Analytical CRM

Operational CRM is used to support a variety of daily or operational tasks. Now let's look at analytical CRM. As its name suggests it is used for analytical purposes.

Operational CRM data allows all of your staff to improve their engagement and interactions with your customers. On the other hand, analytical CRM uses customer information for analysis. In this case, the data is gathered, cleaned, and stored in a way that it can be used to identify historical trends. This data can then be analyzed and used to drive business decisions in the areas of growth, product development, customer relationships, and sales in marketing strategy.

Imagine that your company sells lawn mowers.You have a salesperson who interacts with a customer, and as they close the deal the customer request that their lawn mower be custom painted bright red. With operational CRM, it will be recorded that the customer purchased a custom color. Later, when the customer makes additional purchases, the salesperson can ask if they would like the product in bright red as well.

Now, consider the bigger picture. Imagine analyzing a large batch of customer data including that of the customer mentioned above. Now, thanks to analytical CRM, you might realize that only 10% of your customers request a customized color. However, it also comes to light that this 10% are also your highest spending customers. just think of what your marketing department could do if they realized that your most profitable customers want their lawn care equipment to be available in custom colors.

Here are some things that can be done with that information:

• Target customers who have spent the most money play special offers on custom paint colors.
• Incorporate pictures of lawn mowers with custom color schemes into product catalogs and landing pages.
• Move custom color selection to the top of the order form so it is more conspicuous.
• Instruct sales staff to mention that custom paint colors are available.
• Consider offering a wider variety of paint colors.
• Work with designers to offer custom paint color themes based on superheroes, sports teams, and college logos.
• Create social media content that gives customers advice on selecting the best color combinations.

Thanks to analytical CRM, you should be able to begin to see how groups of customers with similar demographic information tend to behave. For example, a product may seem to fall flat overall. However, once you examine your analytical data, you may realize that the product is actually quite popular with a certain group of customers. you can then make an informed decision as to whether or not it's worth producing that product for those customers, or if you should simply drop the product altogether.

The information you use can help you to create better online marketing campaigns, create new customer segments, and refine your sales processes. It is also a great tool for local marketing is it allows you to drill down to learn about the needs and preferences of people living within certain geographic areas.