Top 4 Benefits of CRM

There are many reasons why organizations invest in a new CRM strategy. High customer churn, inefficient processes and unreliable reporting are just a few examples. Professionally implemented CRM gives many opportunities for sales, marketing, and service. We’ve highlighted 4 benefits of implementing a new solution.

1. Connect with Customers

The main purpose of the CRM system is to support a business in engaging its customers. Firstly, CRM systems help organizations better understand their customers. Without a clear understanding of the current status of each relationship, the ability of staff to exceed client expectations will be almost restricted. A better solution will be often sought to replace unconnected applications, spread-sheets or customer detail being committed to memory. In some instances, CRM will be connected to external data sources including accounting systems and websites to pick up interactions across every touch point for a coherent and complete relationship picture. As a result, CRM users are empowered to deliver a responsive service and delight customers which ultimately contributes towards increased client retention. Increasing sales is another example of how CRM can help businesses connect with customers. This includes:

• Identifying the most valuable accounts and delivering appropriate service levels
• Using relationship and order detail to discover cross-sell opportunities
• Integrated campaigns that nurture customers and the alert team when individuals respond
• Increased lead generation using segmented lists and personalized messages that resonate
• Opportunity management to help sales individuals connect with the right prospects at the right time

2. Grow Efficiently

By better aligning people and business processes, CRM systems help organizations grow efficiently. Some examples of this include:

• Replace repetitive manual tasks with smartly automated workflows that complete actions and send automated emails which cut administration and eliminate duplication.
• Avoid staff jumping between systems by managing all workflows in a single interface. This can include service cases, contracts, projects, events and application requests.
• Apply business rules, methodology and best practice to CRM workflows enabling users to follow guided steps and reach successful outcomes when handling sales leads, service issues, and other business processes.
• Improved productivity through better time management as CRM prompts users when important events occur, or if actions are missed.

3. Discover New Insights from Business Data

Centralising customer and process data present a new challenge to translate this into meaningful actions. Great data in CRM is not a solution, but the foundation for learning new insights. With all relationship and process data available via a single interface, it means that timely, informed decisions can be made enabling organizations to operate with increasing greater agility. Service managers can rely on CRM data to answer questions that include:

• How many service issues were logged last week?
• What is the recent volume trend?
• Which individual resolved the most issues?
• What type of issue is consuming the most time?

4. Do Business Anywhere

Through mobile apps and offline access, CRM technology empowers people to get work done anywhere. Mobile CRM means that everyone can connect, make updates and initiate action on-demand when events occur. This includes:

• Creating a new service case from an email received on a mobile app
• Referencing recent contact history during a customer meeting
• Scheduling follow up CRM activities in response received emails and meetings
• Updating sales opportunity and pipeline detail when traveling from a customer visit

Providing a great customer experience requires teamwork and the right tools to help users keep in touch with customers. Mobile CRM apps, that are fast and fit a mobile lifestyle are well adopted.