What Is Customer Management? Processes and the Best Management Software

Vũ Khôi

Author at Wotech Electronics Blog

As the business environment becomes ever more fiercely competitive, every company, store, or establishment needs effective business management to gain an edge over rivals in the same industry. One factor that can help create that advantage is managing customers effectively. So what is customer management, how does the process work, and why is a CRM system so widely applied in customer management? Let's find the answers to those questions in this article from SimERP!

What Is Customer Management?

Customer management is an approach that helps business owners, stores, or establishments approach, communicate with, and interact with customers effectively — capturing buyer information and providing appropriate care and support, thereby improving business quality and performance.

Customer management is considered an extremely important task because it heavily influences a company's business. "The customer is king" — customers are the very source of revenue, so taking care of them is, of course, a must. The clear purpose of customer management is to attract and retain customers. Understanding this, companies and stores can collect customer information, seek out and attract new customers, and continue nurturing relationships with those already loyal.

The Customer Management Process

Collecting Customer Information

The first step businesses and stores must take is to capture, update, and collect customer information. That information may include personal details, demographic data (age, gender, area of residence, occupation…), the customer's financial situation, or any other information useful to your business.

The more detailed and complete this information is, the smoother your work will be. It is considered the first step toward understanding customer needs so you can roll out policies that are effective and appealing to them — each customer segment requires a different approach.

Building a Customer Database

With today's leaps in technology, customer data can be stored right within the store's or company's management system. That database is managed systematically and centrally on a single platform.

At some businesses, each customer is even assigned a unique customer code; staff can use that code to look up and review the customer's transaction history.

Analyzing and Selecting Target Customers

For a business to identify its target customers within that enormous volume of data, the following analysis steps are also needed:

• Build a customer rating and ranking system.

• Classify personal customer information (individual customers) and company information (group or corporate customers).

• The customer's occupation and their monthly income level?

• Whether the customer runs any business of their own?

• The geographic distribution of customer segments.

Specific customer information at any given time can change flexibly depending on their actual situation within your business's locality. Customer data needs to be consolidated and reorganized so you can identify the customer group that is largest in size and capable of bringing the greatest benefit to the business.

Data Management

Next, the customer management process requires businesses to manage customer data well, because it is a valuable and essential source of information for the future.

The customer data repository must be managed and monitored according to the company's rules. Beyond analyzing target segments, it also helps the business fine-tune its operations to match evolving customer tastes and trends.

Using the Customer Database Effectively

Competition in business is growing ever fiercer, so companies need to segment their customers carefully and in the finest detail. This ensures effectiveness in customer management. Segmenting customers by needs, habits, preferences, income level, and so on makes management better — and it also allows the business to proactively design customer-care policies that are appropriate and effective.

>>>> See more: Pros and cons of managing customers with Excel you should know

Managing Potential Customers

What Is a Potential Customer?

A potential customer is someone who wants to own, or has a need for, a specific product now or in the future.

Unlike customers who have already used the product, potential customers are not yet ready to commit or need time to learn more about the product and the quality of the company's customer service before making a purchase decision.

For example, if you own a customer management software company, the buyers you target might be small and medium-sized businesses that genuinely need to purchase your software and have sufficient financial capacity to buy it in the future after researching the product. This is a typical example of a potential customer to give you a clearer picture of the concept.

Methods and Evaluation Criteria for Potential Customers

Potential customer management means using systems, methods, and practical experience to generate new leads, typically run through a variety of programs and campaigns.

Effective lead management gives you a competitive advantage, allowing you to proactively communicate with and serve potential customers in the best possible way.

Below are two evaluation criteria your business can leverage to identify truly potential buyers, making management easier:

• Check whether the lead matches your defined target customer.

Customer data is a crucial factor that helps a business accurately identify its potential customers. That data may include industry, geographic location, the customer's finances, and more.

• Does the lead's behavior resemble your defined target customer?

You need to identify the factors behind successful transactions with your business. By presenting different sets of questions to each customer segment, you can save time when surveying the success factors in transactions. A collection form is a simple way to obtain customer data and then establish accurate criteria for evaluating potential customers.

What Is a Customer Management Specialist?

The customer management specialist is a key role within a company's structure. In this position, they are tasked with maintaining, strengthening, and growing relationships with customers in order to maximize their usage needs for the company's products and services.

Customer management specialists are divided into two areas:

• Individual customer management specialists.

• Corporate customer management specialists.

Individual Customer Management Specialist

This is a common position at banks today. With the emergence of individual customer specialists, customers' purchasing and borrowing procedures have become far simpler. Nowadays you can find these specialists anywhere — from shopping malls and supermarkets to small electronics service outlets.

Put simply, an individual customer management specialist is the person who directly contacts, introduces, and advises their customers — discussing and marketing the products and services the company offers. That may be unsecured loan packages and savings deposits at a bank, or life insurance packages at an insurance company… At the same time, these specialists are also the ones who handle customer care before, during, and after the sales contract is completed.

In the operation and growth of businesses, the individual customer management specialist plays a very important role — not only as a force driving revenue, but also, for many companies, as the face representing the company's image itself.

Corporate Customer Management Specialist

A corporate customer management specialist is responsible for reaching, advising, caring for, and developing the business customer segment. This is an important position — the face of the company when working with customers.

