April 15, 2014

How CRM Can be Useful to You

A CRM refers to a Client Relationship Management system. It’s a type of software that manages customer relations in a simplified, structured way. The key benefit of this system is the ability to automate many essential yet time-consuming business tasks that are related to sales, marketing, customer support and inventory management.

One of these benefits is the classification of clients into leads, potentials and accounts. A lead might be someone that has just accessed your website and would like to get in touch or acquire a quote. Using CRM, the lead can be stored onto the system in a location set aside exclusively for unqualified leads. You can establish a follow-up email that sends automatically after the lead is received. More so, you are enabled to convert that lead into a potential or an account once further negotiation or a sale takes place. Instead of waiting to hear back from you, a lead gets the impression of immediate contact and you get the convenience of all your leads’ information stored in one location. It has a separate feature to store all clients’ contacts that are relevant to your business as well as a separate database for vendors, who supply your business with products and services.

You can see how having classified databases of your client relations in a single system can be extremely useful. With potentials and established accounts, you can also plan marketing campaigns that are tailored to specific groups. A campaign allows you to collate all your targeted contacts, campaign-related tasks, events and even overall cost under a single banner.

The purpose of a CRM is to handle all angles of client interaction, including customer support and complaint issues. These can also be managed through your website; a client can lodge their concern directly on your website and a corresponding case will automatically be generated in the CRM once it is lodged. Thus, you can view all resolved and unresolved cases at any one time. Over time, you can use this data to see what your frequently encountered problems are and implement solutions on your website to deal with these directly.

With a CRM, client interactions become more seamless and efficient. This ultimately results in less processing time for you and a superior service experience for your clients!