When people refer to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools they usually talk highly about the benefits and how their CRM empowers businesses to build engaging relationships with their customers by using data, which in turn helps their business to increase revenues by using critical data flowing from many channels.
And if you are someone who loves structure and organization, values time, and puts a focus on business improvement and productivity - you will enjoy working with a CRM. But how does a CRM work? And why is it an important piece of your company’s tech stack? Let’s start with the basics.
As stated above, CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management – a platform and software for managing relationships with your most vital asset - customers. It empowers your team to build relationships effectively, increase your company’s profitability & sales, and improve overall customer service. Most importantly, CRM software can be used across many departments, helping to ensure that everyone in your company is aligned - and has the right data to create exceptional experiences for both prospects and current customers alike. In an effective CRM system, all data points that are important to your company, from any team that uses it, are connected to one record. More about that in the next section.
CRM Software can benefit a company in a variety of ways. While the benefits are dependent on many factors, here are just a few of the benefits of CRM platforms:
Assist in maintaining centralized databased across your organization – CRM allows teams to have better internal communication as all relevant data about the customers and prospects can be found at the same place. Your teams will know who the customer is and, what product they are interested in, which pages on your website they visited, which sales and marketing channels they interacted with, and much more without spending time digging files and records. With the right, your team will focus on following up with prospects and closing deals.
Optimize your company’s marketing strategy - CRM software helps you to develop and create a better marketing strategy with successful marketing campaigns. This allows you to increase website traffic, convert web visitors to leads, build your sales pipeline, and drive revenue growth. CRM software allows you to monitor how prospects are finding your business so you can determine where you are getting the best ROI on your marketing dollars. By providing valuable business insight, a CRM software helps you segment and identify critical accounts.
In addition, an integrated CRM system helps your marketing team alleviate two persistent problems in the marketing world – attribution and ROI. Using a system where you can track and report on all of your prospect’s actions allows you to see which of your marketing efforts are the most impactful at driving business. This allows you to properly track how much you are spending per initiative, which campaigns are most successful at driving desired actions, and therefore, which initiatives to invest more of your overall budget in.
Improves Customer Satisfaction - Customer support plays a crucial role when it comes to building relationships with your buying persona. A CRM software manages all of your business contacts & collects important customer information such as order history, demographics, and correspondence across all mediums. Having tracked conversations & history with each customer enables your team to deliver fast, effective service every time, solving your customers’ issues quickly and more effectively.
Forecasting for your sales performance – CRM software enables you to plan strategically and make informed decisions. By monitoring data, using reports, and pulling key metrics (such as current targets, products sale cycle, pipelined to close sales, etc.) you will be able to identify trends and develop performance-related forecasts.
No matter the company size, the relationship you have with your customers is often only as good as your ability to communicate with them. This can often mean relying heavily on individuals working in multiple virtual environments such as accounting, project management, email clients, marketing, etc., to monitor and maintain relationships efficiently and effectively. Unfortunately, it’s not always simple as it sounds, and it can often lead to dropped leads, missed emails, slipping deadlines (Think: “Oh I thought YOU were responding to that email…) Your people are usually at the crux of your operation, and their face is often the one a client should see most often. A CRM software can simplify this and in today’s rapidly changing climate, more than likely be seamlessly integrated with your current tech stack. It becomes the all-encompassing outreach tool that allows your company to get the marketing message directed to your prospective clients and will aid you in converting those clients through consistent follow-up and tracking.
In addition, it is often the case that you have multiple tools in your tech stack that are redundant or that create inefficiencies. A high-quality, well-executed CRM implementation can reduce the over tool count, fill gaps, create efficiencies and save your company money. CRM services are designed to diagnose and eliminate many bottlenecks through a unified platform with seamless data sharing between all apps, or tools, you’re using.
The companies that often see the most benefit from CRM software are B2B companies and considered-purchase B2C companies. But there are many other companies with different profiles who still see value in using CRM software. The best way to consider whether or not a CRM system can help your business is to look for the signs and answer a couple of questions: Do you need a centralized source for information? Do your clients receive the same experience all across your departments? Do you lose data or do manual reporting? Do you have visibility into the sales process? Are your current systems “cobbled” together to give you insights?
If you answer yes to one or more of the above questions your business can benefit from the CRM system. Contact us if you want to hear more about how CRM could drive the growth of your business and how iuvo Technologies can help!