CRM Platform Wars: 7 Ways Your CRM System Benefits Your Business Long Term
Growing your business in the digital world today is about having the right information while interacting with customers. How can you show them you understand their pain and want to make life easier? With the numerous touch points available for collecting information about your customers, it is critical to have a way to retrieve up-to-date, reliable, and actionable details when you need them.
A well-implemented Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system empowers you with relevant information at the right moment to provide the best experiences for your customers. Here are seven ways a CRM platform improves your customer relationships.
1. Single information resource = enhanced collaboration
Irrespective of your business size, a CRM platform helps collate information from various departments into a cohesive, reliable, and comprehensive repository. Whether a customer service, marketing, digital commerce, or technology executive connects with a customer, they have the customer’s history and other relevant information for a personalized interaction. Any customer will appreciate not having to repeat their history and issues or details with your executives at every interaction.
2. Easier contact management
Your sales team interacted with the customer a week ago and has written notes on paper. The technology team is working to onboard them onto your product/service and has additional details about the customer’s preferences on chat. Tomorrow, if the customer service executive interacts with the customer, the expectation is that the information from the previous customer interactions be available to the executive.
A CRM platform fits right into this by becoming the unified source for your teams to enter customer information. The information can be pulled up quickly and updated anytime and from anywhere.
3. Automating your CRM platform saves effort
Do you want to send a follow-up email to the customer about an upcoming offer or event? Do you want to ensure that you’re nurturing the customer? The CRM platform allows you to automate tasks such as sending follow-ups, emails, or a campaign, allowing your team to focus on other value-adding activities.
4. Capturing customer sentiments
Businesses today routinely check social media platforms, review sites, and other forums to know what customers say about them. Ensuring these sentiments are regularly captured and updated in your CRM system lets you and your sales team proactively manage experiences and strengthen customer relationships. This shows your commitment to listening to your customers and addressing the pain points highlighted.
5. Your CRM should reflect your sales process and store custom data relevant to your business needs
Your customer acquisition journey is different from other businesses and requires you to maintain information of a specific kind. You may want to know what “product/service your customer purchased” or their “time zone”, apart from knowing which channel brought them to your site, how long they took from the first interaction with your business to becoming a customer, and so on. Understanding your sales process and how customers interact with you and aligning the CRM platform to reflect this process is important. You get the maximum benefits when the information saved is relevant.
6. Protecting customer data becomes easier
Information security is increasingly critical for all businesses. You must save customer details according to global or local regulations and laws. CRM platforms are built to comply with these regulations, saving you the added trouble of maintaining data privacy.
7. Your CRM platform grows with your business
As you grow, your customer database and personas grow too. Journey orchestration for the various customer personas becomes easier with a CRM platform. As you add other tools and platforms to support your growing business needs, integrating them with your CRM platform ensures your information is seamless. Analyzing larger volumes of data for churn risks, buying habits, and behavioral patterns becomes easier with a CRM platform.
AMA San Diego recently hosted the Platform Wars: CRM Panel Discussion, with experts weighing in on the benefits of adopting a CRM system. A big thanks to Punch Bowl Social for providing us with the perfect venue and to Max Lux Media for capturing the magic.
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