What Does a CRM Do and Why Do You Need One?
By Steven Czyrny
If you run a business, you need a CRM to help you engage with customers. But what does a CRM do, you ask?
Businesses spent $39.5 billion on CRM software in 2017.
This makes it the largest software market in the world. If you haven’t heard of CRM before, then you are probably asking ‘What does a CRM do, and why is it so popular?’
Read on for the answer to this question and to learn just how a CRM can help your business.
What Does a CRM Do?
A CRM or Customer Relationship Management system is for managing relationships between your company and your customers. It has a simple aim, to improve business relationships. It helps businesses connect to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.
Every CRM system is slightly different, but fundamentally, they are a tool to help with contact and sales management to boost productivity.
1. Centralize Your data
In sales, time is of the essence. Searching through inboxes or call histories to get a potential customer’s contact details is a waste of time for a salesperson. It is also unreliable, leaving more room for error.
CRM provides an accurate and full record of a rep’s complete interaction history. It also provides one-click access to this information.
It also allows reps to see their opportunities queue and sales pipeline. This means they always can see where they stand with their quota and focus more on lead generation.
2. Follow Best Practice
You will want to ensure best practice and that your employees are delivering high-quality customer experiences.
You can use CRM to set customer service and sales processes. This will act as a guide for your employees.
There are also options to automate certain work activities to ensure best practice. This reduces the administrative need of managing the CRM system.
3. Scalable
While it is possible to manually track each interaction with customers, it isn’t efficient. As your business grows, this will likely become even more difficult.
Using a CRM ensures that you can track customer interactions no matter the size of your client portfolio. It scales with your business as you grow and increase your customer base.
You can also analyze your sales reps’ work to track effectiveness. You can see what is working the best and where improvement needs to be made with a few clicks.
4. Improves Communication
CRM systems don’t only make work life easier for the individual sales reps. At a company level, they will improve communication.
It allows everyone to see past interactions and to see the exact progress any current interactions are at. If someone is taking over from another employee, they will know what needs to be done.
Reps don’t need to reach out to colleagues to get their interaction histories. The information is already in the system. The time it saves allows employees to be more productive in more important areas.
Now You Know
The next time someone asks ‘what does a CRM do?’, you know the answer and all the benefits it could bring to your business.
By keeping your contacts and relationships organized, your sales team can focus on making sales. You don’t need to worry about anyone breaking best practice or running into issues as the company grows.
If you found this insight useful, feel free to contact us. At The Analyst Agency, we assist clients with their CRM and specialize in helping our clients transform their businesses for success.