One of the most crucial aspects of business throughout the history of business has been customer relationship. It is not just in this digital age that customer relationships are relevant. The importance of CRM cannot be overstated. There are many reasons why we use CRM Software.
Since customer relationship is an indispensable aspect of a business, people want to figure out the best way to do it. Now, you can figure that out on your own over years of failure but by then people who took the easy way and used a CRM will have gone way ahead. So, Next time you ask “Why use a CRM system?” just focus on what is best for your company.
This article will teach you everything about CRM systems and will help you make up your mind if the question “Which CRM should I use?” is confusing you.
The Basics
So, now you have probably got the hint that “why use a CRM” means “why use a CRM system”. CRM refers to the tools and the technical system that is used to perform optimal customer relationship management.
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. Though the term is self-explanatory, nobody would know how to do it right without some guidance. Of course you can learn from your experience, but that will come at the cost of some major mistakes in your business. So, why fail yourself when you can learn from the mistakes of others?
Some entrepreneurs have learned the importance of CRM the hard way, but you don’t have to. This is because thankfully for this digital era, there are CRM systems that will do the work for you. All you need to do is understand the trends and personalize the system according to the needs of your existing and potential customers.
The Importance of Customer Relationship Management
Don’t you want to make repetitive task auto generated or want to create leads automatically from the website. Every company spends a lot of time in replying to emails but with the help of CRM this work becomes easy.
CRM not helps in making your task but also does supportive tasks such as assigning of tasks, taking some actions when the leads become inactive.
Maintaining healthy and productive customer relationship is the best way to ensure a bright future for the business.
Customer relationship management is crucial because:
- Creating a bond with the existing customers ensures that you won’t have to work on getting them again like new traffic.
- Having a bond with customers increases the chance of making numerous purchases so a bulk of that first-time buyers is not limited to just that before perishing.
- When you make your customers feel welcome even after the purchase, they too start feeling some loyalty towards your brand.
- Since the brand image is already created before all this even begins, customers will have something to relate to or look up to when they make multiple purchases.
- When you maintain a strong bond letting the customers know they are valued, the customers become your friend.
- With prolonged good customer relationship management, customers feel obliged or happy to advocate your brand to others and that’s how your business rises to success and permanence.
Now that everybody knows the importance of customer relationship management, let us get to the importance of CRM systems.
Implementing a CRM
Before you get into the details of the importance of CRM and why use a CRM, it is nice to find out how the crm is implemented in organizations.
This is how a CRM system is implemented:
- Data is collected.
- Data is segmented and stored.
- The data is available to access by authorized people.
- The data helps analyze customer behavior.
- The system offers solutions for efficient Digital Marketing according to the trends as understood from the data.
- The system offers suggestions to enhance the customer experience to let your business go that extra mile to impress.
The basics are this simple. You don’t even need to know how exactly it is done in detail because the system will do it for you. Intrigued yet? Let’s find out more about the importance of CRM, why it is crucial.
Why use a CRM?
Every business organization that became successful at a national or global level know the importance of CRM and how to use a CRM system. They invest in world-class CRM system tools and put them to use on a regular basis.
Some well-known tools for CRM systems are Sugar CRM, BatchBook, SalesForce, and Buzzstream. You may use one of these or choose the one you came to know about from a friend.
CRM Integration With Tools:
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Email Marketing Integrates with CRM:
CRM, when integrated with various email marketing tools, provides personalized and direct marketing contact to prospective clients. With the help of CRM, organizations can gather information in one place which includes demographic information, purchase history, personal interests, and all previous brand interactions which help in creating a personalized message for excellent recipient engagement. The main aim of Integrating CRM is to be foremost in the mind of customers. CRM also tracks email performance in real-time.
The sales team can get a push notification when the receiver opens or make any actions on that mail. Through real-time results, the sales team can easily make changes in their templates as they go forward. CRM when integrates with various email marketing tools also gives you the exact return on Investment status from email marketing activity.
Example: ZOHO CRM integrated with Mail chimp
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Social Media Integrates with CRM:
Combining social data with CRM data helps in increasing customer-facet with centralized information. By doing this you can see the interaction of a customer with your brand on any channel and gives you insights into who they are. You can easily reach your potential customers through social media but it coupled up your efforts when combined with CRM in order to track activities on different keywords.
Social media with CRM not only focuses on the new customer but it also fosters relationships with existing customers. It uncovers potential customers through keywords and hashtags which is the best way to be in the limelight. It enables you to track down industry keywords with the best hashtags used. With this, you can easily respond to your customers on their choice of platform.
