Why have a CRM system?

A CRM system helps businesses keep customer contact details up to date, track every customer interaction, and manage customer accounts. It is designed to help businesses improve customer relationships and also Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). This is vital because of the vast amount of such data businesses generate daily.

The issue of customer data raises a challenge which CRM systems exist to address. Every time someone picks up the phone and talks to a customer, goes out to meet a new sales prospect, or follows up a promising lead, they learn something new and potentially valuable. Traditionally, all this data went into analogue or unconnected media such as notebooks or laptops, or even just stayed in people’s heads.

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With no CRM…

These methods make it all too easy for details to get lost or forgotten, or for a meeting or phone conversation not to be followed up on as promised. Choosing which leads or prospects to focus on can be a matter of guesswork rather than a rigorous exercise based on fact. Worse still, if an individual holding access to key customer information were to leave, then all their knowledge could walk out of the door with them.

A CRM helps ensure accuracy and efficiency

A customer relationship management system aims to address challenges like these. It takes customer data and turns it into useful, actionable insight that can transform a business. It helps everyone in a business to easily update records and to get access to the latest information. If the system is cloud-based, they can do this wherever they are, on any connected device.

What do people mean when they say CRM?

CRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.

When people talk about CRM, they might mean any of three things:

CRM as Technology: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.

CRM as a Strategy: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed

CRM as a Process: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.

What does CRM software do?

CRM software records customer contact information such as email, telephone, website social media profile, and more. It can also automatically pull in other information, such as recent news about the company’s activity, and it can store details such as a client’s personal preferences on communications.

The CRM system organizes this information to give you a complete record of individuals and companies, so you can better understand your relationship over time.

CRM software improves customer relationship management by creating a 360° view of the customer, capturing their interactions with the business, and by surfacing the information needed to have better conversations with customers.

What does a CRM system do?

A CRM system essentially provides a central place where businesses can store customer and prospect data, track customer interactions, and share this information with colleagues. It allows businesses to manage relationships with customers, helping the business to grow.

With a CRM system in place, every question, every service request, every preference and every past contact detail about every customer is instantly available, which means that every new interaction with them should always be personalised, relevant and up to date.

As well as tracking every phone call, email sent, meeting held and presentation delivered, CRM systems can also be used to add notes, schedule follow-ups and organise the next steps that need to be taken. This ensures that opportunities to close deals or grow customer accounts won’t be missed.

By understanding customers better, cross-selling and up-selling opportunities become clearer too, giving organisations a much better chance to win new business from existing customers.