The industry is abuzz with the term CRM these days. For the uninitiated, CRM refers to Customer Relationship Management. CRM is software that helps companies manage and support their relations with the customer. Organisations prefer CRM software as it relieves them of the complexities involved in customer engagement and interaction management.
A CRM system helps streamline the tasks in the sales pipeline while enhancing the overall customer journey through automation. Every department in the organisation, be it sales, commerce, customer support, IT, and even marketing can benefit from a CRM system.
With the help of CRM tools, it is possible to personalise the relationship with the customer, thereby building a positive experience throughout the customer journey. This helps negate the possibilities of errors and hence, improve profitability.
Importance of CRM for Sales
A CRM system is of the utmost importance to the Sales department. It helps the sales team in identifying prospects, tracking them, and analysing, managing, and interacting with the customers. With a robust CRM system in place, it becomes easier for the sales team to accelerate the conversion of customers and maintain customer satisfaction throughout their journey.
Simplification – Sales comprises a complicated set of different processes. With a Sales CRM in place, teams can invest more time in enhancing consumer interaction rather than wasting it on repetitive tasks.
Centralization – The information collected by the sales department is useful to almost all other departments in an organisation. With the help of Sales CRM, teams can centralize the availability of the information. This saves time in the dissemination of the information without losing its value.
Automation – With Sales CRM, various processes can be automated without any hassles. This helps maintain the accuracy of the data, thereby minimizing the errors caused by human intervention.
Benefits of Sales CRM for businesses
Sales Teams generally face the challenge of qualifying leads for the business and sticking to a follow-up process. Further, it is difficult for them to prioritize sales activities. Sales CRM helps streamline the above-mentioned processes and helps different teams to stay on the same page.
Data Storage – Sales CRM helps organisations to store important information regarding customers safely in a centralized system. This information generally comprises sales opportunities, contacts of prospects and customers, scheduled activities and the like. Different departments have easy access to this database. The primary benefit is that the data doesn’t get lost in the routine mayhem in the office.
Time management – Sales CRM helps teams to manage their schedules and prioritize tasks. This ensures that the focus on customers is not lost while executing routine tasks. As all the repetitive tasks are taken care of by the system, sales teams can spend time enhancing their customer interaction skills and close deals quickly.
Reports – Sales CRM helps teams to prepare their reports on a weekly or monthly basis, without any hassles. The system helps automate the system by making it transparent and quick. The entire sales team remains informed about the sales that are in progress daily.
Data Segmentation – Sales CRM helps teams to segment customer data. This results in easy identification of opportunities. With this, the sales team can save time surfing information from past accounts and instead focus on customer conversion.
Capabilities of Sales CRM
Sales are the backbone of a business organisation. It helps generate leads for the product and services offered by the business. If the sales department is in sync with the rest of the departments, it becomes easy to tap customers and expand the business.A business has various touchpoints to interact with prospective customers. Hence, managing customers is not an easy task for the sales team. With a CRM in place, it becomes easy to maintain sales efficiency and relations with customers.
- Communication – Sales CRM helps organisations to offer high-level services to their customers. It is easy to communicate with customers in real time through tools like chatbots, phone calls, and live chat sessions. Further, all the interactions can be tracked in a centralized system.
- Team Coordination – With Sales CRM, teams can work in tandem with each other. Secure and safe cloud storage along with a handy interface allows teams to have the information they require at the press of a button.
- Integration – Sales CRM allows integration of other software. This helps simplify the task of sales representatives. Teams can convert their phone calls and voicemails into business leads. This even eases the process of following up.
- Personalization – Every organisation has a unique set of requirements. With the Sales CRM, companies can personalize their interactions with customers based on the past buying behaviour and purchasing pattern available.
- Resolution – Sales CRM helps improve client relationships by helping sales representative to understand customers in a better manner. CRM software helps form unique relations with customers through a bouquet of tools.
- Savings – Sales CRM offers a great return on investment by helping organisations to save money on various types of expenditures. Sales representatives do not have to incur repetitive expenses as they can plan their schedule of customer interaction through centrally available data.
- Profitability – Sales CRM helps organisations in responding to customers in an organised fashion. It enhances customer experience and spreads positive word-of-mouth. This helps expand the reach of the organisation.
Things to consider before investing in a Sales CRM
- Accessibility of the CRM Software – choose between on-premise software and cloud-based software
- Compatibility – know whether CRM software can integrate with the existing infrastructure.
- Cost – the cost of the CRM software depending upon the customization required by the organisation.
- Vendor Support – the level of support offered by the vendor to meet day-to-day challenges.
- User Interface – the simplicity of the User Interface matters a lot when choosing a Sales CRM.
The Future of CRM and Blockchain
Blockchain is inherently customer-centric due to its peer-to-peer structure and will produce meaningful engagement for firms willing to invest in long-term customer experience and loyalty. Blockchain and CRM go together perfectly. Blockchain technology will offer a premium cloud and scalable industry standard for certified data, making it a secure location to store verified information.
Additionally, Blockchain eCommerce Marketplace will provide a decentralized and transparent platform for buyers and sellers to transact, which enhances trust and security for both parties.
The Way Forward
Sales CRM has become quite important in the present times. An organisation with as few as 10 employees considers investing in Sales CRM to experience the benefits of an organised system. CRM software helps improve the business while maintaining long-lasting relations with the customers. As the software comes loaded with different useful applications, it helps enhance the journey of the customer while unburdening the organisation of various tedious tasks.
