What is a retail CRM?

Imagine having a centralized platform that's specifically built for retail teams to get a complete picture of all of their client information, all in one place. That's what a retail CRM is built to do.

With built-in tools to help you keep track of names and dates, it's the digital transformation retailers need to elevate their business beyond manual note-taking.

If you're considering investing in a retail CRM for your retail business, read on for everything you need to know about what a retail CRM is, how it benefits retailers, and how Clientbook can help optimize your retail strategy.

What is a CRM?

CRM stands for "customer relationship management." While CRM can refer simply to the process of managing relationships with customers, in most cases, people use the term CRM to refer to a CRM software.

A CRM software system stores and manages data on all of a business's contacts—including their customers, leads, and even referral partners—all in one place. CRMs make it easy to filter and sort through your contacts and track things like site visitors, sales opportunities, marketing campaigns, and more.

In short, customer relationship management software is a single platform that serves as a customer database, communication tool, and analytics dashboard all in one.

What is a retail CRM?

A retail CRM solution is a customer relationship management system that's built specifically for retail businesses to keep track of their customer segments and leads.

A CRM for retail will include data and features like:

• Customer profiles with contact details and product preferences for each of buyers
• Credit card and other payment information a buyer has provided
• Automated email reminders on when to to reach out to a key customer
• Omnichannel order history so sales associates can see when and where a shopper has purchased an item from your store—whether at your brick-and-mortar store or online
• Social media integrations to easily promote product releases and sales
• Filters and tags so you can easily segment customers and leads
• Lead tracking to give insight on where a lead is at in the sales process

Why is a CRM important for retailers?

If you're wondering whether or not a retail CRM is really worth it—especially if you're used to simply keeping client information in notebooks and spreadsheets—investing in a CRM system has a lot of advantages over manual note-taking.

Let's go over just a few of the benefits a retail CRM has to offer retail stores:

CRMs organize your customer base

First, a retail CRM helps keep all of the data you have on your clients organized all in one place. Think about all of the information a retail sales associate gains from a single customer interaction.

If they're doing their job well, they'll likely learn the shopper's name, who they're buying for, their product preferences, and some contact information like a phone number or email address.

Without a CRM, that sales associate is likely jotting down these customer insights quickly on a sticky note, or worse, just keeping it all in their head. How likely is that sales associate going to remember all of that information on their own? And what happens to all of that information if that associate quits?

On the flip side, when each individual customer's data is entered into a CRM, nothing is ever lost or forgotten. That information is held safely and is easily accessible the next time you're ready to follow up with them.

CRMs make personalization easier

Next, a retail CRM makes it that much easier to personalize the shopping experience for each of your clients. Research shows that shoppers are far more likely to respond to personalized experiences from retailers over generic offers.

In fact, survey data from Epsilon found that 80% of U.S. consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences.

When you have information handy about your retail customers' names, purchase histories, birthdays, and other customer experiences, sending a personalized message is easy. Especially with a software like Clientbook that gives you automated reminders on when to reach out.

For example, if you have a client with a birthday coming up, your sales associate can easily go into the software and review items that client has purchased before and send a message with similar items that might interest your client—just in time for their birthday.

Little details like these make a big difference when it comes to customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.

CRMs allow you to track your sales team

Finally, many retail CRMs include features that allow you to easily track your sales team's progress. If you want to review all of the clients and leads one of your sales associates is managing, you can go into the software and see where each one is in the sales pipeline.

This information will give you as a business owner the insight you need to see employee performance as well as business performance to see how close your team is to hitting their goals.

Get our checklist to see how many of the top seven sales skills your team has

Why choose Clientbook for your retail business

If you're ready to upgrade your manual processes for keeping track of your clients, Clientbook is an excellent choice that's built for retail.

Clientbook is a clienteling software that's designed to help retailers better manage their client information, build stronger customer relationships, and facilitate customer communications and follow-ups.

With Clientbook, you can build unique customer profiles, build product wish lists based on a client's past purchases, get automated reminders on when to follow up with a client, and even request reviews from your loyal customers.

Several key features make customer engagement, sales efforts, marketing automation, customer service, customer data management, and other services streamlined and optimized. 

Take a look at each of our advanced feature pages to learn more:

• Client management
• Messaging
• Automations
• Teams
• Analytics

Clientbook integrates with several third-party integrations and popular POS tools. Gain deeper insights and maintain a complete history of your client base using Clientbook's retail CRM software. 

Conclusion

Investing in a CRM that's built for the retail sector is an excellent way for businesses to better manage their client relationships and manage the data they're getting from shoppers every day.

Better yet, with a tool like Clientbook, contact management is easier than ever, and you'll never forget a follow up. Schedule a demo with Clientbook today to see how we can get you started.