During an economic downturn, consumers are more price sensitive and tend to spend less. Customers have lots of choices. The key to managing a recession successfully is to offer consumers something they can’t easily get elsewhere. Whether it’s a special experience, in-person advice, or a little of both. One way to recession proof your business with CRM. Small businesses who have a good plan for pricing and cost issues, fluctuations in cash-flow, and steep competition have a stronger chance of surviving.
The economy shrank by a colossal 20.4% in April 2020 as shops and businesses closed and workers were sent home. The ONS said that April’s fall is ‘the biggest the UK has ever seen’ and ‘almost 10 times larger than the steepest pre-Covid-19 fall.
Recession proof your business with CRM.
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems should be at the core of any business strategy during a recession. A good CRM system can help find, acquire, and retain customers. It can provide valuable customer insight enabling you to meet individual client needs. CRM unifies all points of customer interaction.
The goal of a CRM system is to retain customers, increase customer loyalty and drive organisation profitability. In difficult economic environments, like the current Covid19 environment, relationships with customers is crucial. It is these relationships that can enable you to come through and thrive in an economic downturn.
Companies that survive economic difficulties tend to be very customer centric. They are agile, adaptive, responsive, diversified and customer focused. They have a high tolerance for change and minimal staffing overheads. Most importantly however these businesses have stable customer foundations and strong cash flow.
Keeping your customers when all your competitors are knocking at their door is fundamental to a stable and sustainable operation. CRM gives you an integrated knowledge about your customers. You will have a better understanding of their issues and requirements across all your company’s functions. Imagine having all the information in one place about a client including sales and marketing, customer service and your accounting department.
CRM will help you:
- Optimise customer loyalty and lock-in.
- Ensure the quality of your service is of the highest standard and meets client expectations.
- Minimise customer churn.
It is more difficult to sell your products and services during a recession as your clients and prospects tighten their belts. Therefore is it vitally important to recession proof your business with CRM
CRM can help you address your own costs by:
- Reducing the cost of acquiring new customers
- Minimising the cost of sales and marketing
- Reducing the cost to service customers
- Optimising your internal productivity rates
- Maximising the profitability of existing customers
Having a good understanding of each of your customers allows you to be proactive and flexible in the products and services you can offer them.
CRM with its integrated information can help you by:
- Ensuring maximum revenue from each customer by recognising all the opportunities as opposed to individual ones.
- Minimising loss of future customer revenue through flexible packaged offerings that might include products, services, and support.
- Reducing fluctuations in recurrent revenue streams by having longer term contracts in place
- Lowering the chance of customer switching through comprehensive and diversified offerings and long-term contracts.
Customer centric companies are investing in CRM software to ensure that they excel in their relationships with their customers.
ProAptivity focus on the implementation, training, and support of highly customised CRM software solutions. Our CRM software provides the customer insight needed for management and control of businesses in the new normal.
If you want to assess if your business is CRM ready, maybe some of our ebooks could help! Alternatively visit Maximizer CRM for more information.
Contact us today on 028 9099 6388 or via info@proaptivity.com for a free review on how to recession proof your business with CRM
