Why CRM is Essential To Business In 2017

Customer Relationships have never been more important in business. These relationships are based on knowledge and data. Customer Relationship Management software is designed to manage these relationships and is an essential part of any business in 2017. CRM software can revolutionize how your business manages customer information.

Businesses of all sizes have found significant sales and productivity advantages from better customer relationship management. Companies implementing these apps have seen sales increase by up to 37% and sales productivity increase by up to 44%. With these kinds of growth rates, companies are quickly adopting CRM apps in their organization. Implementing a CRM application isn’t about getting ahead of the competition, it’s about keeping up with the competition.

What is Customer Relationship Management software?

In a nutshell, these software apps store and manage the flow of information and data about customers. They provide ready access to all pertinent information about each customer no matter where they are in the sales or service process. All customer interactions are stored and information from each of those interactions is easily available.

CRM applications allow your company to focus on individual relationships with the customer. If a customer mentions something in an interaction, that note can be made in the system and is remembered for all subsequent interactions. It’s a powerful tool for sales productivity. Salesforce has a great in-depth description.

How can your business use this?

CRM apps are an important component of any business. Even musicians are using CRM applications. If your company has customers, it can use the application to keep track of prospects, leads, and customers at any point in the sales funnel.

Every marketing department needs a CRM app. Customers can be tracked from their first contact with your company until they make their first purchase. After sales, customer service can be handled through the applications. It can prove to be very important in generating repeat sales.

They have been shown to help businesses increase their sales and increase their customer engagement.

By tracking customers throughout the sales funnel, sales staff know exactly where each prospect is in the process. Customers can be provided additional information and receive personalized service.

One problem for some companies is staff turnover. When a staff member leaves, they take the personal knowledge about a client with them. With CRMs, there is no starting over in the relationship just because someone new is working on the account. New staff have access to the same information about the client and can quickly build a rapport.

They are particularly suited to support an inbound marketing campaign. Inbound marketing is focused on bringing customers to your business. It relies on permission based marketing over interruption based marketing. As customers come to your site, you can collect limited information about these customers. Each piece of information collected is a data point. You can keep track of what content they have requested so that your staff can provide other content that might be useful. For example, if a lead requested a white paper, your sales staff can follow up with a product information page.

What are some cutting edge features?

There are many different types of CRM apps out there with different features. Different feature sets appeal to different industries. Finding a solution tailored to your business is important. Cutting edge features help push your company ahead of the pack and are worth looking into.

Many CRM applications will help gather customer information from public sources like social media using what information you already have about a prospective or existing client. It can pull in information from their LinkedIn profile. This information will include information about their current position and their connections. Likewise, the software can pull in data from other social networks like Twitter and Facebook. The information gained can help sales staff build a rapport with their clients.

Another cutting edge feature is the ability to survey customers from the application. Customer surveys are an important tool to find out how a customer feels about your business. The net promoter score is a tool used across many industries. A high net promoter score means you are doing things right and a lower score means that you have work to do. CRMs can automate the work in surveying your customers and help you solve issues before they become problems.

If your company doesn’t have a CRM app, then it’s essential that you get one in 2017. Your company can see the advantages of increased sales and productivity. Improved customer engagement and customer service represent an added benefit for your company. It’s clear that CRM applications are an essential part of any business in 2017.