Many companies are realizing that they need some way to create a better experience for customers online. They want to analyze customer behavior and figure out what customers like, so that they can tailor their sites to those preferences. Doing this is likely to bring better visibility, more customer loyalty and retention, and eventually, a bigger profit for a business.
Many established companies, especially larger ones, may use a customer relationship management (CRM) platform to build customer relationships and figure out more about customer likes and dislikes. But that’s not the only way to generate this kind of information that’s so useful to a business.
What is Customer Relationship Management?
A customer relationship management or CRM tool is a platform that houses information about individual customers. It’s useful in a number of ways. First, companies can put a name with a face for each customer, and compile elaborate dossiers on each person who has interactions with the business. On the other hand, companies can also mine the customer relationship management dashboard to figure out some of the above issues — what do customers like best, and what are they looking for on the site? They can get a clear visibility of a customer’s journey on their web properties.
Alternatives to CRM for Business
As mentioned, though, having a comprehensive CRM platform is not the only way to track customer behavior and figure out how to build a better experience for the people who are visiting your website. Also, many CRM platforms can be prohibitively costly for smaller firms.
Just evaluating an active website can tell you a lot about what customers like. There are free tools like Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools come handy. Accessing data like page views and bounce rates shows you what types of on-site content get read the most, and which ones get the most engagement or where your audience drops off. Over time, if you pay attention to these signals, and create more engaging content, you’re bringing more value to customers, and building a more loyal customer base.
At the same time, you can use the same approach with visuals and special features. Given the right kind of site set up, you’ll be able to see how often people view a certain video, or what part of the site they gravitate to.
This is just one more reason why extensive website work is so important. Companies may be able to get by without CRM, but increasingly, they can’t get by without an optimized website that really reaches out to customers through an inbound marketing model, and makes them feel comfortable, so that they spend more time on the site and get more interested in what the business is all about, and finally buy.
WebSubstance can help your company to build one of these professional, interactive websites. We understand the principle of customer experience and how it brings companies big dividends. Talk to us about how to structure your site to make it customer-friendly. Figure out how to bring your website visitors a better online journey that can result in real business for you.
