How does a day at work look like for a CRM Manager

Today, regardless of the type of industry, the primary objective of every business is ‘customer satisfaction’. The road to a happy customer cannot be paved just by offering a premium product or services at a reasonable cost. It is also about how you interact with the clients and the kind of relationship you have with them. CRM manager is the one who takes care of this aspect and holds expertise in effective communication with the customers. 

With the advent of digitalization and CRM systems, it has become important for every firm to have a CRM manager.

What does a CRM Manager do?

The role of a CRM manager has been underestimated for a long time but with the intense competition in the marketplace, companies have started to realize the importance of considering clients’ needs and prioritizing them over anything else. Usually, human resources professionals are well-versed with the roles and responsibilities of a sales executive or a digital marketing manager or a developer. However, as the CRM manager is a relatively newer profile, their roles and responsibilities can get a bit confusing. 

So, what does a day in the life of a CRM manager look like? Well, an average day of a CRM manager goes about in meetings, planning lead generation campaigns, analyzing the database, refining multi-channel consumer relations, checking out the ads, following up with the prospective clients or elite customers, sending pitches to PR professionals, and TESTING EVERYTHING. 

And what’s the most fulfilling part of their day? That comes when they achieve the results that they had expected to get. On the whole, they take data and convert it into powerful marketing campaigns that bring faster business growth and better profitability. 

Ok, that’s just a snippet view of what CRM managers actually do. 

Let’s get a better understanding of the professional life of CRM managers and appreciate it a bit more. Here’s what they actually do:

i. Manage and strategize

The primary role of a CRM manager is to manage the day-to-day customer relations protocols of a business and their refinement. They also deal with CRM segmentation, onsite personalization, as well as product recommendation programs and platforms. 

Besides, they have to look after key vendor relationships and databases, formulation of strategies, executing them, management of asset deliverables, and testing SMS and emails along with communications over other channels. 

The CRM manager is supposed to oversee how models are created against lifetime value, retention, churn, and loyalty programs. They are responsible for the formation of robust CRM strategies and weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly departmental calendars. Scheduling the activities makes sure that businesses can maximize the lifetime value of the customers in addition to continuous learning, optimization, and testing. 

CRM managers formulate the CRM activities that would maximize KPI improvement, impact to the business, and revenue generation. If new CRM campaign management tools are needed to be implemented, they will also oversee and coordinate these activities which will include frontend integration, email service provider integration, and integrating the CRM with internal IT department, third-party e-commerce providers, and ESPs. 

A crucial role of these professionals is to scrutinize the communication with customers and ensure their seamless execution by the selection of right CRM platforms and infrastructure.

ii. Collaborate with other departments

CRM managers spend plenty of time collaborating with other departments involved in running the business. It includes key stakeholders, senior management, marketing, and sales professionals to carve out effective digital marketing strategies. In order to get a deeper understanding into the CRM feeds and how data moves in and out of the CRM program management software. In case of any discrepancy in the CRM campaigns, the CRM department will be immediately informed. 

To make sure that the consumer communications and remarketing campaigns are upto the mark, CRM managers will coordinate with the third-party vendors. They are the ones who are responsible for building a customer loyalty vision for the business and propagating the same vision for inculcation throughout the business communications like social media, websites, mobile push notifications and apps, and emails. This will also ensure consistent messaging across all the channels and programs. 

iii. Analyze customer data

A CRM manager is accountable for reporting customer analytics and their behavior. These reports can then be used to build customer segmentation criteria like demographics, customer type, customer behavior, and past purchases. Accordingly, they can suggest the optimization of on-site product recommendations, what to cross-sell, and how to make the most of merchandising opportunities. 

These segmentation models form the foundation of relevant and approved online marketing campaigns and the kind of offers that should be promoted in cross-platform communications. CRM managers not only offer strategic mentoring for CRM strategies but also carry out customer journey mapping to analyze business touchpoints that will eventually enhance the commercial visibility of the business and yield better ROI. 

iv. Maintain good customer relations

The CRM manager holds the accountability to reach out to the customers and receive feedback about how they are finding their products or services or business communications. Such initiatives by the CRM manager will ensure the effectiveness of the consumer relations programs and enable the implementation of campaigns that will bring loyal customers on board. 

v. Stay updated and share novel ideas

A CRM manager guides the CRM campaigns to employ novel ideas in line with the advanced market trends and growing business needs. They suggest latest best practices pertaining to CRM so that the business can stay ahead in the bottleneck competition and have better customer acquisition. 

These professionals have to analyze the campaigns so that future CRM campaigns can be well-optimized according to the results. According to the industry of business operation, they should have sound know-how about the current strategies, trends, and tactics that would help in garnering better customer attention when compared to the competitors. 

Wrapping Up

A CRM manager has so many responsibilities to carry out that it would surely be getting somewhat overwhelming at times. What makes the work enjoyable is the fact that it is such an interesting role — you have access to the entire database in the CRM system, the possibility of zillions of touchpoints, and of course, every contact you have in it is so different. It might be more challenging than solving Rubik’s cube because unlike puzzles, there are no surefire tricks that would work here. It would be sheer hard work, perseverance, and commitment to the business that would bear the sweetest fruits.