Through social CRM, your social media manager is able to deliver targeted content, offers dedicated offers and helps in a gain of comprehensive audience data. Social Media with CRM strengthens customer relationships with your brand.
Example: Sendible CRM making reports from social media platform
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Messaging Integrates with CRM:
Messaging service with CRM helps in connecting with the audience and provides a relevant service to them. You can make automatic reminders for your customers for an upcoming offer, events etc. CRM with messaging service helps in attainment of various organizational goals such as:
- high level of customer service
- reduces operating costs
- a gain of relevant data for marketing
- Customer retention, etc
You can send a text to your customers on issues like product tracking alerts, customer loyalty texts and free incentives (coupons), that further helps in your organization for the development of products and services accordingly. By the use of CRM with SMS service both client agent can be up to date with the process of leads.
According to the Gartner report, it is noted that text messages open and response rates exceeds to 98% while email marketing touches the 20% mark.
Example: SMS Magic with Zoho CRM
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Telephony Integrates with CRM:
Telephony software and CRM software both are efficient for your organization. But integrating both of them are effective and efficient for the business. Integrated CRM helps in making outbound calls faster which increases the reach to the prospect audience. Accurate and detailed notes can be used by your representative as a weapon that provides superior services to the clients.
Happy prospect clients are willing to give feedback which can easily be taken through CRM who will ask them to press numbers according to the satisfaction level. The sales team gets the whole information on the telephone screen when your sales team calls the client which helps in clearing their queries fast and precisely.
Example: Microsoft Dynamics CRM having inbound calls record
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Live chat Integrates with CRM:
Integrating your CRM with a live chat tool helps in the storage of information which is done on the chat box. When a visitor requests a chat then CRM automatically captures the information from the name, email address and phone numbers, time of the chat, and IP location. With this when the same visitor comes, your manager gets necessary information and greets them. You can easily view all the important information near to the chat window. You can have that chat history which is useful when the same visitor is attended by different employees.
Reasons to use a CRM system
If you haven’t already realized the importance of CRM by now, if you are still wondering “Why to use a CRM when I can manage my own customer relationships alone?” the answer is objectively laid out for you below:
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Extensive Customer Data
A CRM system will have the whole history of customer trends and habits, even of those you had acquired before installing the systems. This information is crucial for the analysis of the wishes and tendencies of each customer. Once you know this, you will know what to offer them.
This will help you acquire more customers and be ready to serve the freshly acquired and previously acquired customers. Also, you have a record of your leads and contacts and you can access them whenever you need. You will never lose these leads.
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Customer Oriented Products
The CRM system will not only have the basic purchase history but all the details of the customers, so you can even track the purchase details and resources of the customers.
When you analyze the data and know what price category, what brands, what products, and what time of the year or day the target customers like to shop, you will be able to present the right thing at the right time to the right people and you can never go wrong with that.
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To Help you Get Service-Ready
The CRM systems group customers according to their price group preferences, product preferences, and location. With this information you can smartly allocate customer managers or account managers to different areas and equip them with the required products and teams. This will help you promptly serve every location.
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Optimize Conversion Probability
You will also be able to track down the time of the day, each customer is more likely to visit a site to make a purchase. You will know the festive season or any time of the year that is most likely to raise demands of a particular product in a particular area.
Since you know the details of the customer preferences now, you will not waste time researching and collecting data about what they are looking for. This way, by the time your rivals figure out what the target audience is looking for, you will have already presented it to them.
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Retention Of Customers
With CRM, you can gather information from numerous sources including social media and keep it composed in one spot, so you can utilize it when the need be. By giving mindful client assistance, reacting to demands auspicious and taking into account the client needs consistently, a business can improve levels of consumer loyalty.
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Easy Access Of Data Anywhere
The data on an integrated CRM system is centralized, so that it is available at any time and to any authorized person on any authorized device whenever needed. You don’t waste valuable time or a great opportunity waiting for the system to upload or the data to be extracted.
This increases productivity which not only directly translates into increased sales, but also creates a reputation for your business.
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Growing Business Reputation
Talking about reputation, a CRM system helps you with everything so that you can perform with perfection and promptly, without any delay at all. The brand image will be brilliant. Customers will look at your company as one of the most efficient ones in the market. Your team will be the best.
It doesn’t matter that most of it will be due to a software system. The point is, the human employees must know how to use it right and the business will flourish.
