What are the 5 steps in the CRM process?

B2B sellers increasingly rely on digital technologies to connect with prospects and customers. Built to help companies forecast opportunities and manage the customer relationship lifecycle, a CRM system can also help marketers react to insights more quickly to ensure every customer interaction is relevant and meaningful.

Get to know the five steps in the CRM planning process to successfully execute your customer relationship management strategy—and ultimately drive more sales.

Step 1: Generate brand awareness

The first step to acquiring new customers is awareness, which refers to how familiar prospects and customers are with your brand.

Audience response to brand awareness tactics provides clues into what resonates with them. You can collect these clues within a CRM and use them to deliver a personalized customer experience, starting from the very first point of contact.

Step 2: Acquire leads

Introducing your company to potential customers is only the beginning. To start turning awareness into engagement, encourage users to take the next step.

When customers interact with your brand, each interaction becomes a source of data that can be stored in a CRM and used to improve touchpoints later. When you build an understanding of customers, you’ll be better equipped to meet their expectations and provide superior experiences. 

Step 3: Leverage CRM data to convert leads into customers

Once you’ve successfully engaged potential buyers, it’s time to start turning those leads into customers. If leads seem interested but haven’t made a purchase, you can leverage engagement data stored in your CRM to provide personalized offers that will help build trust and nurture them toward purchase. You can also apply lead scoring to focus your efforts on the right leads and identify winning opportunities.

Step 4: Build strong customer relationships

The CRM planning process doesn’t stop after leads convert to customers. In-depth customer knowledge that supports loyal relationships goes beyond the point of sale to promote ongoing success.

By the same measure, your customer relationship management process continues to increase retention by providing personalized experiences that meet and exceed customer expectations.

Step 5: Sell more to your current customers

Past purchase data held in a CRM can help companies identify opportunities to upsell and cross-sell to current customers, either products they’ve bought before or new products that may be interesting to them, based on previous purchase behavior.

By revealing insights like these, a CRM solution can help you provide enticing offers to existing customers, generating a measurable impact on business performance.

A data-driven customer relationship management strategy can help you focus on the most valuable prospects, make every customer interaction matter, and grow your business.

Go further with CRM

Learn more about the importance of CRM software and see Oracle Sales in action with the quick product tour below.