What is CRM?
CRM, an abbreviation of Customer relationship management software is a tool used to manage all of your contacts’ and customers’ information in one place and tracks all activities related to them. It’s also used to manage partner and vendor relationships. It stores critical data for sales, marketing, and customer service purposes and is used for managing marketing campaigns and generating meaningful reports. With CRM software like Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it’s easy to share customer information, monitor sales activities and retrieve purchase history, identify revenue opportunities, deliver consistent customer service, and track your progress against your goals.
Do I Need It?
It’s important to analyze your needs before selecting a CRM software. Here are some indicators that your company may be ready to take the plunge:
- You use multiple methods to communicate with your customers (e-mail, phone, face-to-face, direct mail, etc.)
- You want to be able to target specific customers and prospects and personalize communications
- Your customers’ demographics vary.
- You want greater visibility into your sales or order pipeline.
- You’re duplicating efforts within the company (i.e. two salespeople call the same prospect)
- It’s time-consuming and difficult to generate reports
- You want to be able to track marketing and sales trends and identify opportunities.
- Any customer or prospect data you currently have is spread across different software
Is It Worth the Investment?
It´s a fair question; many business leaders still question the value of implementing CRM software in a business. There are several tangible and intangible benefits to CRM including increased revenue, reduced costs, and greater efficiency. Of course, these results vary depending on the company and type of CRM software you choose. However, it’s easier to prove the worth of a CRM software investment compared to many other software systems since some benefits can be realized almost immediately.
Some benefits include:
- Increased sales due to the ability to automate and directly communicate with your customers with tracking.
- Integration with existing databases and technology systems
- Consolidated information in a centralized system
- Improved visibility into company data and processes for more predictable and manageable business operations
- Ability to create custom reports efficiently and modify rules of the system
- Improved customer service and efficiency due to increased responsiveness and non-duplication of data
- Improved information sharing and synchronization resulting in increased productivity and sales performance.
- Better targeted and more efficient marketing