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Boosting Brand Image On Social Media
A loyal customer base is crucial for the success of any business and a steady CRM system brings to you more customers and shows you how to sustain a relationship with them and turn them loyal to your brand. They will do mouth publicity for you over social media platforms in which they are active. Not even this, the organization can make testimonials of their user and upload on social media platforms to gain trust from others.
So, the CRM system not only helps the present business and profits but also helps you secure a steady future for your business.
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Training Employees
A CRM system helps the employees figure out how to go about the customer relationship management part, so they gain experience in the field while learning from a software. The system also teaches these human employees how to analyze important data and which data to focus on.
Overall, the system makes your employees and the management teams more experienced and more efficient compared to what they were, when you employed them. This way the performance of each employee will keep improving with every passing day without any external investment on your part to train them.
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Helps In Reduce Cost
Another important point about why a CRM system is good for you is that it is very cost-effective. You will obviously wonder how is that even possible when these tools are actually premium and don’t come cheap either. Well, look at the price cuts you are getting to make as your efficiency will increase. Once you understand how to use CRM according to your needs your daily work will become easy and will not take much time as well..
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Automation Of Every Day Assigned Task
The best designed CRM system helps in taking away various regular works. There are various works which are required to be done on a daily basis for smooth functioning. Works like sending emails, addressing legal issues, taking up calls, Created reports. After taking off these works off, the representative will work on closing the leads.
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Increase Coordination Among Multiple Teams
With the help of the CRM system various teams can access the same information at one place without any hindrance. For instance, sales team and customer service team can share the same information for closing the deal more rapidly or even to satisfy with the after sale service. Each department now can tag the right individual for that particular information.
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Upliftment of Revenues
It is very important for every employee to understand the concept and need of CRM. Once it is done the output from CRM will increase and hence results in achieving more sales target. You can now increase the additional products and services offerings to clients. This results in more client satisfaction which was the ultimate objective of yours.
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Fast Sale Conversion
Usually the conversion of sales takes a lot of time and this is where the role of CRM increases. Sale conversion is a time that company takes for completing a single sale. It starts from the time when representatives first contact with a lead to convert that lead to customer.
CRM with a sales team could be very beneficial as representatives will get information through the system. Through the sales CRM software, conversion time is reduced and become more quicker.
Types of CRM Solutions
There are three broad categories that CRM solutions can be classified into.
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Operational CRM
Primary motivation behind this sort of CRM is to produce leads, convert them into contacts, catch every single required detail and give administration all through client lifecycle. Operational CRM streamlines the business process that includes Sales automation, Marketing automation and Service automation.
Example: SugarCRM, Salesforce CRM
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Analytical CRM
Analytical CRM depends on catching, translating, isolating, putting away, changing, handling, and detailing client-related information. It additionally contains inside business-wide information, for instance, Sales Data (items, volume, obtaining history), Finance Data (purchasing history, financial assessment) and Marketing Data (reaction to battle figures, client dependability plans information). It gives point by point investigation and tweaked reports.
Examples: Pipedrive
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Collaborative CRM
Collaborative CRM is an arrangement of assets and systems between discrete organizations for distinguishing, securing, creating, holding, and keeping up significant clients. It is utilized in B2B situation, where numerous organizations can direct about item advancement, statistical surveying, and advertising mutually.
Examples: Vtiger, Hubspot CRM, Zoho CRM
These are the three broad categories. Hire a small team of experienced people to custom the system and you are good to go
Drawbacks of CRM
There are no qualms admitting that a CRM system has its own drawbacks. However, most of them are due to the wrong implementation.
A CRM system will not perform optimally if you:
- Have a team that is not committed to maintaining originality and uniqueness.
- Have a team that does not know how to use analytics.
- Have implemented a cheap solution and not customized it to fit you exact needs. So this answers the frequently asked question, “which CRM system should I use?”
- Have left everything to the system alone and did not take out time to personalize it to fit the brand image.
- Have not teamed with the marketing team to sync the brand image with the CRM system analytics.
- Have never taken out time to read the analyzed data and make the necessary changes, as indicated by the system, in your business system, the website, and the CRM system itself.
Conclusion:
Once you start If you can avoid the above mistakes your CRM system will pay off. Once you start properly using a CRM software you will see the importance of CRM in the profits of your business and the running of your office. Once you see the results of using a CRM system, you will recommend friends to use it for their startups too and will have all the answers when they ask “why use a CRM system?”