Is a customer-centric model right for your moving CRM?

Do you know your customer? This question is vital to any company hoping to grow or retain a loyal customer base, but truly knowing your customer is harder than it seems.

Unlike other CRM’s in the industry, MoveHQ’s HQ Sales uses a customer-centric lead management model, meaning there are no order numbers that get lost in the shuffle when trying to put together a customer’s profile. All pieces of information about someone's moving history (and each individual move) is stored in one easily-accessible location.

The Antiquated Order-Centric Model

An “order-centric” model has been around for decades because it’s relatively simple, and it works well enough to get by for a one-time order (or a one time booked job).

In an order-centric example, when a person – we’ll say – Joe, moves from New York to New Jersey, he is assigned an order number, 12345, perhaps. That order number is then used to track him from the lead stage all the way to final delivery. If you know what you’re looking for, his status can be found in the system.

The problem arises when Joe moves again, files a claim, wants to get his inventory out of a warehouse, or whatever else Joe may do that requires information gathered by your company. Order 12345 may not be attached to the desired information even though it is directly related to Joe.

The order-centric model creates silos of information that can’t always be traced back to customers. That breakdown in information creates a problem for even a veteran employee to compile all of his relevant paperwork to paint a clear picture of Joe’s situation.

Functionally organizing information is technically possible with siloed old school systems, but it is very hard to manage from a data storage perspective. Exporting files, keying in data manually, creating Excel macros, using SQL language to organize data, and more – all of those methods are tediously painstaking. Which is why, realistically, nobody does it.

So what do moving companies do instead?

Well, a new move typically means a new order number. And a new order number means a new survey and estimate. Now, the costs of Joe moving again just doubled because you need to, again, use your time and resources to travel to the move site for the second time, and go through the entire process from scratch.

Introducing a Customer-Centric Model

With a customer-centric model (like that of HQ Sales), the problems described above are eliminated.

When Joe moves, whether he moves for a corporate relocation or on his own, every single piece of information related to his move is stored in his specific contact portal.

If you need to know anything about Joe in the future, all of his moving-related information is conveniently housed and quickly accessible in one place. Inventory, claims, move dates/locations, contact information, everything, is only a click away.

With access to Joe’s inventory, you can just ask what is different, and in all likelihood, it will be virtually the same haul, allowing you to quickly come up with a quote at little to no cost in a matter of minutes, instead of days.

People aren’t numbers, so it doesn’t make sense to store them as such in your CRM. HQ Sales is designed to keep all the information in a way that ensures that both the shipper and the moving company have the most painless, efficient move possible.

If you want to learn more about what HQ Sales does to improve the moving process, learn more here.