Customer-relationship management (CRM) is an approach to manage a company’s interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers’ history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.
- is a kind of strategy or planning that companies use to manage customer interaction.
- This management strategy improves the work rate and customer service relationship.
- We follow the same policy to maintain the relationship with our clients.
One important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company’s website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.
What are the benefits of CRM?
Increased productivity
Cut out administrative tasks like follow-up emails and “catch up” meetings with management.
With a CRM, follow-up emails can be auto-generated and tested for effectiveness, management can easily access the most recent details of a customer meeting, and customer service administrators can learn the background of a customer without leaving the call.
Empowered sales management
Empower sales managers with data to analyse customer relationships, track sales-related activity, assess deal viability, mobilise extra help when needed, and provide teams with real-time updates.
Manage sales pipeline and all the individual milestones along the way, from lead generation through to closing.
Enhanced contact management
Every call, question, negotiation, and touchpoint from prospects and clients is recorded and accessible to the entire team with a centralised contact management system.
This gives both sales, marketing, and customer service teams a boost in terms of tracking, pipe progression and client history.
Cross-team collaboration
Build on the expertise of individuals — a CRM system enables people from different parts of a business to work together.
A sales team can collaborate with a product team to produce bespoke quotes, while a marketing campaign that generates a lead can equip a salesperson to have a more informed, tailored conversation with the prospect.
Integrated sales forecasting
A single source of truth makes it much easier for sales managers to make accurate forecasts, thanks to their visibility of sales in the pipeline.
Sales teams are able to learn from the past and forecast the future through historical data, while predictive analytics makes use of insights from big data to anticipate future customer behaviour.
Reliable reporting
Get an at-a-glance view of its sales pipeline so it’s simple to spot potential issues and nip them in the bud.
As well as making data digestible, reports improve team productivity by saving on time that would once have been spent pulling data manually or laboriously creating pivot tables in spreadsheets.
Why choose a cloud-based CRM system?
Faster deployment
A cloud-based CRM solution is extremely quick and easy to get up and running as it doesn’t need to go through any laborious installation or implementation process, and there’s no hardware to set up or maintain.
This keeps IT costs low and removes the headache of version control and update schedules.
Reduce costs while scaling quickly
Generally, cloud-based CRM systems are priced on the number of users who access the system and the kinds of features required.
With reduced up-front costs and consistent, predictable pricing over time, cloud CRM can be very cost-effective in terms of capital outlay. It’s also extremely flexible – offering scaling simply by just adding more people to the system as the business grows.
Work from anywhere, on any device
Cloud-based CRM systems ensure every user has the same information, all the time. Your sales teams out on the road can check data, update it instantly after a meeting, or work from anywhere. The same information is available to anyone who needs it, from the sales team to the customer service representatives.
Increased collaboration
With a cloud-based CRM system, physically separated teams can work together without the need for significant infrastructure investment. Shared platforms make working together simpler, with common tools, formats and reporting.
Staff from different teams, sites and even territories can easily connect with each other and smartly share data to support the sales effort of the overall team.