Your Guide to CRM Software
Mastering the sales process is crucial to the success of any business. Thanks to technology, you now have access to a suite of tools such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that allows you to maintain consistency and efficiency of all your customer touchpoints to ensure satisfaction and promote brand loyalty.
CRM features are also getting more advanced these days, which is why it’s essential to learn all about them to decide which CRM is the best for you.
Since CRM isn’t really familiar to everyone, you need to look into CRM capabilities and other factors to know exactly what would fit your business.
Here, we dig deeper into the world of CRM with everything you need to know about it:
What Is CRM Software?
CRM is considered one of the most critical tools in the sales process. A fundamental CRM definition would be that it’s a tool that helps a business build and nurture its relationship with clients.
By connecting every department, CRM software puts all your tasks, activities, notes, and metrics in one place so that it’s easier to work more efficiently to ensure customer satisfaction and impress your clients along the way.
Part of understanding CRM software and CRM functionality is looking back at its history, which according to Salesforce, “started with handwritten notes and Rolodexes, but with the advent and proliferation of digital technology, it eventually evolved into databases stored on individual computers, and then CRM definition shifted into something far more complex.”
Why Do You Need CRM Software?
With a growing CRM features list, it’s no surprise that more businesses are also starting to appreciate the value of having CRM software in their repertoire of tools.
In fact, the CRM market is expected to enjoy more than $80 billion in revenue by 2025, according to a study, because of the huge demand for CRM software in the market today.
But why exactly do you need this tool in your business?
- You get to be more organized. The organization is one of the most significant benefits of having CRM software as part of your system. With the right CRM system features, you get to import, condense, organize and track all your customer data in one place.
Having a single platform will allow you to be more efficient and gain access to all the information you need to stay consistent with how you deal with your customer.
- You get to track your marketing campaigns. CRM software is helpful because it allows you to track your campaigns, especially when you have marketing automation as part of its features.
Instead of just relying on people to run your marketing campaign, a good CRM will allow you to set up email blasts and just track them from your system.
Other CRM software will even let you do A/B testing to determine the efficiency of your campaigns.
- You get to collect and analyze data faster. One of the best CRM software functions is the capability to gather data and collect and analyze it in the most efficient way possible.
Data analytics is crucial to the success of your campaigns, and it allows you to review not only your sales process but your entire business process.
Plus, the best part is that you get to share this data with key people within your organization, and they can manipulate this data in ways that would be beneficial in their own jobs.
Essential Features Your CRM Software Must Have
A key element of customer relationship management is to maximize the benefits of this tool not only in your sales process but also in your entire business. This is why you need to have a few core CRM features in your system to achieve this goal:
- Interaction tracking. This is an essential CRM functionality because it allows you to keep track of your conversations with customers at different touchpoints. Good CRM should have the capability to let you track your interaction history and add notes to get a clearer picture of your relationship with clients.
- Efficient pipeline. It’s not easy managing your sales process without proper organization. But good CRM software would show you the entire sales funnel in a pipeline view so that you get to drag and drop leads, check interactions, track efficiency, and just see your entire sales process in a more cohesive and consistent view.
- Customer profile. One of the most critical CRM software functions is having a complete customer profile with all the relevant information to understand your customer better and offer the right solutions to him.
- Contact management. This is also known as lead management. This is a necessary CRM functionality because it keeps all of your contact information in one place, so it’s easier to pull out addresses, email addresses, and even social media profiles
- You need to look for CRM software that can quickly generate reports and show them on your dashboard. This data can be accessed by your sales, customer service, and marketing teams, and it should be updated in real-time, so you can see any shifts and changes and act on them right away to maintain the efficiency of your campaigns.
Frequently Asked Questions About CRM Software
To give you a better understanding of how CRM software works, we answer some of your most frequently asked questions:
- What are the major features of CRM?
There’s an extended CRM features list that you should consider when choosing the right tool for your business. But a few non-negotiables would include those discussed above, like reporting, customer profile, contact management, pipeline, and interaction tracking.
You should also look for customization, so it wouldn’t be hard for your team to adjust to the system.
- What is CRM and its benefits?
CRM is a tool that’s used primarily to manage the sales process. Having good CRM software will not only help you maximize the efficiency of your campaigns and make your operations more organized, but it will also help increase revenues and build better relationships with clients.
- What is the capability of CRM?
CRM capabilities would depend on the type of tool you use and your specific needs as a business. That is why it’s important to have a list of your must-have features before you start looking into different types of CRM so that it’s easier to find the best fit for your business.
- What are the three types of CRM?
There are three basic types of CRM: collaborative, analytical, and operational. Collaborative CRM systems connect marketing, customer service, and sales teams better, analytical CRM systems focus on gathering and analyzing customer data, and operating CRM systems are all about streamlining business processes for better customer relations.
- What is the functionality of CRM in Salesforce?
One of the best examples of CRM is Salesforce, which promises to give businesses hassle-free contact management, easy access to customer data, convenient tracking of interactions, and a dashboard that allows for more efficient analysis of customer information and tracking of campaigns.
The Salesforce CRM also promotes better collaborations within teams to ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding campaigns and business goals.
Choosing the right CRM software will depend primarily on the type of business you’re running and the goals you want to achieve.
If used properly, CRM software will help you build and nurture your relationship with your customers, promote better communication and collaboration within your team, boost your sales and revenues, and give you more room for growth as a business.
