CRM Benefits: An Advantage for Your Business

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4 min read

Updated: April 30th, 2020

One of today’s criteria in measuring success for your business is how your customers respond to your products or services. No matter how high-end your offers are, if your customers are not satisfied with the experience they have received in your company, then it can be a big loss for you. Since giving better customer experience is important, you should know what they want and when they need it. This is where CRM comes in.

What is CRM and what does it do?

CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a strategy that helps you prioritize customer satisfaction and provide a more personalized experience to your consumers. This will lead to more long-lasting customer relationships and increased customer loyalty. If this can be achieved, sales and profitability are proportional, too.

CRM system also makes your workflow processes better, quicker, and more precise. In a centralized location, all your customer data can be stored and be used for specific purposes.

It manages data taken from different sources and gives you a 360-degree view of how your customers interact. It also has sales and marketing tools that boost your teams’ productivity and efficiency and puts everyone in your team on the same page. Overall, CRM helps you attain business growth and create a long-lasting relationship with customers.

What are the benefits of using CRM solutions?

If you want your business to improve customer satisfaction, investing in a CRM solution is a must. It offers numerous advantages that not only help you have a better customer relationship but also gives your company the edge in finding success. Here are 10 CRM benefits can offer you:

1. Access to a centralized database.

Gone are the days when all your data are cluttered in different folders, files, and documents. You do not have to manually input every information in your excel sheet just to have an organized view of your data.

A CRM system offers a centralized database that is stored in one location and can be accessed anywhere as long as you are connected to the internet. Since all data is stored and can be accessed easier, it will speed up your business processes and makes you more consistent and accurate when it comes to finding relevant information. Also, having a centralized database enables you to maximize your data, and data redundancy can be avoided.

2. Accessibility of Data 24/7.

CRM platform information is stored in the cloud. This means as long as you have an internet connection, you can access the system anytime and anywhere. Whether you are in the office, train, restaurant, or even at home, when you need to look for certain information, you can quickly retrieve and access it in the system.

3. Automation of tasks.

Manually doing day-to-day tasks consume too much time and effort. From contact management, sending emails, or even delegating the workloads of your employees, it can take time. Instead of doing these things manually, a CRM system can do it automatically.

This enables you to be more productive on other tasks that are more important and heavier. For example, your sales reps and marketing team can allot more time in finding potential customers instead of manually putting contacts, sending emails, and such. You can focus on more important workflows and put more effort into it.

4. Provide a 360-degree view of customer data.

When you have the idea of how your customers interact with your business, you can understand them and make their experience more personalized.

Having a 360-degree view of your customer data means all the data from various touchpoints that your customer made to contact you can be stored in the system.

Different channels like social media platforms, emails, etc. used by your customer can be tracked. It may be because they have purchased from you or received assistance. In short, you can see their interaction history and use this as an avenue to give them services that are tailored to their actions.

5. Give better customer service.

As much as time is valuable for you, it is the same as true for your customers. They cannot wait for how many hours just to be entertained when they have questions and are experiencing problems. With the help of CRM, as soon as a client contacts your company, your customer support team will be able to retrieve all the records and any relevant information of previously made transactions that may help you in assisting your client and find a solution to the problem as soon as possible.

6. Increase customer retention.

Finding a potential customer is more costly than retaining an existing one. Customer retention means you engage your existing customers to continually do business with you. Since CRM helps you analyze and understand your customer more, you can give them services that are tailored to their needs and satisfy them. This will then lead to customer loyalty which eventually increases customer retention.

7. Improve data analysis and reporting

You do not need to use most of your time in creating reports just to oversee what is going on in your company. With CRM integrated with tools and plugins, you have the power to automate reports and even personalize your dashboard to have quick access to customer information, performance reports, and sales goals. With proper data analysis and reporting, you’ll be able to oversee which actions are needed to achieve better results for your customers and your company.

8. Usage of third-party integrations.

CRM allows you to connect two or more separate software which can simplify your workflow and save you time. External applications can be merged into the system to provide better user experience and add more functionality. You just need to know what these third-party integrations are since different CRM providers offer different external applications that can be added in the system.

9. Enhance data security.

As business owners, you do not want to experience data breaches in your company.

Not only that confidential information is exposed, but also the trust of your customers can be at stake too. Once your customers’ trust has been compromised, they do not want to do business with you anymore. That is why CRM takes security very seriously.

Most CRM systems today are GDPR compliant that helps businesses secure and protect customer data on the next level.

10. Oversee sales and marketing efforts.

CRM system has sales and marketing tools that are very useful in managing each field.

You can know where you are in your sales process because it enables you to visualize your pipeline. You can also know where you are in your sales cycle like when you are almost there in closing deals with your clients. With CRM, you can also forecast sales to increase your revenues and get a hold of any possible losses.

CRM also helps you strategize your marketing campaigns such as social media and email marketing, etc. with its useful tools. When you know what’s happening in your sales and marketing efforts, your marketing and sales team can interact with your leads, prospects, and customers in real-time.

Conclusion

The overall aim of CRM systems is to provide better customer experience that will lead to increased customer retention and loyalty, driving growth, and profitability for your business. But take note, there are lots of CRM providers readily available on the internet today and you need to choose the right one for your business.

A CRM system that is not that expensive also provides the same features from those that are too costly. With the proper usage and maximization of a CRM software, it can be a powerful tool for you.