A Customer Relationship Management – or CRM is essential to help businesses engage with their clients and drive sales by managing prospects. A CRM facilitates many aspects of running a business, giving you and your clients: Ease of Communication, Data Management, Customer Service, Customer Retention and Prospect follow-up.
A CRM is a program designed to gather all customer information at one place. It helps build customer relationships and also organize the company interactions with customers and prospects alike. A CRM can align the database of present and future customers, so that the team can remain at the top of their tasks. The Customer Experience a CRM provides is unparalleled. Agents are able to log in to accounts and access customers calls, emails, purchases etc.
A CRM is available for business of all budgets and size. Right from a small SAAS subscription based model to a large scale Enterprise installation. Whether the company is new or well established, either would benefit from a CRM solution. CRM boosts productivity, increases customer satisfaction and facilitates cooperation.
So, you have a startup with no or few customers at this stage and you think that investing in a CRM is not fruitful for now. If you do that; while regulating lead conversion, spreadsheets and customer interaction, your sales staff will have a harder time to follow up on leads or staying on top of the customers. Growth is a stage to change how a company works. So, even if you are a startup at initial stages, investing in a CRM can do great things to boost your productivity and increase your efficiency.
A CRM is a boon for your sales team as it would help them throughout the process of acquiring a lead, converting it into a customer, improve sales efficiency, predict sales, provide better customer experience and lead closure. If your sales team requires proper organization, then a CRM can come very handy. A CRM also helps in coordination for working in groups by dividing customer-related tasks within each team member. This way every sales employee has a defined objective and no sales opportunity is ignored or missed.
CRM centralizes customer information in individual files. All the details such as contact information, communication history, customer contract etc. will be kept at one place. Each team member would be able to access the information and update it, so that everyone stays on the same page. This process will save time and effort of team members as the access is simplified.
Paper work is a hassle. Centralizing and digitizing customer information is far more secure. The data is stored on the cloud and the members can access in real time from anywhere in the world provided there is an internet connection. Most saas CRM providers include backups for your data in order to be proactive in case of disaster recovery. There are less chances of lost or misplaced when the data is digitalized.
CRM helps in getting access to customer information, whereby the sales team can pursue the opportunities of customer’s behavior and interest at the right time, or they can collaborate with the marketing team to deliver targeted and useful content to your prospects. CRM reminds you to stay in contact with the new connection at regular intervals. Being proactive can help identify and satisfy the needs and expectations of the customers. Implementing CRM can drive customer retention.
CRM gathers all types of information which help link the other departments in the organization. Smooth functioning between different departments is essential to help meet the needs of the customer. Sales, Marketing, Customer support and development- all require smooth cooperation. You can implement CRM to assign tasks and fill the gap of communication between different departments. Sharing information, goals, and incentives across departments will foster productivity and efficiency.
CRM can help save cost by reducing your manual work in the office. You might be having a team of IT to enter the database and not lose vital customer information. CRM helps in running the system smoothly. You’ll save money on technology by using the readily available system that doesn’t have to be built from scratch. When you save money in business, it can be used in other areas of businesses such as training your sales team or building a marketing team etc.
Picking up the right CRM solution requires planning. Defining what you want to accomplish by implementing CRM software is the first step. Once you are clear with your goals and objectives, it will be easier in selecting the right software for your advantage.
CRM brings value to your business. Talk to our experts today for more information.