Definition: What is customer management?
What exactly is customer management? Customer management comprises targeted measures within the company that are intended to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. The main goal of customer management is to ensure sustainable company growth in this way.
To this end, this approach aligns important processes and decisions in the company with customers and their needs. For this to work holistically, customer management should be the task of various departments, e.g. in sales, customer service or marketing.
What are the tasks in customer management?
Since customer management is a very comprehensive responsibility, it is often divided into various sub-areas that have specific tasks and goals. This is also referred to as the “4K” of customer management.
1. Customer focus
An important component of customer management is the customer orientation. “What are the wishes and needs of our customers and how can we meet them? “That is the central question that you have to ask yourself if you want to be customer-oriented. Companies should therefore analyse their target groups and their needs in detail and tailor their products or services, activities and processes accordingly.
2. Customer satisfaction
The sector is also concerned with customer wishes and expectations customer satisfaction. Because whether buyers are satisfied depends on the extent to which their expectations of a company and its products are met. Anyone who wants to increase customer satisfaction as part of customer management must therefore meet or even exceed these requirements. To do this, companies must deal precisely with their different customer groups Discuss, analyze their expectations and, for example, use surveys to determine how satisfied they are.
3. Customer loyalty
A central task in customer management: to retain customers with the company through specific measures. In the best case scenario, this will make them long-standing regular customers or fans of the brand who regularly buy and recommend the products. customer loyalty is an important issue because it is many times more expensive to attract new customers than to retain existing ones.
4. Customer value
Not every customer has the same value for companies. Customer value depends on how often and how much the buyer purchases. But it also plays a role how complex it was to attract or support this customer. The aim is to have as many customers as possible with a high customer value. In customer management, it is important for companies to know customer values and to group their buyers according to these values. In this way, they can take targeted measures for different groups. For example, they should particularly in Customer loyalty measures invest for buyers with high customer value. A key figure that expresses customer value is the Customer lifetime value.
When it comes to customer management, it is important that companies Drive all “4K” equally. Why Because they are interdependent:
.png)
Customer management It also includes the following specific areas of responsibility, that are playing on 4K:
Why is customer management important?
Many positive effects of good customer management show how important this approach is:
More effective measures: Customer management raises the Customer engagement activities on a strategic level and structures them. So are they customer-oriented measures coordinated within the company and therefore more effective.
Higher customer satisfaction: Strategic customer management helps to close the gap between customer expectations and reality. And that increases customer satisfaction.
Increased customer lifetime value: Satisfied customers are also more likely to remain loyal to companies — this allows them to generate more revenue without having to incur costs in the service area due to complaints or complaints, for example. Customer value is therefore increasing.
Higher turnover: The effectiveness of 4K shows that customer management also pays off financially. Companies that build close relationships with their customers are more likely to achieve better financial results.
Cost savings: As already mentioned, it is up to three times more expensive to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones. Good customer management can therefore save many costs, for example in the area of marketing, by retaining customers. And this minimizes administrative effort, for example in customer relationship management, because existing customers already have important information such as contact details, product preferences and interests. For new customers, they must first be queried and analyzed.
Competitive factor: At a time when consumers can choose online between what feels like an infinite selection of brands and products, a company cannot afford not to be customer-oriented. Good customer management is therefore a significant competitive advantage for companies that want to be successful on the market.
Customer Management Software
For customer management to be successful, a central collection of all important customer data is essential. Contact details, order histories, contact points, buying habits — all of this should be available to all departments with customer contact. This works best with tools or software for customer relationship management (CRM).
CRM software helps to implement customer management efficiently. How They provide a comprehensive view of the customer with consistent and up-to-date information. Departments such as marketing, sales and customer service can thus coordinate their activities. For example, this prevents customers from being addressed twice by different teams.
But the functions of modern CRM systems go beyond those of a pure database and now automate many processes. The functionalities include, for example:
- segmentation and analysis of customer groups
- so-called Lead Management
- campaign management and analyses
- automated communications such as personalized offers, individual messages to customers, reminders, and more
In doing so, they cover the entire “life cycle” of a customer.
CRM systems therefore help to take customer management to the next level.
How chatbots can support customer management
Another innovative tool that can move customer management forward is chatbots. They could also be described as the next generation of CRM. They are, so to speak, an interface to the customer, accept service requests and then conduct an automated dialogue with the customer.
By querying data during these conversations, chatbots for companies can fill gaps where important customer data is missing. But they not only help to keep data up to date, but also create personalized and positive experiences with the brand through intelligent dialogues. Chatbots also use information effectively to guide customers through the sales funnel — until the purchase is completed.
conclusion
Strategic customer management has become an important competitive factor for companies. If you want to remain successful in the future, you must become a customer-oriented organization. Because if customers have negative experiences with companies, it is now easier than ever for them to find a comparable provider and switch to it. Good customer management can prevent this by improving customer satisfaction and loyalty. And this also pays off financially for companies due to higher customer value. Customer management is therefore worthwhile!
