The Benefits Of CRM

Updated: January 2024

Your customers are the most important part of your business. Without customers and service users, what would be left? To help manage , build relationships with and keep track of your customers we highly recommend investing in a CRM system.

What is a CRM?

CRM stands for customer relationship management and they are tools designed to help you manage the relationships with your customers. From simply storing their contact details to keeping track of your interactions with them, these pieces of software exist to help make the day to day management of customers easy so you can make the most of your time.

Effectively storing and being able to use the data about your customers is going to be even more important going into 2024. Data collection is not always a guarantee in 2024. Services change what they track and what data they share all the time. Even Google is taking steps to help safeguard privacy with the depreciation of third party cookies planned for later this year. Adopting a CRM system can help you collect, manage, and analyse data about your customers whenever you need to. Independent of tool tracking changes and external policies.

CRM will also help you stay on top of effectively managing your customer data. With cRM it’s easy to remove data if a customer requests it, it’s all stored in one place and it’s easy to make changes as you need.

These are just two of the features of a CRM system. Still not sure if a CRM is right for your business? Here are five more reasons why you should consider adopting a customer relationship management system.

Get Valuable Insights About Your Customers

A key feature of a CRM is that it allows you to centralise all of your customer data, putting everything you need to manage your data into one simple place. Think about where all of your customer data is right now? Is it stored across multiple accounts and in different formats? Are you sure you haven’t lost data as team members come and go? Worse still, is it an unsecured document that anyone could access, leaving you vulnerable to a data breach?

A CRM system will give you a simple, unified and secure system to store and access your customer information. It is this one secure point that helps you keep your data organised and even stay compliant with data management policies and regulations.

If your data is stored in different places it can be difficult to know exactly what data you have and it can really slow down work and lead to costly mistakes. CRM platforms allow you to consolidate data from multiple touchpoints, such as sales, marketing, and customer service, into a single database. Many often include import features to help you organise existing data for a fresh start once you complete your import.

Once your CRM is set up at a glance you’ll be able to see each customer’s history, preferences, demographic data and interactions. Having this knowledge at your fingertips helps you to provide personalised experiences, anticipate customer needs, and tailor your approach accordingly.

Understand Your Customers & Improve Customer Service

How well do you know your customers? A CRM will show you which customers are repeat customers, which ones respond well to offers, which products they like all while keeping a log if they contact customer support with any issues. This data is invaluable when you’re planning marketing campaigns, deciding on which products to stock or even trying to determine who your actual customers are.

When you’re planning campaigns or looking for opportunities this data is so important so you aren’t making assumptions – you’re making decisions based on data. This is what will separate you from the competition, save you money by reducing wasted budget and take your business to the next level.

Plus, with a CRM system, you don’t need to sit there and find all of this data for yourself. CRM systems offer robust analytics and reporting capabilities so you have access to these insights almost immediately meaning with the right CRM you can start seeing these benefits today.

Improve The Efficiency Of Your Business

Manual data entry, repetitive administrative tasks, and disorganised workflows can hinder productivity and increase the likelihood of errors. All of these can become a thing of the past with the introduction of the right CRM.

For example, CRM can automatically log customer interactions, schedule follow-up tasks, and trigger notifications for important events. This frees up your team’s time to complete more important jobs as the more menial paperwork becomes automated by the CRM itself.

Think how incorporating a CRM into your existing systems could help your teams work smarter and faster.

For example, a CRM can massively help your sales team. Imagine that once a customer contacts you your CRM system can automatically start nurturing that contact and helping turn them into a sale, without you having to lift a finger sending pre-prepared communications and keeping your business at the front of mind for that potential customer.

By having a deeper understanding of each customer, you can tailor your interactions and communications to their specific needs and preferences. These personalised interactions demonstrate that you understand and value your customers, fostering loyalty and helping to build long-term relationships.

Introduce Automation To Improve Customer Communication

We’ve previously mentioned email communication for how CRM can help to automate how you communicate with your customers, but this is only one way the automation power of CRM can be harnessed.

As well as customer communication it can help internal management. Many CRMs have the ability to create workflows and paths so when one team member adds a comment to a record or completes a task it will notify other team members automatically. For working on large projects, or if your team is remote, a system like this can massively help efficiency and make working on projects far easier.

Manage Your Sales Process With CRM

If you have a sales team or are managing leads as part of your business, the importance of a CRM system cannot be overstated. A properly configured CRM will help streamline lead management, allowing your team to capture and prioritise leads efficiently. With CRMs connected to your website you can have automated communications and flows in place to ensure that the customer journey is seamless from the beginning.

Through a sales funnel, you can prioritise and focus efforts on high-potential customers and prioritise new leads as they come in while making sure no opportunities are missed and wasted. This is especially important if you’ve spent any money in generating that lead, if it’s lost you’ve essentially thrown money away.

All while this is happening in the background, the CRM itself helps improve collaboration between your sales team members. It provides a centralised platform for sharing information about leads, deals, and customer interactions.

This collaborative environment ensures that everyone involved in the sales process is on the same page, leading to better coordination and increased efficiency. It also means that should a team member need to step back from a project, there’s a complete record of everything they’ve completed so someone else can step in with ease.

If you have a sales team, you can’t afford to not have a CRM system in place.

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Which CRM Should I Choose?

It’s all very well recognising that you need a CRM, but there are so many to choose from it can be difficult to know where to begin.

With our expertise in some of the most popular CRMS, Zoho CRM, Zoho Bigin, FLG and Pipedrive, we can help you find and set up your perfect CRM. We’ll go over everything you’re looking to get from your system to make sure you get a CRM that’s right for you. This means you don’t waste money on features you don’t need and you get a tool you’ll actually want to use.

If an out of the box CRM doesn’t fit your needs, we can develop a custom business application that has all the benefits of a CRM but is perfectly matched to you and your business.

The benefits of using a CRM for your business are undeniable. From centralising customer data and providing valuable insights, CRM helps you deliver exceptional customer experiences to keep your audience coming back for more.

If you’re ready to harness the power of CRM for your business, we are here to help. Don’t hesitate to contact us for advice and support. Contact us today to get started.