An e-commerce CRM is a tool that allows you to manage your online store, save contacts, run marketing campaigns, and automate repetitive tasks for streamlined operations.
Imagine you are running a business, and you want to inform your customers about an upcoming festive sale you are thinking of. You head over to your e-commerce platform, select the customers you want to target, create a marketing message, and send this information directly to your customers' inboxes.
Now, consider a situation where you have to perform all of these activities using separate software. Would you still consider it a cost-effective and efficient way to streamline your e-commerce business? I doubt that.
Having a centralized system to manage your e-commerce operations effectively is a must-have. On top of that, the increasing number of customers opting to use online stores rather than physical ones has reached a very high number. In fact, almost 80% of consumers purchase something online monthly.
This goes to show that utilizing a unified solution that can let you handle this increasing number of customers and their demands has become a necessity. To handle this, CRM is the software that has emerged among the sea of millions of tools.
An all-around CRM can let you do pretty much everything from a single location with no need for having to spend money on multiple tools and clutter your tech stack. Having said that, in this article, I will go through the importance of an e-commerce CRM and the steps to leverage it to scale your online store.
Let’s dig into it!
We marketers have a habit of combining words to create a new concept with a totally different meaning. For example, by adding CRM after WhatsApp, you get the WhatsApp CRM. However, what it simply means is integrating a CRM system with WhatsApp to use both of their capabilities from a single tool.
The same is the case with the e-commerce CRM.
An e-commerce CRM is a centralized hub, allowing you to manage your e-commerce activities right from a singular tab, rather than switching between different solutions. It is the software you use to store contacts, run marketing campaigns, manage communications, and automate your everyday tasks.
A good e-commerce CRM lets you make the most of your data by enriching it with AI, something modern CRM platforms commonly come with these days. This way, you can add new details to the platform, enabling you to better personalize your customer engagements to drive more sales.
A CRM is more than just a database containing your customers’ details. It has the potential to become a workplace suite for you to monitor various aspects of your e-commerce business. That being said, here are some of the benefits that the right CRM software can provide you with:
No matter which CRM platform you choose, it is essential for it to include a robust feature set to create a hub for managing your daily e-commerce activities. For example, ensure that the CRM you are going for includes powerful contact management, communication capabilities, and automation functionality to eliminate redundant everyday tasks.
Zixflow, a full-customizable CRM, gives you access to all of these features. It is a great choice for businesses of all sizes, resulting in the overall scaling of your business.
Although a good CRM is a complete package by itself, it still cannot do everything by itself. There is a time when you have to integrate it with external tools to further optimize your complex tasks.
So, make sure your CRM supports advanced integrations for efficient transfer of data from multiple sources, enabling you to create a solid directory of customer data in one single place.
Zixflow’s native CRM comes with a number of integrations, using which you can connect the platform with thousands of external apps. Manage all your business aspects, be it acquiring prospects to converting them into paying customers.
Your customers are not going to wait for you to be at your desks to reach out to you or interact with your sales team. Having the ability to access customer information on the go can greatly streamline your operations and enhance overall customer engagement for more sales.
You can leverage Zixflow’s mobile app to view your messages, access contacts, and manage upcoming tasks directly from your phone wherever you are.
A good CRM also lets you keep track of how well your outreach efforts are going and find the areas for improvement. Using visually-charged dashboards, you can quickly see the performance of your marketing campaigns and gauge the engagement rates including delivery, open, and read rates.
With this kind of analytical report, you can make data-driven decisions, and adapt a customer-centric sales strategy for your e-commerce business.
A CRM is a platform that contains all the details of your customers along with their messages and past interactions they had with your teams. What this means is that relevant departments should have access to the right data for seamless customer engagement.
Also, by giving access to the CRM data to your team members, you can stop the formation of organizational silos and ensure internal teams can work without any permission issues.
