% of respondents can be persuaded to enter a store by a push notification sent to their smart device via beacon technology.

The mobilization of shopping with m-commerce has grown exponentially across the world due to the swift adoption of smart mobile devices. The unique selling point remains the convenience of shopping anywhere, any time with multiple payment options. Big data analytics has helped retailers fuel their mobile marketing strategies through data-driven insights. It has helped brands reach consumers who cannot access conventional retail touch-points.

Macy’s became the Retailer of the Year 2014 by embracing image recognition, beacons, mobile wallets and event-driven mobile commerce, bringing added convenience and excitement to the shopping experience in a way few other retailers can match. Mobile technology would continue to thrive, develop and stimulate retail transformations that evolve the customer experience. In the near future, models like social media retail, virtual showrooms and 3D printed customization are going to head the next stage of change.

CRM Is A Two-Way Street In Retail

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM), as the name suggests, is primarily a customer-centric tool. But, it does have a multi-pronged effect on key business functions, proving to be the catalyst in organically evolving and optimizing retail planning and processes. Retail CRM helps retailers service, retain and grow their customer base.

The foremost and elemental expectation from a Retail CRM tool is to create more demand. It provides the necessary insights about the customer – her buying capacity, behavior or her preferences on products and promotions. It is no surprise then that many retail companies have begun implementing CRM programs in to the business. The promise of retaining and growing customer base through CRM is realized by these methods:

Loyalty programs: Global reports have shown that retailers can raise profits by 75% by retaining just 5% of the current customer-base. So, loyalty programs, if effectually planned and sustained, can be a substantial growth driving tool within the business. These programs can be planned to stay nimble as per the business objectives – to acquire more customers and make them stick, to increase transaction value from current base and to cultivate brand loyalty as a prestige token through preferential treatment.

Promotions: CRM based metrics help retailers evaluate their marketing campaigns and promotions. It applies the base of a seamless rewards and recognition program that can be automated and promoted through multiple channels. Determining the right channels for the promotions forms part of the strategy which can be allocated as per promotion phase, budget or target demographics. The promotions can be analyzed real-time to be revised or reinforced, basis customer feedback.

Personalized Offerings: This is perhaps the most significant part of retail CRM technology, albeit used inadequately, due to high dependency on external factors like trained staff, complete stock visibility, back-end system integration with real-time CRM information, etc. If these dependencies are adequately resolved, the retailer can break down his customer data and identify servicing factors which distinguish him from the competition. He can understand the product, payment, timing preferences and demographic details based on location, age, gender, race, etc. This information is worth its weight in gold, if employed successfully and executed perfectly towards providing superior shopping experiences.

ETP blog CRM

While increasing the demand side of the business remains sacrosanct, the course of action to achieve the same is subject to further correction. Most retailers reward the wrong customers and deprive the right ones by presenting equal or average service value to both.

With a powerful Retail CRM Software integrated across all operations, the retailers can have a 360° view of all business functions such as Omni-Channel and E-commerce, intuitive POS, Mobility, Daily Reports & Analytics, Social Media, Customer Support, Loyalty Programs, Promotions and Marketing Campaigns, which hold the potential to creating the desired demand from the right customer community.

At the same time, the customers’ expectations for a more delightful and better rewarding, personable experience and value will only increase through their consumption cycle with a retailer, making the transaction of knowledge and experience a two-way street.

Emerging technology is making it possible for retailers to match performance with desired pace in all channels across the globe. Cloud computing and marketing ensures that the process data shows the ‘one version of truth’ with real-time ease. Mobility in-store and online applications further provide the convenience and incentive to simply click, choose and buy. Through a powerful and engaging social media connect, brands can capture the most coveted real estate in retail – the customer’s mind. All these technological measures help improve the shopping experience, increase the brand equity and also keep feeding additional data to the CRM solution equipping it with the ability to harness potential with strategic speed.

The above points illustrate how CRM is a comprehensive tool, which can be used to not just grow the business but also to support it to stay competitive, apply sharper focus and merge the art of customer engagement with the science of derived business value.