The majority of online businesses have some type of CRM software in place since it is essential when conducting business over the internet. If you are wondering about CRM software and why it’s considered essential, then you are in the right spot.

About CRM Software for Ecommerce

A client relationship management application (CRM for short) is a piece of software that interfaces with your website and monitors what your customers are doing across all your sales channels. It then creates instant customer profiles based on order data, complete with shipping and returns history. Good CRM software for ecommerce also generates robust reports, tells you what’s trending, includes notes and task lists, calendars and even project management features that your team can use.

While this information is helpful, another feature the CRM offers is the ability to generate revenue. There are modules that can be added to the CRM which give you the option of running personalized email marketing campaigns that can boost traffic and sales, automate returns, shipping software and so much more. The sky is really the limit here.

Using the CRM to Understand Your Customers

Good ecommerce CRM software will give you real-time access to visitor and customer data from all your sales channels. These metrics let you know what areas of your website are the most popular with visitors, what sales channels customers are coming from and what products are trending or being returned and why. This gives you the ability to make small changes to your online store, sales channel, inventory or customer service model to generate great sales and improve loyalty and retention.

If the CRM you are using has an email module, you will be able to send out targeted emails to people who recently visited your website. Because the CRM tracks all of the people who are going to your website, you can refer to what parts of your website they visited and send them focused advertisements based on those visits.  These targeted messages should give you a higher rate of conversion than what you would experience if you were sending out generic messages to a broad group of people.

Now that you know about CRM software the next thing you should do is start reviewing all of the various CRM options that are suitable for your online niche. You must have a CRM on your website if you hope to gain a competitive advantage so begin reviewing the various options now.