Introduction
Nowadays, the photo services market is developing relatively quickly and successfully. This type of goods will always be popular, as photographs have become an integral part of modern life. The business reviewed in this paper refers to professional studio photography and is called Helios. The activity of the photo studio is based on providing clients with professional photography in the studio’s interiors. The main advantage of studio photography is the professionally exposed light and additional equipment. In addition, studio photography provides more opportunities for the photographer’s creative work since it does not depend on environmental factors, such as weather. In other words, the client gets the chance to take many photos in a short time against the background of various decorations using several images. The photo studio is located in Richmond, Virginia, and has the slogan “Fast, affordable, professional.” The logo of Helios is a black camera on a white background – simple but elegant.
The Strategy
Customer Relationship Management (starting now referred to as CRM) is strategy companies use to manage interactions with customers and potential customers. CRM helps organizations optimize processes, build relationships with customers, increase sales, improve customer service and increase profitability (Khlif, 2021). CRM is defined as a system in which all the facts about the client and their relationship with the company are structured in one place. For example, their purchase history, requests, sales turnover, wish list for the online store, contact details, and emails. With this information gathered by the CRM software, the company hopes to find new customers efficiently and proactively, retain existing customers, or bring back lost customers.
Today, CRM software is an integral part of the photography business, as it organizes the relationship between the client and the photographer. Workflows track the stage of project implementation and perform automated tasks or remind of them. The photo studio benefits significantly from the use of CRM software (Khlif, 2021). CRM allows finding potential customers, turning them into hot customers, tracking deadlines, communicating with customers, uploading galleries, and much more. Like any other CRM, a CRM tool for a photo studio should have the following functions:
- Lead generation and management. It is possible to contact potential customers for further cooperation and automatically change the program settings to send them emails. Some photo studio programs offer client forms, while others work through a widget embedded in the website (Khlif, 2021).
- Schedule and Calendar Management: This function keeps track of all meetings by entering information into the system, for example, through the customer booking portal or by synchronizing with various calendar applications.
- Billing and payment processing. The photo studio management software provides functions that greatly simplify the process of creating and sending invoices and accepting payments. In addition, the program tracks unpaid bills. In general, this software is designed to make a freelancer’s work more convenient (Khlif, 2021).
The most effective processes to support customer service will be customer management and an individual approach to each of them as a guarantee of building trust and loyalty. Good client knowledge allows for changing the business model: from an inefficient strategy of finding new customers for the proposed solutions to developing solutions for existing customers taking into account their requests (Gargaro, 2021). Such personalized service is a direct way to build loyalty, which means increasing the value of the customer base and the company’s success (Gargaro, 2021). The goal of this company is to strengthen ties with customers to optimize their service. It ultimately leads to an increase in the value of each consumer, and consequently, to a rise in the competitiveness of the company.
Currently, more and more organizations are thinking about switching to remote operations. It is an opportunity to maintain current processes when many employees are forced to stay home (Johnson, n.d.). In general, remote customer service opens up new business opportunities. Nevertheless, it is necessary to adhere to some rules that will strengthen its relationship with virtual clients.
- Customer communication lines are essential, as they are crucial in developing and implementing a customer engagement strategy (Johnson, n.d.).
- An important role is played by a sense of community and unity in the virtual world, which can be synonymous with isolation and loneliness for many clients. Company managers should actively interact with customers to avoid getting lost in the information noise.
- It is necessary to know as much as possible about regular and potential customers to meet their needs fully (Johnson, n.d.).
Among the free CRM tools that will help companies identify relevant information about their customer segments, it is possible to distinguish, for example, HubSpot CRM and Bitrix24. HubSpot CRM is a cloud platform that allows companies to organize contacts, track transactions, and get analytics on leads (Bali, 2021). Companies can activate advanced tools by switching to premium tariff plans. The platform provides dashboards for a complete presentation of sales pipelines and reports on productivity, individual productivity, and trading activities (Bali, 2021). Other features include online chat, advertising management, chatbot builder, and tools for marketers to convert visitors into qualified leads. The main advantages of this platform are simultaneous operations, detailed analytics, insights, impressive communication capabilities, data storage, and automatic information entry.
Bitrix24 allows building sales funnels, managing personnel, holding video conferences, communicating in an internal social network, and organizing joint projects. It is a multifunctional CRM system and a corporate intranet in one product (Bali, 2021). Among the positive features are:
- A wide range of possibilities. The system significantly simplifies task planning and maintains the customer base, making it possible to integrate and automate the business process with the online store (Bali, 2021).
- Simplicity. It is easy to work with the system, and the process of training an ordinary employee takes little time, and it is also possible to quickly find the necessary information (Bali, 2021).
Given the specifics of the chosen business, it is required to mention the CRM system created specifically for photo studios, is also free. Workflow is a system designed by photographers for photographers, so it has the necessary set of tools to optimize specialists’ working processes. This system allows for managing large photos and sending them to private galleries, synchronizing the working process with a calendar, and dealing with digital contracts and projects from one place. Workflow allows the photographer to communicate effectively with clients, provides excellent service, and simplifies collaboration.
Conclusion
Thus, an effective CRM is indispensable for solving several tasks relevant to all companies, the profitability of which directly depends on successful interaction with customers. Simultaneous and coordinated application of all elements of the CRM system simplifies the solution of the company’s tasks of establishing interaction with the customer base. It also allows spending fewer resources on implementing current business processes with greater efficiency.
References
Bali, B. (2021). Top 10 Free CRM Software For Your Business. Capterra. Web.
Gargaro, D. (2021). A Guide to Managing Customer Relationships. Business News Daily. Web.
Johnson, M. 5 Opportunities to Strengthen Customer Relationships in a Virtual World. Huron. (n.d.). Web.
Khlif, H. (2021). Factors for Success in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems. World Academics Journal of Management, 9(1), 16-20.