You probably have heard about CRM. If not, don't worry; you are not the only one.22% of salespeople have no idea about CRM tools. And, 40% still use manual methods like spreadsheets and email programs, for customer data storage.
Considering that CRM applications can help boost sales by up to 29%, it's vital to know how to use this technology to nurture buyers down your sales funnel and continue the relationship once the deal is closed.
Check out our guide on customer relationship management to know what CRM is, why CRM is important for business, how to select the best CRM software, and also how to make the most of your CRM software.
CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a practice used by organizations to maintain interactions with their potential customers. CRM software helps businesses record their customer contact information including names, contact numbers, emails, and also addresses.
Moreover, this software also keeps track of customers' activities like purchase preferences, time and duration of their store visits, returns, and more.
CRM systems assist companies to stay connected to their customers, and streamline the sales, marketing, and support processes, to enhance productivity and profitability.
What is the best CRM? It is not possible to name any software. CRM software is divided into three capability categories: operational, analytical, and the last one is collaborative. However, every CRM should hold these capabilities, different companies lean more towards a specific one according to their needs.
Operational CRM: Operational CRMs are mainly involved in supporting the management of the daily activities of the company. Like instead of reps having to manually make customer records.
The CRM inserts customer contact data into the platform. This kind of software works perfectly for companies with short sales cycles as these CRMs are very efficient.
Analytical CRMs: As the name suggests, Analytical CRMNs organize and manage large quantities of data to gain insights into the customer experience.
For example, analyze your past buying behavior within your CRM to know what promotion activities to roll out for certain customer segments. Analytical CRM is perfect for companies going through tough competition and multiple customer data points.
Collaborative CRMs: Collaborative CRMs are used to connect communication and data in the different departments of the company mainly, sales, market, and support departments. This integration brings a seamless customer experience.
When the support team can see the conversations that sales reps are having with customers, they can provide better service that matches the reps' messaging. Collaborative is a perfect choice for companies to manage pools of data across different departments.
Besides, many more factors go into selecting a CRM. Do you wish to create your own or use a tool that is already created? What are the goals of your CRM?
How much you are okay to spend on the software? What is the best CRM tool that you need? All of these are major considerations as the costs of selecting the wrong CRM are high.
What does CRM software do and what is it used for? Here's a simplified list:
Assists you find every customer, contact, and communication quickly
Enhances post-sales service and support
Increases customer loyalty and retention
Categories and prioritizes leads
Tracks your leads from end to end
Automates the entire sales process
Maintain your tasks and appointments
Bring total visibility that ends the major issue of duplication
Enhances the collaboration in the team
Facilitates remote workforces
Streamlines the processes by integrating the other systems used in the company
Provide accurate, detailed reports and forecasts
Present complete customer activity insight
Manage marketing ROI
It becomes easy to provide a positive buying experience when you have an idea about your prospect.
Watching at a single glance every blog post, email, and eBook they have opened and or read along with key details like their company's size, location, and vertical, provides you a major leg up. You can easily personalize your messaging and provide more value from the start.
A sales manager can instantly check how and when his salespeople are reaching out to and following up with buyers. The account executive can easily fill him in on an opportunity his sales development has prospected and qualified for him.
Employees in the sales team can learn about each other's best practices and pinch-hit for each whenever someone is not present. Overall, a CRM boosts rap collaboration and efficiency.
If you are wondering how your sales people are doing. Here, CRM can provide you high-level as well as an on-the-group picture of rep performance, team-wide and individual conversion rates by deal stage, average deal size, and deal velocity and that is just scratching the surface.
Imagine what you can do with this data-backed understanding of what's working and what needs improvement.
Can you believe you can automate your task with a CRM? CRM software automates tasks like call and activity logging, reporting, deal creation, and many more.
The less time reps are spending on administrative work, the better the number of hours they have to get before prospects. Your revenue will go up proportionally.
The features you need depend on your business. There are various levels of features from the basic to those all the bells and whistles. Cost is the major key factor but it is also worth considering which features you require.
Abasic CRM covers contact management and opportunity management. It allows you to find your customers and past communications and also track your sales leads.
However, some little extras make major differences in how you use the CRM. Go for that software that you can customize with your fields and settings to reflect your entire sales process. Basic CRM sales features can be the best CRM for entrepreneurs.
Many small business CRMs do not cover much in terms of reporting. Perfect CRM software incorporates a Sales Forecast report writer and Listing Report writer for ad-hoc activity. In case, you are not able to unlock the insights of your CRM it will be nothing more than a contact management system.
Mainly, all companies want CRM with email integration. It captures your emails to and from your contacts automatically and gives a full history of your communication. For this online market, email integration is an essential part of customer relationship management.
In this digital market, even small businesses need CRM with automation features. It helps in bringing efficiency and increases productivity by automating manual processes.
Your different actions in the CRM trigger workflows to finish a task as per a set of rules that you define. It might mean triggering the billing process when a sale closes or an email reminder when a warranty date expires.
Go for the CRM with integrated marketing. It will allow you to run email campaigns directly from your system and record your contacts' interactions back to their account. With time, you will be able to build up valuable data on their behavior and interests that enable you to tackle their needs in the coming days.
In final word, adopting modern trends or going through any transition is not a piece of cake. Yet with sound and proper planning companies can glide through this change smoothly and bring better results.
As CRM is going to stay for a longer haul, not adopting it as a solution to enhance your activities in sales, marketing, data management and other parts of the business is not the right decision.
Instead, know your goals, what to expect from the whole implementation process, get the right CRM vendor, and communicate all your concerns with the best CRM service provider. And get started. The sooner you begin, the better it will result.
Hope you find this article interesting and informative. If you want to add any point that we missed, please let us know in the comment section below.