29 Jul What Is the Purpose of CRM?

Without satisfied customers, it’s nearly impossible for any business to succeed. To ensure your customers are satisfied with your business and hold a positive image of your brand, you need to focus on customer relationship management, or CRM. CRM can also refer to a digital customer relationship management system, which is a tool designed to help you monitor and improve your overall customer relationships. With CRM, technology is key. 

Let’s take a closer look at the purpose of a CRM — including why CRM is important for your business, the major benefits of a CRM, and CRM software categories.

Why Is CRM Important for Your Business?

If you operate a brick and mortar business that interacts with customers in person, you may wonder why you need a CRM if you can see for yourself how they feel about your business. The truth, however, is that your customers also exist outside of your store, which means that you need to ensure their experience with your brand is positive at all times, especially online. Customer relationship management actually has three purposes: retaining customers, learning what needs to be done to bring in more customers, and reducing costs. With these three elements combined, your business can even see an increase in overall profits due to changes implemented with the help of a CRM system.

It’s hard to know if your impression of your customer’s experiences and opinions of your business are accurate. CRM software, on the other hand, helps you track and analyze customer engagement, experiences and feedback (such as through surveys and reviews) — all with the ability to provide analytics reports. When you can see the concrete data about your customer relationships, you can then adjust your business practices accordingly to better meet the needs of your customers and the overall goals of your business. Making these improvements based on recorded customer data can improve both customer loyalty and the growth rate of new customers. From employee interactions to corporate policies, all can be made more effective with the help of CRM reporting tools. 

When it comes to cutting costs, using a CRM can also help your business in the long run. Similar to how you can improve your customer experiences through CRM reporting data, you can also learn how your business could better be spending its budget — including cutting costs on products or services that your customers simply aren’t enjoying or using. Why spend money in the wrong place when it can instead be channeled into more profitable ventures that your customers will actually enjoy?

A modern business simply can’t perform up to its optimal level without a CRM.

Major Benefits of CRM

Now that we’ve discussed why your business needs a CRM, let’s break down five of the most important benefits of CRM, as outlined by SAP Insights.

1. Better customer experience — A CRM provides a full-scope view of customer history and interactions so that your sales and customer service representatives can deliver a more fine-tuned service experience. Customers will be happy when concerns can be more quickly and more accurately resolved.
   
2. Increased customer loyalty — Keep your customers loyal to your business by providing a better customer experience (see above), along with providing engaging offers at the right time and through the best channel. All of this, of course, is thanks to the real-time analytics provided by a CRM.
   
3. Boosted revenue — Not only will you discover where you can cut spending, but a CRM will also help you develop products and services that will sell better with your customers. CRM software can also improve your entire sales process with tools such as sales force automation, forecasting, lead management, e-commerce and cross-selling.
   
4. Improved processing — Your CRM will automate several processes, including sales, marketing and customer service. This will create a more seamless customer experience, allowing for your staff to address the needs of your customers in a personalized yet still efficient manner.
   
5. Strengthened collaboration — Finally, a CRM will make collaboration between internal departments and external stakeholders stronger and easier, thus decreasing the chances of customer information falling through the cracks and increasing a customer’s overall experience with your business.

Key features of a CRM will include contact, interaction and lead management, along with workflow automation, customer analytics, integrations, data security and mobile access.

CRM Software Categories

Some CRM solutions offer the flexibility of adapting to the needs of any industry or individual business, while others are specifically designed with the features and tools different businesses may uniquely require in order to provide the best customer relationship management. No matter which option you choose, it’s important to make sure the CRM can meet your needs. Common CRM software categories include:

• Project management CRM — Ideal for sales teams and project creation, a project management CRM will come with task reminders, project milestone tracking, and conversion tracking.
  
• Telesales CRM — For businesses that conduct sales through inbound and outbound phone calls, a telesales CRM will provide calling, tracking and logging capabilities all within the CRM, generally through VoIP integration.

• E-commerce CRM — E-commerce businesses that conduct product sales online can benefit from e-commerce CRM features such as price list tracking, inventory management and returns processing.

• Financial advising CRM — Financial advisors can take advantage of CRMs that offer compliance and audit tools, financial program integrations and advanced security.
  
• Real estate CRM — Real estate agents can improve performance with CRM capabilities including video email, lead researching, cloud storage and real estate service integrations.

• Call centre CRM — Call centres can especially benefit from a custom CRM with VoIP and help desk software integration.

Choosing a Secure and Reliable CRM

When choosing a CRM solution for your business, the most important features to look for are security and reliability. Without these features, your business will be unable to provide the services required for strong customer relationships. Your business needs a CRM solution that can keep your business and customer information secure from data breaches, along with a solution that you can rely on to function properly at nearly all times.

That’s where eZnet CRM from Virtual Stacks Systems UK comes into view! As a secure, reliable and flexible CRM solution, eZnet CRM can meet the needs of any size business from any industry — with data administration, marketing automation, inventory management, mobile accessibility and much more. We invite you to learn more about eZnet CRM and to contact us about starting your free 30-day trial!