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Harvard Business Review Links Increased Sales & Customer Retention to CRM

In a recent study conducted by Harvard Business Review, there is a link between using CRM and customer sales and retention. According to the marketing study, companies and organizations that used a CRM platform to track and engage its customer base saw a 10 to 15% increase in customers and a 100% increase in revenue. This clearly shows that there is a significant ROI to be gained by using CRM.

What is it about CRM that makes it so powerful to a businesses bottom line? The more information that you have about a potential or existing customer, the better your chances are of making a sale. Having access to a CRM platform allows a business to maximize the value of its customer base in three ways:

1. Identifies the best opportunities to target.

Many business owners have only a vague idea of who their prospective or current customers are and the opportunities that are available. A CRM system gives a business the ability to track all prospective and current customers as well as the existing opportunities that are available. The best opportunities can then be targeted, prioritized and executed on efficiently and effectively.

2. Develop a strategy to retain existing customers.

The most difficult part of the customer process is acquiring a new customer. Many businesses work really hard at acquiring a new customer. Then they fail to maximize their efforts in the retention process. By utilizing a CRM system a business can track its entire relationship with its customer base, follow up with its existing customers in an automated fashion and increase the rate of retention for its customer base.

3. Increase the number of customers.

Every business has a number of prospective customers that they can target. However, most businesses do not have an effective process for tracking the conversion process. A CRM system gives these businesses the ability to track prospective customers. This includes information about the customer, the types of marketing efforts implemented, and how successful they are at gaining the customer. The end result is more customers and more revenue for the business.

Service Push uses Sugar CRM and includes a number of modules designed to help a business maximize these benefits. You can store all of your business contacts in one database, including prospective and current customers. You can track sales to each individual customer and you can even assign and track projects to specific customers.

Any documents that are related to specific customers can be tracked as well. For instance, if your business sends proposals you can store each proposal generated to a specific customer to the customer record within Sugar CRM.

Sugar CRM even gives you the ability to send outbound emails to individual customers so you can track all of your interactions. Phone calls made to these customers can be tracked and logged as well.

There are additional features that are available in Sugar CRM to help achieve these benefits as well. For businesses that use social media to identify prospective customers, there are lead creation tools available. There are even automated lead creation options as well. Imagine waking up in the morning to already have a list of 50 prospective customers who have already indicated an interest in your product or service!

To learn more about the benefits of Service Push and Sugar CRM click this link to learn more.