No matter what industry your business operates in, chances are that you have heard of CRM systems and how people have praised them for their effectiveness. Really, CRM systems provide a plethora of unique benefits for any business. From increasing sales volumes to improved customer satisfaction and many more, the systems are indeed good news to any industry.
But not every CRM is built the same, and the world of CRM systems can be awfully complex for the uninitiated. If you’re new to CRM, don’t worry. This guide will walk you through all the basics to help you understand what a CRM is and how to start leveraging one for your own business success.
What is a CRM System?
A customer relationship management system, or CRM system for short, is software that tracks and manages customers’ account and order details in one live, easy-to-view platform. Through the CRM platform, a business can stay up to date on the details of where a potential customer is in the sales process, the exact specifications of a particular order, and the best ways to interact with each customer.
Think about it like this: as a business grows, one customer might be served by multiple marketing reps, salespeople, and customer service agents. If they had to repeat their name and purchase details every time they talked to someone different, they’d understandably be annoyed.
And in the worst-case scenario, a potential customer might be lost in the cracks of the sales process because each rep thought someone else would handle them. CRMs prevent this type of thing from happening by acting as a centralized database for every customer’s sales process and interactions with the business, giving each employee access to the most up-to-date customer information.
With this information, managers can quickly keep track of each sale’s progress and notice any stalling, and each employee will be capable of providing tailor-made service to any customer. In essence, CRM systems aim to remove data silos in a business in order to speed up the sales process and improve customer satisfaction.
Features of CRM Systems
Just like computers or cars, each CRM system is different, but most share a few key features at their core. For now, let’s take a look at the most common features of CRM systems below and save the details of the most advanced features of CRM systems to the experts.
#1: Contact Management
This feature allows you to record the contact information of your leads, customers, and partners. This information may include things like their names, addresses, social media accounts, email addresses, and phone numbers. Contact management feature ensures you never lose touch with a customer and you can always communicate with them using their preferred channel for the most effective form of communication.
#2: Lead Management
This helps your sales department source, distribute, qualify, and nurture leads until they make a purchase decision. This is a feature of CRMs that makes sure that all leads are followed up on in a timely manner and processed with a consistent methodology.
#3: Interaction Tracking
This feature allows you to log all interactions between a customer and your business to build a comprehensive sense of the customer’s personality and preferences.
#4: Pipeline Management
What if you can have a streamlined view of how many prospects and customers are at each stage of the sales pipeline? It will be indeed incredible, right? That’s exactly what the pipeline management feature of CRMs do, helping managers forecast income and spot any bottlenecks.
#5: Workflow Automation
This automates monotonous tasks such as data entry and runs automatic processes triggered by certain actions, improving the speed and quality of the sales process.
#6: Third-Party Integration
Regardless of how much potential a system or software could be, if it cannot easily be integrated with your existing software and solutions, then it may not be the best choice for you. But with the third-party integration feature of CRMs, you can quickly and easily integrate with marketing software, email servers, video conferencing software, and more to provide an all-in-one center for customer management.
#7: Reporting and Analytics
This generates accurate reports on sales rep performance and the sales funnel with a click of a button.
With these features, businesses can manage customers and the sales process more carefully to close sales faster. That means you can now provide more value to your customers with each interaction and gain an objective understanding of the company’s sales operations.
What Are the Different Types of CRMs?
One of the most confusing things about CRMs is that there are several categories of CRMs, based on what they do and how they work. Let’s look at all the different types available to help you find the one best suited for your business.
Three Functional Types
First off, there are three functional types of CRMs, based on the goal they hope to achieve.
- Operational CRMs: Use automation and workflow management to help businesses run more smoothly.
- Communicative CRMs: Break down information silos and facilitate communication within the company and with customers.
- Analytical CRMs: Collect and mine massive amounts of data to derive insights and make projections about the business and customers.
Three Hosting Methods
Next, you can host and access your CRM software in three ways.
- On-Premise CRMs are hosted on your company’s servers.
- Cloud-based CRMs are hosted on the CRM vendor’s servers and accessed through the Internet.
- Hybrid CRMs begin as cloud-based CRMs but come with the option to be downloaded and converted to an on-premise CRM.
Specificity
Finally, you can purchase either a general-purpose CRM or an industry-specific CRM.
- General-purpose CRMs contain features that are universally useful to most sales organizations.
- Industry-specific CRMs contain niche and specialized tools for specific industries such as healthcare, banking, and hospitality.
Who Are the Most Popular CRM Vendors?
If you’d like to start browsing but aren’t sure where to start, the most popular options are usually the safest. That being said, the five leading CRM vendors by market size in 2021 were:
- Salesforce (23.8%)
- SAP (5.4%)
- Microsoft (5.3%)
- Oracle (5.1%)
- Adobe (3.8%)
However, it’s important to note that these vendors mostly cater to medium- and large-sized businesses. That means that their large market shares are mostly due to the size of each transaction.
If you’re looking for more entry-level CRMs for smaller businesses, some entry-level options are HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive CRM, and Zoho CRM.
Final Note
As sales and customers fly around a growing business, keeping track of each customer’s account and order details can be hard. With various amazing features, CRMs help businesses track and nurture leads and provide personalized interactions to all their customers,
This usually goes a long way to help build value and scale operations with the utmost efficiency. With so many different types of CRMs, there’s bound to be a CRM system out there that’s perfect for your business. So, take the leap now and help your business have a better chance of achieving its goals, even in today’s kind of busy marketplace.