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5 Reasons to Record CRM Notes from Customer Service Calls

 

Today, CRM software has an incredibly wide range of uses. To say that it has gone beyond being a simple rolodex of customer contact information would be an understatement. A CRM provides the foundation for your customer relationships, and the platform your team relies on to succeed. It collects and stores pertinent data about your clients, turning that data into fuel for automated marketing and better customer experiences. 

While many people view CRM as a sales tool, it is so much more than that. Every department in your organization should be plugged into your CRM, and that includes your customer service team. Customer service representatives should be working in the CRM every single time they speak to a customer. While automated data entry is great, customer service agents can offer a lot of insight by adding their own data and notes into the contact record. This not only helps the customer service team deliver better support but also helps sales and marketing. 

Let's dive into the top five reasons why making notes in the CRM is a great idea for both customer service agents and the company as a whole.

 

1) Learning Customer's Preferences

When your clients contact customer service, they share things about their personal preferences for services and products that they might never otherwise reveal. They communicate on how they would like to resolve issues and/or complaints, what they are looking to accomplish, and much more. This information on customer preference can be invaluable for providing satisfactory service or products in the future. 

Customer service reps are sometimes the only people within an organization that get to hear these preferences on a regular basis. They can help both future service agents and the company as a whole by sharing these important data points. By adding this kind of information in the CRM, all future customer service reps as well as sales and marketing, understand how to better connect and engage that client. A few notes in the CRM transform a customer from a name and buyer history into a real person with preferences, and feelings.

 

2) Noting a Customer's Special Requirements/Needs

Customers may also have specific needs or requests. For example, if a client hired a new team member and needs help getting them up to speed, the customer support rep can make a note of this and follow up with the appropriate materials. Making note of this in the CRM informs other customer service reps and sales of the new hire and gives context for future communications. From then on, all other customer service agents and employees assigned to help this customer will know their special requirements and make sure it is met every time.

 

3) Creating a Continuous Customer Experience

Of course, a customer doesn't need to have a special preference or requirement to be worth remembering. Sometimes, notes in a CRM can be for the sole purpose of providing a more rich and cohesive customer experience. Customers like to be remembered both by agents they have spoken to before and those they've only just met. It might be worth noting that a customer has children they often shop for, or that they prefer to be called by their last name as a matter of personal comfort or formality.

A customer might simply appreciate that customer service remembers all the previous times they have phoned, emailed, or chatted and what those previous issues were about. Notes in the CRM can be used to make a customer feel remembered even if they are not dealing with the same agent every time. It creates a sense of relationship with the brand that every company strives for.

 

4) Warning Future Customer Service Agents

Another reason to make notes in a CRM entry is to warn future customer service reps (and their managers) that a customer has caused trouble in the past. Someone who has made abusive remarks or is particularly difficult to deal with may have a note in their CRM warning future customer service agents to be careful and that any uncomfortable interaction they experience is likely not personal. Knowing just that tidbit can make a huge difference for the next customer service rep the customer speaks to.

This is also a way to red-flag customers who may be out to cause trouble, to bully their way into freebies, or even hackers who might be looking to phish customer service agents with false requests for service. Anyone who has displayed these behaviors should be marked so that your company can deal with them accordingly if they continue having problems treating staff with respect or actively try to scam the company in an identifiable way.

 

5) Detailed Data for AI's and Automated Marketing

Lastly, the information that customer service can gather is invaluable if you have targeted automated marketing or AI trend prediction fueled by data stored in the CRM. When your customer service agents are collecting and recording detailed data on customer preferences, habits, and demographic information, then your algorithms have so much more data to work with. Your algorithms need detailed data to work with to both provide personalized communication. 

More data in the CRM is always a good thing. The better the data, the better your ability to target services your leads and clients. 

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Taking notes in your CRM is an essential part of any complete customer-centric business process. Whether you are fueling your targeted marketing or perfecting your customer service technique, these notes are highly valuable to human and computer customer targeting alike. As GreenRope’s CEO always says, “If it isn’t in the CRM, it didn’t happen.” 

 

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