Winning Website Tip #10 From PERQ: Creating Wins for Customers, Salespeople and Management with a Furniture CRM System

Furniture World News Desk on 10/24/2019

 

Keeping track of your home furnishing customers may feel a little like a race. A staggered race where each runner starts and finishes at different times. Some run faster than others, some drop out of the race, while others join midway.

 

Not only do they all start and stop at different points, it may feel like they are running on two different courses, online and in-store, or a mixture of both. Managing the customer’s journey can be a better experience with the right Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. 

 

Set the course and track home furnishing website leads by centralizing data in a single platform, a CRM. With a cloud-based furniture CRM system, prioritize follow-up on website leads while improving your team’s productivity and increasing sales.

 

The e-commerce CRM market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of more than 11% from 2019 to 2024 in what is already close to a $50 billion industry worldwide. Considered an investment with proven ROI as it increases conversions and tracks online lead to sales, a CRM system clearly benefits customers, sales staff, managers and store owners.

 

Each home furnishing customer’s journey would be very different if it was customized to the specific shopper’s needs, delivering personalized experiences ahead of in-store visits. How successful would your team be if you centralized customer data, prioritized leads based on when they’re in the market to make a purchase, and provided the ability to see unattended customers?

 

“Our CRM helps because we’re able to go into that customer profile and really dig into

what they were looking at on our website,” says Julia Critelli, General Manager at Critelli’s Fine Furniture. “We can go back and see all the pages that they were on and get a

better idea of their needs.”

Get Visibility into the Customer Journey with Furniture CRM System

You’re setting your sales team up to lose if you expect them to track every home furnishing customer on every course at all times throughout the purchasing journey without utilizing a CRM furniture retail system. It’s both challenging and time-consuming, if not impossible. CRMs store all your customers’ lead data with detailed histories in one place accessible on any device, empowering your salespeople to form stronger connections and deeper knowledge of the customer.

 

“With CRM, it is much easier to keep track of leads and whether they have been addressed,” says Justin Bowen, Web Content Manager with The Great American Home Store based in Memphis, Tennessee. “Before, it was not possible for management to see if leads were being addressed and it is now easier for the agent to track.”

 

With data stored in one place, the salesperson gains visibility into each customer’s preferred form of communication, facilitating personalized interactions with customers based on how they prefer to be contacted. A CRM, for example, should include automated text and email capabilities along with customizable templates. A marketing cloud-based system logs all outreach communications with customers to provide a detailed history of prior interactions. Additionally, a CRM allows managers to assign unattended leads to specific team members, so no sales opportunities get missed.

Less Attrition, More Conversion and Increased Customer Satisfaction

Greater customer satisfaction as a result of personalized experiences should lead to less attrition. Without a CRM, over 70% of online leads fail to convert. Your store’s CRM for furniture sales should filter leads based on intent to purchase or product of interest, as well as color coded leads to determine who you should follow up with first.

 

Tracking each customer’s desired method of communication, past online history and all prior interactions allows the sales team to provide better customer experiences more efficiently. By utilizing your website to facilitate customer engagement and information gathering, a well-designed CRM frees up your staff to assist in-store customers.

 

“With our CRM, we've seen lead-to-sale performance nearly double what it was before,” Bowen  says. "We are also using the system’s marketing emails and have a dedicated person who handles leads. All of those factors have contributed to the performance increase. Our average sale is about 20% higher than what it is in the store, also an increase.”

 

At Critelli’s, they utilize the CRM to target online leads when showroom traffic slows down. “Our current CRM has helped us increase productivity and efficiency during slower times,” Critelli says. “It’s been a good tool for myself and the sales staff. We are able to look at conversion, hot leads and even export data to sort based on our needs.”

What to Look for to Find the Best CRM

In a $50 billion dollar industry, there are several CRM platforms from which to select. Finding the best one for your home furnishings business makes a difference in how many customers cross the finish line.

“When a CRM is easy to use, it's easier to utilize,” Critelli says. “I think that's a big thing, because if it's not easy, they're not going to use it. Managers need to understand the system inside and out to benefit the team.”

 

In addition to ease of use, select a CRM that includes features to give your organization the best chance of success. A solid CRM not only includes contact and lead management, it also helps manage tasks and tracks conversions, and features campaign management capabilities, reports, dashboards and a mobile application.

 

Once you’ve selected a CRM, Bowen suggests selling the platform to your sales team. “Sell them on the idea, and spend time defining rules and procedures for how to handle all the various scenarios you will encounter,” he adds. “Make sure everyone undergoes sufficient training.”

 

“The best systems create wins all around for customers, agents and management,” Bowen says. “Ask yourself if everyone is winning with the system you are using now.”

 

Are you even using a CRM? If not, Bowen recommends finding a home furnishings CRM that allows you to set up the system and your team in a way that allows you to “respond as fast as possible with the best, most knowledgeable response, and solve the customer's problem.”

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About PERQ: PERQ (www.perq.com), a marketing technology company founded in 2001, empowers businesses and the online consumer experience through innovative solutions powered by artificial intelligence.
 
More than 1,000 businesses in the home furnishings, auto retailing and multifamily industries leverage PERQ’s Marketing Cloud and technology to give them more visibility into their digital marketing efforts and sales.

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