The digital world has changed the way we do business. It is no longer about what your product or service can do but what your customer wants.

How can your product or service solve your customer’s problem?

You need to turn the sales equation around and now look towards your customer to determine how you will design your product or service.

Your customer intentions will lead your marketing efforts.

To pull meaningful information from your customer, you need to have a system at hand that will track their every movement and interaction with your retail business.

In the retail market, you need to know what your customer wants and follow them throughout the sales funnel.

Let’s talk about how important a CRM system is for your retail business when it comes to increasing productivity and profits.

CRM Software Benefits For Retail Sales

Designed with Desygner

What is a CRM System?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and as the name suggests, it is a comprehensive system that helps you track every movement of your customer.

But it is not only a tracking tool but will also help you generate reports and forecasts so you can make sound decisions in the future.

When the CRM first was used in businesses, it was primarily used as a sales tool, but with time it has come into its present form, which is a complete platform where you can not only capture sales but also customer interactions and intentions so that you can capture leads and increase profits.

When looking at different kinds of CRM’s we can divide them into the following categories:

• Collaborative – This kind of CRM actually brings different departments of business together onto the same page so that they can collaborate effectively.
• Operational – This kind of CRM is primarily used to capture all the touchpoints that your customers have with your business. It usually has automation features.
• Analytical – An analytical CRM will analyze data to create reports and forecasting based on the data captured. These reports will be used to make decisions about the company’s future

Most CRM’s available in the market today will provide an overlap of these three features. Some CRM’s are specific to the industry; for example.

If you are in a specialized industry like real estate, it might be worth it to purchase a CRM that is specifically designed for that.

What a CRM System Can Do For You

A CRM can transform your retail business. If you are a new business and would like to make sure all of your staff are on the same page, then having one platform where all important data can be fed into will provide an opportunity for you to use this data in the most efficient manner.

A CRM will perform the following basic functions for you:

• Manage your Contacts– Bringing all of your contacts into one platform will help you better organize them.
• Track Interactions– Track all of your interactions with clients in an effective manner
• Marketing Campaigns– Will organize your marketing campaigns so that they increase sales.
• Manage Leads– Manage leads so that you capture them and turn them into sales
• Manage Workflows– A CRM will help your staff manage their workflows in a more effective manner.
• Capture Documents– A good CRM will have a document capture option so that you can make sure you have important customer documents in one place.
• Cohesion between Sales and Marketing– a CRM will enable you to have your marketing and sales teams talk to one another so they can collaborate effectively

CRM has amazing benefits for large and small businesses;

it can help you maintain a centralized record on your WooCommerce eStore, track customer interactions across the web, monitor customer transaction history, customer behavior, automate follow-ups, and more to increase profits and sales.

It even facilitates you if you want to convert WooCommerce to Shopify or any other WP platform. It will allow a smooth transition and won’t affect sales at all.

Track Leads that Turn into Sales

Your primary concern as a retail business is to make sales and bring in a profit. If you are not doing that, you definitely need to look at your sales strategy.

Without sales, your business cannot grow. So when looking at how a CRM can bring in more sales and profit, you need to assess what your business is doing right now.

Before implementing a new CRM system, you should do an overview of how sales are doing right now.

After taking that overview, you can then look at how you can improve your sales funnel and the issues.

A CRM will actually give your sales time important information about each client so that they can have that ready when they are trying to make a sale. They can know about the intention of the customer by looking at the data captured by the CRM. The system will give you more customer insight.

Forecasting using Your CRM System

When looking at how CRM systems can increase sales and bring in profits, we must pay attention to the forecasting feature of CRM systems.

If you see some trouble ahead by knowing this beforehand, you can always pivot and change strategy to protect your business. Without forecasting, you will not be able to make these decisions.

Without this tool, you will have individual salespeople interpreting data differently, and this will result in confusion for your business.

Without a CRM, you will be using excel spreadsheets where you are manually entering data. This can lead to human error and will waste a lot of time for your staff.

With a CRM, sales forecasting is automated. Businesses saw an increase of 28% in forecasting accuracy when using a CRM.

AI Managed Predictions

The next state of forecasting after using the CRM system is making predictions using Artificial Intelligence. AI is now the future in regards to digital marketing and sales. In CRM’s case, AI technology will help you fine-tune your analytics and take your forecasting to the next level.

Here are three ways AI will improve your forecasting:

• Scoring-With AI, you will be able to score specific deals to see if they will close or not. This will help you determine how much time you should be spending on certain clients. It will make your sales team more efficient and effective in closing deals.
• Customer Stages– AI will help you determine at which stage each customer is at. If you know at what point a client is in the sales funnel, you can target them with specific messaging that will help you close the deal.
• Identify Growth Paths– AI will help you identify which areas potentially could give your business more sales. You can then employ more labor in those specific sectors.

Strategic Needs of the Business Met

Looking at the overall goals of your business is essential. Higher management is always trying to look at the big picture and foresee the future. The strategic needs of your business are important in order to make sure you can fulfill your long-term plans.

Strategic needs include performance goals that your business sets from beforehand. In order to achieve those, you need to work out a plan step by step to get there.

A CRM can help you chalk out that plan so that you know if you are on the path of achieving your goal. And if you are not on the right path, it can alert you so that you can make changes in your strategy so that you can achieve your long-term goal.

A CRM System can Increase Productivity and Profits in Retail Sales

For retail businesses, having a clear path to sales and profit is essential. A CRM system will provide you with the platform to achieve that. Without it, your retail business will be searching in the dark for ways to succeed.

Keeping staff on one page and all working towards the same goal will bring your business closer to what you want to achieve.