How a holistic, personalised customer view ensures loyal customers and increased revenue

It is important for a thriving and profitable business to have access to a holistic, 360-degree view of its customers because this gives the company a deeper understanding of its clients as people, including both their behaviours and their needs. This, in turn, allows the business to provide a personalised experience to each and every customer, and allowing them to be treated as unique individuals and not as the polar opposite - impersonal statistics which have been randomly assigned.
How a holistic, personalised customer view ensures loyal customers and increased revenue

It all adds up to just one thing: to echo the old property adage of ‘position, position, position’ being the ‘holy grail’ of any property purchase – in this context – it is ‘loyalty, loyalty, loyalty’: the prime ‘real estate’ of your company’s marketing strategy and approach.

Such a holistic customer view is enabled by a good customer relationship management (CRM) system that embraces the strategies, practices and technologies which companies use to manage and analyse their customer interactions and data. Camsoft Solutions has partnered with a globally acclaimed CRM provider, thereby offering international expertise combined with local people who have experience and understanding of the local market. This allows our clients access to powerful business intelligence that facilitates a deeper understanding of their customers.

Clarifying the ‘360 degree view’ of the customer

A workable definition is that this involves a holistic understanding of your customers’ interactions, including the following: their purchase and interaction history with your company (satisfactory as well as unsatisfactory); returns; customer comments, including via social media; their perception of the company’s customer service standards; the company’s marketing endeavours, a high-level overview of customers’ financial details, and finally sales.

The end result is that cultivating a 360 degree view of your customers results in the sort of personalised, accurate understanding makes them feel that they are being heard. This in turn inspires satisfaction and increasing loyalty – both of which are ultimately instrumental in bringing your business more revenue.

The insights that an integrated, 360 degree view of the customer can bring to the organisation are, quite logically, translated into business benefits. As a simple example, a good CRM system would ensure that your business did not send out special offers for wine to a customer who is a teetotaller. In contrast - and staying in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector - an individual customer who regularly purchases peanuts could be sent marketing promotions about assorted mixed nuts: therefore adding to the products in which they would be interested, and based entirely on their previous buying behaviour.

These personalised examples are, of course, minor sales at the level of the individual, but when a large volume of individually targeted marketing is done, the results are incremental and significant.

Improving customer relationships and retention

It is a logical extension of the above that an integrated view of your customers, as facilitated by a good CRM system, is further able to assist your organisation in better customer relationships – and retention - than your competitors:

  • Additional customer requests - as facilitated by the CRM system - can be developed into new avenues for revenue creation.
  • In addition, when a business has access to a 360-degree view of the customer, management can use the CRM system in order to carry out sales and revenue forecasts.
  • In short, a holistic view of the customer allows the business to tailor its sales and marketing campaigns; and to be more creative in leveraging up-selling and cross-selling opportunities.

In conclusion, the holistic personalisation of the customer view, and the relevant insights which this individualised, 360 degree view brings, optimises your customers’ marketing experience: making them feel unique and ‘heard’.

This, in turn, nurtures and develops their loyalty: translating into increased spend with your company, and ensuring footfall into your business’s real estate - rather than that of your competitors.

About Mark Annett

Mark Annett, head of CRM Sales and Consulting at Camsoft Solutions.
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