CRM is one of the most popular software solutions for the business to invest in. There are more selections available than ever before, ranging from cloud-based or SaaS products to on-premises installed software packages. In ‘The Age of the Customer’, Customer Relationship Management isn’t just nice to have; it’s absolutely essential to remain competitive. Customer relationships and the ability to maintain good customer satisfaction ratings is more important than what you charge for your products or even the quality of products you offer. Without CRM, it’s impossible to do that.
The advantages of having CRM software
Even if you were, you wouldn’t be able to prove it,
because you couldn’t measure it and track it.
CRM or Customer Relationship Management software does several things for your organization:
- CRM allows you to provide improved customer service because employees have immediate access to all of the information they need about the client they’re currently working with.
- CRM features Marketing Automation functionality, which allows you to streamline the activities of the marketing department to maintain a consistent, coherent brand identity and to track and measure the reception of any given campaign.
- CRM makes internal operations more efficient and effective by providing management with access to detailed information about marketing, sales, and customer analytics. This provides improved visibility into processes and allows for much better decision making.
- CRM improves the sales cycle by automatically assigning leads, tracking competitors, and allowing sales to see a holistic picture of their potential customers.
- CRM has advanced reporting functionality. Detailed reporting capabilities allow for total transparency across the organization, and produces advanced business intelligence (BI) that managers can act on decisively and immediately.
How to make sure you get the right CRM software
to track the sales process from the instant the lead is generated
through the phase of becoming a loyal customer.
Of course, your ability to leverage your CRM software to your benefit depends directly on how well you choose the software, how successfully you implement it, and to what degree your employees adopt the solution. Here are some guidelines for assuring you score the software that’s right for your business:
- Keep it simple, silly. One of the common mistakes businesses make is to select an unnecessarily complex system that’s hard to use. Choose a solution that offers the features you need, with no extra bells and whistles. The essential features are info on the prospect, the ability to take notes on the last communication with the prospect, a follow-up date and reminder, the person handling the prospect, and the value of the prospect expressed in a dollar amount.
- Choose a system that integrates well with your other back-end systems. Find out what the processes for importing and exporting data into and out of the system are. Pick a system that will play nicely with your other tools and software.
- Look for a CRM with mobile capabilities. Almost all companies have marketing and sales team members that spend a lot of time away from the office. A mobile solution powers their activities for a solution that works for everyone.
- Reporting capabilities are also essential. You’ll need to be able to receive real-time reports from the data collected by the CRM. Look for the ability to find out things like what a particular sales rep did over the course of a week, where the most valuable sales opportunities lie, and whether or not you’re on pace to meet quarterly sales goals.
With a system that does all of this, you can truly nail it with Customer Relationship Management. For more assistance getting the CRM your business so desperately needs, contact us at NexTec today.