With so many tools available, selecting the correct platform is crucial for business success. That being said, there are several factors you have to consider before you decide to go for a CRM to build a tech stand. So, some of these aspects are:
A CRM solution is the one you and your team are going to use every day. It is something that will help you manage most, if not all, of the aspects of your e-commerce business. For this reason, make sure that you pick the one that is intuitive and doesn’t require a very high learning curve.
Since all the members of your company are going to access this platform, having a solution that doesn’t rely too heavily on technical expertise should be a good option. Otherwise, you would have to spend time and resources on bringing everyone up to speed, something that could result in reduced sales efficiency.
A well-crafted CRM that is both easy to use and, at the same time, customizable according to your needs can help you boost the overall performance of your staff members.
Nowadays, it is the unified platforms that are becoming the preferred choice for business. Long gone are the days when you have to get different software for everything you want to do.
With that said, your CRM should either come with the built-in capabilities to run marketing campaigns or should at least support integrations to popular e-commerce marketing tools to engage your customers.
That is not all. As there are numerous marketing channels your customers can use, the more your CRM includes the better it will be for you to connect with your target audience. After all, a multichannel marketing strategy is becoming kind of a norm.
Select a CRM that offers an omnichannel marketing functionality for you to set up and run promotional campaigns effectively. Zixflow enables you to implement a truly multichannel marketing strategy where you can combine traditional channels like SMS and email with modern ones like RCS and WhatsApp.
When you are starting your e-commerce business, you can make do with a CRM that provides limited functionality. However, once your business begins to grow, you also need your CRM to scale equally.
Having an outdated tool will reduce the overall effectiveness of your team, thereby resulting in lower sales performance. Plus, changing the CRM multiple times can also lead to loss of data and waste of time on the onboarding process.
A robust and scalable solution will ensure that your business keeps on operating with the same level of efficiency even with an increased number of customers. So, keep this aspect in mind when researching a platform.
An extension to the previous point, when your e-commerce store becomes bigger, so will the things you need to manage. With more products, customers, and tasks, you are bound to take the help of automation workflows to streamline your daily operations.
Your CRM should provide you with the required automation capabilities so you can automate repetitive tasks, reducing the workload on your teams. Additionally, the process to automate your tasks should also be easy enough that it doesn’t ask for specialized assistance from a developer or a technical expert.
We at Zixflow understand that, and this is why we designed our automation editor, Flows, with such simplicity that anyone can take advantage of it for setting up effective workflows. The automation platform is completely code-free and its drag-and-drop interface allows for lightning-fast deployment.
Don’t believe me? Here is a video to prove it to you:
Moreover, after you run the marketing campaigns for quicker engagement with customers, you need a way to follow up on your initial messages on time. In fact, 80% of conversions require you to send five or more follow-ups before you can successfully close the deal.
This goes to show that just sending a message and expecting a sale is a dream that is too good to be true. That’s why, following up on your messages is crucial for staying relevant in your customers’ lives and keeping them interested in your offerings, increasing the likelihood of repeat business.
Sales cadences or follow-up sequences are one of the best ways to keep nurturing your customers by sending timely, relevant follow-ups. Using these automated sequences, you can decide when and what kind of messages to send along with the channels most preferred by your customers. Doing so, boosts the chances of not just getting sales but also building solid relationships for long-term business success.
Running a business is a complex task. It requires you to constantly make decisions to help you optimize your growth and get the most out of your investments. You cannot hope to make these decisions without accurate data signaling potential weak points.
Once again, your e-commerce CRM should give you insights into various customer data and outreach analytics for effective sales engagement. If the CRM does not come with a native reporting dashboard, ensure that it supports integration with third-party analytics tools for you to monitor your operations.
An e-commerce CRM is more than just a tool to store customer data. It has the potential to become a centerpiece of your tech stack, giving you the required insights and modern management features to enhance your overall business performance.
So, are you also looking for an e-commerce CRM for your team? I've got great news.
Zixflow is a next-gen platform that is more than a CRM. With its centralized approach, you can manage all of your essential tasks right from a single solution.
What’s the wait for then? Sign up for a free 7-day trial to see it in action today.