Every business wants to foster strong customer relationships, increase sales, customer retention, and improve the efficiency of the organization, but all these milestones cannot be achieved through traditional methods.
The old methods required you to manually create excel sheets or handwritten notes to store customer data, but with the proliferation of technology, these tasks are now done automatically through CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.
To compete with your rivals and increase the competency of your organization, you need CRM software.
CRM-Customer Relationship Management software is a system that lets different departments like customer service, marketing, and sales organise their notes, activities, and other important data into one platform. Every member of your team can access real-time client data they might need.
These days, CRM software stores data in the cloud. This lets team members seamlessly coordinate with each other from anywhere and provide enhanced services to customers.
The old traditional systems were not competent enough to match the performance and capabilities of the CRM software. CRM systems simply revolutionised the whole way businesses used to operate and interact with their customers.
The CRM system compiles data from a wide range of different sources, be it websites, email, SMS, telephone, social media, and many more. This allows businesses to get more information about their potential customers and how to best serve their needs, thus driving more sales and effectively retaining customers.
Cloud-based CRM systems let you store all your data in one place and in any department, a team member can access it from anywhere and anytime. Many businesses that use spreadsheets, inboxes, or notes to track things lack customer service experience and just can’t keep up with this rapidly evolving world.
With an Excel sheet, businesses can keep track of:
- Name
- Telephone number
- Address
- Date of purchase
- Customer type
But with CRM software, they can do all that plus:
- Company size
- Lead scoring based on triggers
- Multiple contacts within a company
- Company title
- Current sales statistics
- In-depth reports
- And much more!
A good CRM will allow you to add tasks that you have planned or completed, similar to follow-up messages, and then track what types of responses have or have not worked.
A good CRM system will also show how hot or cold a lead is. The more information you feed in, the more information it will give you back.
The number of benefits CRM platforms offer is staggering. From marketing, sales, customer support to any department that comes in direct contact with the customers, CRM systems are inevitable for them.
a. Increased Efficiency
The biggest advantage of CRM software for organisations is that it stores information in a cohesive system, giving the freedom to access real-time information from anywhere in any department. You can enter basic contact information such as a phone number and an email address, and once the system is up and running, you can track all of the basic and advanced information for each and every customer.
According to a survey report, CRM systems can reduce labor charges for customer service by as high as 40% and in some cases even more. It also significantly reduces time spent collecting information, giving the ability to complete the work of two persons by one.
b. Tracking down the task
A good piece of software integrates a company’s daily workflow and reduces the amount of time spent on mundane tasks. CRM software helps in automating everyday workflow, thus enhancing customer engagement, consistency, and increasing the competency of the company.
c. Increasing Sales Opportunities
After getting a few thousand customers, businesses struggle to come up with new ideas to increase their sales. Learning the behaviour of consistent customers and potential customers is a common practice, and CRM software can help you track purchasing patterns and provide detailed insights into customer trends. All these analytics help in developing a detailed and consumer-focused strategy, thus driving more sales and revenue.
d. Tracking the Progress of Sales
Tracking the progress of sales is important to understand whether your plans and strategies are paying off or not, and a good CRM system lets you do this effortlessly. Whether you’re working individually or you have your own large sales team, you can track leads and follow up with a CRM.
You can assign leads to your sales team and track their every minute of progress easily.
e. Personalize communication with customers.
Personalized communication is a very important part of driving more sales and enhancing the user experience. CRM offers a wide range of features to maximise personalization and to effectively deepen relations with customers. According to a study done by IT services giant Infosys, 86% of the consumers said personalization played a very crucial role in their purchasing decisions. You can use CRM to create personalized emails, SMS, deals by using their name.
f. Increase Customer Retention
CRM software can help you identify who your most revenue-generating customers are and how to best serve their needs while simultaneously increasing retention. You can reach out to your most revenue-generating customers through personalised emails, SMS, or any other way to get a deep insight into customer behaviour. This lets you understand customer behaviour and plan a strategy to cater to their needs and also increase sales while minimizing the risk of losing them.
We talked a lot about CRM software working and its different use cases. CRM software consists mainly of three types. Let’s understand this one by one.
a. Operational CRM
Operational CRM systems give sales, marketing, and customer support departments the ability to provide enhanced support to their existing and potential customers.
After feeding the contact information into the system, the system can be used for
- Selling Automation
- Automation in marketing
- Service Automation
This gives different departments the flexibility to work together to serve customers in a better way and increase sales for your company.
Storing all information in one cohesive system improves company operations at the same time, reducing communication errors, thus closing more deals.
b. Collaborative CRMs – CRMs that work together
As the name implies, collaborative CRMs offer the freedom to share customer information between different departments. The basic difference between operational and collaborative CRMs is that operational CRMs focus on marketing and sales, while collaborative CRMs emphasise customer service.
This tool enhances the exchanging of information between departments like marketing, sales, and support teams also. This easy exchanging of information between different departments results in building customer relationships.
c. Analytical CRMs – CRMs with analytical capabilities
Collecting information will not provide any significant advantage until you know how to properly use collected information to drive sales. Analytical CRMs are built to maximise the use of collected info like points of contact, customer interests, preferences, channels, and many more things to understand customers.
After understanding customers and recognising their patterns, businesses can make better decisions and build a proper strategy to cater to customer demands in a more enhanced manner.
Having different options to choose from is good, but it can also become a pain if you don’t know which system you should opt for and how it will affect your business.
What if you need an operational CRM to help you streamline and automate important tasks, but you also want to have an analytical CRM to properly utilise stored information?
It’s not easy to decide which type of CRM you should go for and how it will fulfil your business goals. So, we decided to create a guide for you to choose the right CRM.
It’s not easy to decide which tupe of CRM you should go for and how it will fulfill your business goals. So, we decide to craete a guide for you to choose the right CRM.
Create a Requirement Checklist
Doing this will help you understand whether you need a special CRM, if yes what kind.
Know your Industry
Be aware of any trends in your industry that may influence type of CRM you need.
Ask Questions
Include questions about your company, the vendors and solution.
Comparison of Products
One of the best ways of evaluating solutions is by doing a comparison of similar products.
FinCRM.com is a leading CRM Software using which companies can manage customer data, access business information, automate sales and marketing processes, and boost productivity
1. CRM that is self-hosted
CRM Software can be installed on your own web server, local host, or on-premises.
2. The number of users is unrestricted
With admin role management, you can have an unlimited number of users and records.
3. CRM Software That Is Made to Order
The ability to tailor CRM to your specific needs and business
4. Created with Laravel
The most popular Open Source MVC web application framework is Laravel.
5. CRM Software that is Open Source
It is the most extensively used Open Source CRM software that can be fully customised.
6. Fixed Cost
CRM Software at a Significantly Reduced Cost with No Hidden or Monthly Fees
After reading and following this guide you`ll be able to select the right CRM Software for your business.
A CRM Software goes a long way in giving customer a unique personal approach that enhances customer retention and loyalty and hence must be implemented by all companies.