In recent years, Customer Relationship Management systems have become increasingly popular among businesses all over the world. While it might seem like these systems purely exist to build a bond between the business and its customers, it’s actually more important than that.
CRMs, as they are known for short, have become one of the most important systems that a business can implement. They are so important that they can unify global corporations, streamline operations, and even satisfy your customers to keep them coming back to your business.
Even if you have a small business, investing in a CRM system can be a game changer for you. If you’re not sure about what a CRM is and how it works, or why your business needs to invest in one, keep reading to get all the details about how to utilise these powerful systems.
What is a CRM?
You might be wondering what exactly a “CRM” is. A Customer Relationship Management system is designed for businesses to incorporate a unified system that allows all their team members to collaborate together on projects. While the “customer relationship” element is important in a CRM, it’s not the only feature that these systems are famous for.
From automation to integrating hundreds of third-party applications, these systems can provide your business with a boost in productivity and efficiency in daily tasks and projects that you take on. These systems have become essential for businesses like Apple, Amazon, and even the U.S Air Force.
While these might all be massive global corporations, they aren’t the only businesses to use CRMs. Recent statistics have shown that CRM usage amongst businesses has increased from 54% to 73% in the last year alone. Many small and medium sized businesses are also investing in these powerful systems, and they are reaping the rewards by gaining an edge over their competition.
The Benefits You Can Expect From a CRM
Whether you have an international fashion brand or a small local graphic design business, a CRM can provide you with tons of benefits. While you can explain what a CRM is, you won’t truly understand the power that these systems hold until you read more about the benefits that they will bring to your business.
Excellent customer service
The main benefit that you can expect from a CRM is a boost in your customer relationships. We’ve all heard the horror stories about bad customer service, and that’s the one thing that can really tank your reputation no matter what industry you are in.
CRMs will help to boost your customer service as they allow you to keep in touch with your customers. CRMs will collect everything you need to know about your customers from the moment they first interacted with your business. You can even see their purchase history and their conversation history with each of your team members — so, no more emails left on read, and no more frustrated customers waiting for a response.
Next level project management
Another incredible strength of a CRM is that it has incredible project management capabilities. These systems often allow you to customise your project management to tailor it to your business.
For example, if you’re running a copywriting project, you can set the different stages of your project to “writing”, “editing”, and “article live”. This allows you to quickly get an overview of each project’s progress and how long it has been worked on. CRMs will even allow you to leave notes on projects for other team members, and the system will automatically notify the next team member when action is required from them. For example, when the writer moves their project into editing, the editor will be notified instantly.
Unprecedented teamwork
This allows for your team to work together like never before regardless of whether they are in different departments of geographical locations. With a streamlined workflow, your team will become more productive and more efficient than ever before, and your business will reap the benefits.
CRMs also allow you to install third-party applications such as Slack, Zoom, and Google Docs. This means that your team can use these productivity tools in connection with the unified business system. You’ll spend less time switching tabs and applications, and more time focusing on the tasks that matter the most.
Tracking and automation
CRMs will collect data and information from everything. Whether it’s the average time spent working on projects or the amount of interactions you get from your social media posts. This information will be collected and displayed in visually appealing dashboards which allows you to keep track of your business’ progress over a set period of time.
Automation allows your CRM to complete basic tasks on your behalf. Whether it’s sending out emails or scheduling social media posts on several different platforms, CMRs can help you to save time and effort through some basic automation.
Personalised marketing
CRMs are able to collect tons of different information about your customers to build up a detailed contact list. You can choose which information you would like to collect, such as a customer’s job title, their geographical location, or even the industry they work in.
This allows you to segment your contact list and market your products and services accordingly. For example, you might be launching a new product that is aimed at CEO’s in the automotive sector. Instead of spamming your entire contact list with something they might not be interested in, you can focus your email marketing on a specific group of people that will be interested in your product.
How to Choose the Right CRM
There are hundreds of CRMs currently available on the market to choose from. But, choosing the right CRM is crucial to having a good experience with the system and ensuring that it’s successful.
The implementation process of a CRM can be just as challenging, and oftentimes it’s best to consult with some CRM experts or digital marketing agencies on how to best approach this process.
Overall, the best CRM that is currently available is HubSpot. This CRM is free to use, but it also offers paid packages. This means that as your business grows, so does the CRM. This flexibility is what makes Hubspot stand out from the rest of the crowd.
