The way customers and prospects perceive your company is your brand identity. This perception depends on several factors like product range, service quality, post-sales support and your ability to respond to customer queries. If you deliver properly on all fronts, customers will praise your company and your brand reputation will increase.

To gain such a strong brand equity and customer loyalty is by no means an easy task. It calls for consistent efforts. And tapping into the complete potential of your CRM software can help you strengthen your firm’s identity. Utilize it to collect and analyze consumer data, and to create and distribute your message. Here are some tips to use CRM to strengthen your brand:

1. Tracking interactions

In today’s internet era, customers are always connected and volunteering a staggering amount of data about themselves online. Monitoring these interactions and tracking them via your CRM software will empower you with some very useful insights you can leverage when interacting with your clients.

Further, these tools also enable you to keep a track of all your interactions with the customers. This, in turn, helps you address customer queries in a quicker more streamlined fashion. A rapid response strategy portrays how much you care about your client which gives them a reason to be nothing but appreciative of you.

2. Storytelling

The internet has revolutionized the way customers interact with brands. Therefore, it’s essential for businesses to have a genuine voice and image online. One way to personify your brand authentically is to use storytelling. The key to a good story is knowing your target audience.

A robust CRM software gives you all the relevant information about your target market enabling you to craft better stories to attract more customers. It can also provide you key insights to determine the best way to put these stories out there for customers to see. In turn, helping you improve your brand reputation.

3. Social media

It’s no secret that consumers are no longer interested in traditional sales pitches. They expect to be wowed by innovative means. Enter social media – a platform that lets your business organically engage with your market.

With an integrated CRM software, you can listen to and track conversations on topics relevant to you on various social media platforms. By leveraging this functionality, you can provide customers with content that is applicable to them. This will help you build trust and brand loyalty amongst them as well. Loyal customers are likely to share your content as well thus growing your brand reputation.

4. Managing online image

Social media is a double-edged sword. While customers view a brand on social media as open and authentic, an online presence leaves the door open for negativity as well. It’s crucial then to be protective of your company image online and to pull out all the stops to ensure you are respected and well-liked in your field.

You should have a plan of action to deal with any negative comments or reviews you might get. Be quick to respond, acknowledge and deliver to the aggrieved client. Leverage your CRM to provide an improved quality of customer service to your clients. The more you go out of your way to help them, the more positive press you are likely to gain.

5. Customer feedback

While we are on the subject let’s talk about customer feedback and how CRM can help you manage it efficiently. Brand reputation and customer service quality go hand in hand. That is why it is of dire importance that brands employ a strong feedback strategy to track, analyze and address customer issues before they escalate.

CRM software allows you to organize feedback and identify key concerns. The sooner you can identify the problem, the sooner you can resolve the matter. While a single negative review can hamper your business, few good ones can help you portray a positive company image.

6. Track patterns

A key functionality of a good CRM tool is that it helps you collect relevant data about your target market – from demographic factors to buying habits and preferences. Analyzing this gold mine for common traits and patterns will help you improve your market strategy.

Categorize your customers, develop customized marketing messages and information from them. Targeted and specialized messages have proven to more effective than mass communications. CRM will help you streamline your efforts as you’ll have a better idea of what a market segment prefers.

7. Refresh your image

There are times that call for a brand image to be rebuilt to make it more relevant to your target audience. But to do that you must be able to understand what the customers want from you. Whether they expect more from you, or there are aspects of your business that aren’t working out, CRM helps you identify these issues.

CRM lets you have an ear on the ground so that you can figure how best you can revamp or refresh your brand image and work towards improving how customers and prospects perceive you.

Conclusion

As you can see, CRM can help you turn your business into a real sales powerhouse. It helps you save a great deal of time as well which can be better utilized innovating, marketing and dealing with other critical areas. Additionally, it provides you key insights about your business and the market so that you may, in turn, improve your brand perception.