The increased importance of customer relationship management

As customer retention becomes a key ingredient to brand growth, and as competition increases within nearly all industries, customer relationship management is more important than ever. 

Here are a few things you can track using CRM:

• How you treat existing customers

• Which products you recommend to them

• Which email streams (or SMS streams) you have them in

• Which events you invite them to

• Which social channels you engage them on

All of this is important –– and one misstep, or lack of creative thinking, can give a competitor an edge.

Customer relationship management, then, is more than just the tracking and measuring of a relationship –– it’s how you reinforce your brand, your beliefs, your positioning, and how you continue to build your tribe of fans (AKA customers) who bring more and more people like them into your mold. 

“In a battle for eyeballs, it’s important to remember that the distance between seeing and buying is actually lengthening as noise increases. A top funnel, performance marketing-driven sale is not as sure of a bet as at was just a few years before. As digital media has begun to understand the new economy (depth over reach), DTC brands should certainly follow suit. Positioning for longevity must become a key performance indicator. That way, a brand is less likely to lose its soul for a quick uptick in sales.”

Longevity is about how you treat your customers, and the better organized you are about the first-party data you collect, and the systems and processes you use to train employees and tell the brand story through customer engagement and retention, the strong your CRM muscle will be, and your lifetime value.