How to integrate CRM with eCommerce

DynamicWeb

How does CRM integration with eCommerce work?

When you're running a business, you have many moving parts. Not only do you have to keep track of your inventory and fulfillment operations, but you must also track how feffectively and efficiently you engage with customers - aka the lifeblood of your business.

And if you want to grow your business? Well then, you need to optimize every element of your business, including sales intake.

That's where CRM integration comes in: it allows you to connect your sales channels like eCommerce and email marketing with your customer relationship management software, so that they work seamlessly together. This means that instead of manually entering data from each channel into a separate system (which can lead to errors), data like customer details, purchase history, etc, can flow seamlessly between both systems.

This is where things get exciting. When you can connect all your sales channels, it opens up a world of possibilities. You can better track the effectiveness of each marketing campaign and develop better strategies for future campaigns. You can identify which customers are likely to buy from you again (and how often) so that you can focus on serving them first when they need something—without losing out on other opportunities in the meantime. Perhaps most importantly, you can target your customers with highly-personalized experiences that foster loyalty with your brand.

What can CRM do for your eCommerce business?

With all the tools available to help you run your eCommerce business, it can be hard to know where to start. If you're looking to grow your business, you might wonder what a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can do for you.

A CRM system can help you:

Improve the Customer Experience

A marriage of CRM and eCommerce can allow you to collect customer data more efficiently and create detailed profiles that better reflect their needs. A unified customer relationship management (CRM) solution gives you a comprehensive view of your customers, which helps increase sales and retention rates.

This is especially important for eCommerce sites because it allows you to understand your customers better and provide them with a more personalized shopping experience. For example, if a customer goes on a buying spree and purchases multiple items from your store, you can use the data from their CRM system to create an individualized email sequence that encourages them to buy even more products.

Create more valuable business insights

When applied to eCommerce, customer relationship management (CRM) systems improve the way companies analyze data about their customers and use that information. This allows companies to make better business decisions, which can help them grow their businesses.

For example, if you want to increase sales of a particular product, you can use your CRM system to search for customers who have purchased that item in the past and send them targeted emails about similar products.

The system should also allow you to run reports on your customers’ buying habits and track their activity on your website. This will help you understand what products they like, when they buy them, and how much they spend. By analyzing this data over time, you can create more valuable business insights that help improve your sales process. CRM analytics can even be fine-tuned to measure KPIs by support, sales, and marketing teams. 

Establish, implement and maintain quality customer management systems

When CRM and eCommerce unite, it’s possible to collect relevant data on your customers—which leads to detailed customer profiles that give you a better understanding of their preferences.

By using CRM software, you can track customer information, including their purchase history and preferences. You can also use the system to create a list of customers who need help with a problem or issue, so that your team can contact them when necessary.

CRM is a powerful tool that helps you understand your customers and gives you the data needed to reach out to them in ways they find meaningful. This data can be used to create a more personalized experience for customers and keep them coming back.

Excel in Marketing, Sales and Service

Marketing automation tools can complete many common tasks, including lead generation, campaign management and email communications. It transforms the level of engagement you have with customers, how customer activities and order statuses are tracked, and how upselling strategies are managed.

The best marketing automation tools will provide a wealth of information invaluable to eCommerce businesses. From tracking sales and revenue to identifying trends in customer behaviors and preferences, these tools can help eCommerce businesses identify their most valuable customers and ensure they are provided with the most relevant content.

Marketing automation also allows for more targeted and automated email campaigns—this means you won’t be wasting time and money sending out emails to people who don’t care about your products or services.

How To Integrate CRM with eCommerce

So, you've got an eCommerce site, but you're not sure how to integrate it with your CRM? You're not alone. Here's how it works:

Plan Ahead

To get the most out of your CRM and eCommerce systems, it's important to reflect on your customer-facing business processes and identify the types of experiences they should receive. For example, what types of data should be included in an order confirmation email? What other customer details will they expect to manage in their portal?

Train Your Users

Integrating your CRM with your eCommerce platform will take time and effort. You should train your employees to take full advantage of the new integrated systems.  Ensure your employees know what’s now possible with the integration of eCommerce and CRM, like new online behavioral data, the ability to hyper-focus campaigns, pairing customers with tailored promotions, etc.

Support Your Key Systems

Your CRM and eCommerce integration solution should enhance the functionality of your existing business systems. Evaluate and refine the interrelated processes of your eCommerce business to ensure that it is set up for success.

The right software can help your business grow.

To successfully integrate your CRM and eCommerce systems, you will need to find a partner who has both the technical expertise and business understanding that can meet your unique needs.

Narrow your search to companies that have built a reputation for offering comprehensive solutions, and that are trusted by many businesses.

Different Types of CRM To Integrate with eCommerce

One of the biggest challenges that eCommerce businesses face is how to manage their marketing, sales, and service processes. With so many moving parts, it's easy to lose track of what's going on with your business. There are different types of CRM and the type that’s best suited for you depends on business factors like your size, complexity, and goals. Ultimately, all CRM’s have one common goal: to help you better understand and connect with your customers.

Operational CRM

Operational CRM focuses on streamlining the processes involved in building and maintaining customer relationships. This type of CRM is great for companies that need to manage a large number of customers and keep track of their interactions.

It can also be used as a marketing tool, making it easier for businesses to blast out regular emails and newsletters. Operational Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can help eCommerce businesses generate leads, convert leads into customers and provide the infrastructure needed to retain those customers.

Analytical CRM

Analytical CRM helps companies gain actionable insights from large volumes of customer data. It can be used to track customer behavior and predict future purchases, which is useful for eCommerce businesses that sell products with a high return. Analytical CRM can help companies improve their marketing efforts by providing insights into the effectiveness of different campaigns.

Analytical CRM can give eCommerce businesses a better understanding of what their customers are doing and why. This leads to more informed business decisions, which may result in increased sales.

Collaborative CRM

Collaborative CRM connects teams and departments and creates a single source of information. For eCommerce businesses, collaborative CRM contributes to the creation of a seamless customer experience.  It allows employees to work together more efficiently and effectively. This can be especially helpful for businesses who need to collaborate with suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors.

Together Operational, Analytical, and Collaborative CRM solutions can provide comprehensive advantages to eCommerce businesses. 

DynamicWeb Integrations

Building an effective CRM system that seamlessly integrates eCommerce functionality can be a complex task, requiring technical knowledge and expertise. DynamicWeb is a leading eCommerce development company with over 15 years of experience. We build custom eCommerce solutions that are designed to meet your specific needs. Our expert team can provide you with the tools you need to improve your business operations and accelerate your eCommerce growth.

Dynamicweb’s digital solutions are utilized by more than 4,000 brands worldwide. Businesses trust Dynamicweb to help them achieve growth objectives by gaining lifelong customer relations and increasing revenue.

Dynamicweb’s open integration framework gives you an advanced starting point for integrating eCommerce with leading CRM systems like Microsoft Dynamics 365 —standard templates included.

To integrate your CRM and eCommerce,