For customers, they are consultants for products and services tailored to each business's requirements and financial situation, always attentively listening to and answering every customer's questions.

For companies, they are a solid wall protecting the organization against industry-specific risks. For example, in banking: depending on experience level and each bank's structure, a corporate customer management specialist typically handles 50–100 accounts and can generate 0.5–1.5 billion VND in profit for the bank each year.

CRM Customer Management Software

What Is CRM?

CRM stands for "Customer Relationship Management." Simply put, it is how a company manages its customer interaction and care activities, thereby building a loyal customer base for the business.

Characteristics of CRM Customer Relationship Management

CRM Is a Method

CRM is a method because it is a way of finding, organizing, and handling customer relationships. At the same time, CRM is also a strategy, because it comprises a clear, detailed plan. In fact, the CRM strategy can be seen as the foundational strategy for every other strategy in the business. Any company strategy that fails to create, maintain, and expand relationships with target customers is considered unfit to serve the organization.

CRM Requires the Participation of the Entire Organization

CRM is not just for sales and marketing, nor is it primarily the responsibility of the customer service department. Every department, with its respective function, is involved in the CRM strategy. In other words, CRM is a strategy devised and executed with the involvement of all departments and units in the company. If CRM does not involve some department — say, IT — the quality of customer relationships suffers accordingly. Likewise, if any unit in the company stands outside the CRM plan, the business runs major risks in managing its customer relationships.

CRM Means Creating, Maintaining, and Expanding Customer Relationships

This means CRM covers a customer's entire cycle and buying behavior (before – during – and after purchase), and is tightly linked to the company's business processes (advertising – sales – and after-sales care). When executing a CRM strategy, you must obtain and analyze data about your target customers and their buying behavior. From this high-quality source of information, you can better understand and predict customer buying behavior.

The Role of CRM Customer Relationship Management

For Customers

• CRM plays a vital role by always being ready to serve customers with the best services, shaped by their preferences, trends, and desires. This helps foster a lasting relationship between customers and the business, and helps customers better understand the products, services, and the company itself.

• Thanks to the CRM system, your existing customers feel that things related to their wishes and purposes — birthdays, needs, preferences… — are being taken seriously.

For the Business

• Businesses can store customer information; this data is always essential for analysis, from which the company can uncover opportunities to engage with customers.

• CRM helps businesses retain customers and build customer loyalty.

• CRM supports businesses in managing customers, listening to their feedback, easily monitoring business conditions and the company's direction, and storing the entire history of transactions with customers — past, present, and predicted future.

• It helps businesses advertise products and build brand image quickly, easily, and cost-effectively. CRM also serves as a supporting tool that helps businesses manage their staff in the most effective, focused way.

• Cutting costs — raising profits.

• Reducing the use of overlapping, inconsistent software applications that cause management and usage difficulties and waste investment costs.

For Managers

• It helps managers make accurate, timely decisions based on real-time databases.

• It helps leadership compare business performance across the past, present, and projected future. From there, they can easily spot difficulties and potential risks and promptly put appropriate solutions in place.

• CRM also helps managers assess business conditions and the productivity and performance of each employee.

• Setting up, managing, and tracking all information about the company's business campaigns for maximum effectiveness.

For Sales Staff

• CRM creates an ideal working environment where all information and data is centralized and shared throughout the company.

• CRM allows sales staff to manage their time and workload effectively, while helping them grasp each customer's information so they can reach out and provide timely care — building the company's reputation and retaining customers for the long term.

• Minimizing avoidable mistakes and risks — improving efficiency.

• CRM helps arrange, organize, and schedule work, thereby avoiding time conflicts.

• CRM lets staff and managers track and monitor phone calls within the company — helping them plan who to call and when, how long to talk, and whether it was done or forgotten…

>>>> See more: SimCRM — free online customer management software for sales teams

Introducing SimERP and Its CRM Customer Management Module

About SimERP

SimERP is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software built and developed on Odoo — the world's most popular ERP software, with a series of outstanding advantages. Today, SimERP has developed more than 30 core modules with nearly 1,000 flexibly customizable apps, serving more than 15,000 partners and over 4.5 million users worldwide. Among SimERP's close partners are 24h Visa, Drinkies by Heineken, BiboMart, Trung Nguyên Group, Flexfit Furniture, and more.

Introducing the CRM Customer Management Module

As a core module of SimERP, the customer management module helps you track leads effectively, seize opportunities, care for customers, and receive the most accurate forecasts.

Key Features

• Lead management: Record, store, and classify your company's lead information.

• Opportunity management: Manage, track, evaluate, and decide which leads become opportunities.

• Customer information management: Customer information and care history is stored in detail in the system and updated in real time.

• Reporting support: Automated report aggregation and statistics to improve the company's business performance.

Advantages

• Vietnamese language support.

• Free trial available.

• Accurate forecasting.

• Fast customer engagement and connection.

• Handles and automates customer care steps.

Using Technology to Manage Customers Better

Above is the information on customer management, the customer management process in businesses, and how to manage potential customers effectively. However, each specialized industry has its own management criteria to serve a company's specific needs. To manage customers truly effectively, beyond building and orienting their own needs, businesses need strong support from software and solutions to identify what needs to be done and automate the management process. Wish you success!

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