What is CRM

Happy customers are the key to success in any business. However with ease comes the complexity too, as satisfying the customers is not an easy task. With limitations like lack of proper response, duplicate information’s, long menu etc… in a typical IVR (Interactive Voice Response), organizations are running behind newer technologies to gratify their customers. Businesses who fail to implement the right data management and customer interaction strategy will lose out on a 25% increase in potential new revenue, according to Gartner, an American research and advisory firm.

A CRM system refers to use of certain methods, strategy and technologies by Companies to examine customer interactions and their data throughout their operating period. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) provides a superior way to organize the relationships between the customer and the organization in any business, which leads to huge productivity. Though it especially is fruitful for smaller businesses, it also helps in driving business growths to all other size of organizations. Organizations are also working on recording customer emotions such as their overall satisfaction and ratings on how likely they would suggest the product in order to expand marketing and service strategies.

Goal of CRM

The goal of CRM is simple yet effective; it improves customer relationship by staying connected with the customers and streamlining the process, thereby improving the business growth. It integrates customer information’s and catalogs it into a single CRM database for easy access and manageability. It permits everyone in an organization to observe customer communications, their purchase, time of their purchase, the amount paid and a lot more. It also allows to access information’s from their social media accounts, their opinion on the company and its competitors, their wish list etc... In simpler words, it gives an explicit overview of the customers.

The main functions of the software are that it records customer interaction through various channels like phone calls, messages, social media, email etc… depending on the system’s potential. It allows tracking every move of the customer and provides a single view of the customer for all the teams of an organization. It provides a consistent customer experience across all the channels.

Types of CRM

1. Operational: A CRM that is powerful in this sector will excel in contact management, pipeline analysis in sales, lead management, help desk etc… It primarily works on automating progress seamlessly in customer service, marketing, and sales which to manage the repetitive tasks and increase the speed of work.

OPERATED BY: Managers, tech supporters, marketers, service representatives and salespeople

2. Analytical: A strong analytical CRM can obtain big data from the various point of contacts and stabilize them into useful and accurate informations for strategic planning. It produces real-time data with a powerful reporting and dashboard features.

OPERATED BY: Department heads, team leaders, CEOs, and executives,

3. Collaborative: With a deep clarity in sales and marketing, this tool primarily focuses on boosting the teamwork with the purpose to improve the quality of customer service. It possesses communication tools encompassing social discussion, chat option and email facility, which are noteworthy. It supports in sharing customer information and also synchronizes customer activities. Furthermore, it has an efficient file sharing and editing control properties.

Most of the solutions, in spite of possessing all the three types, are only forceful in any one or two.

CRM Software Trends

CRM software will continue to expand in the coming years and as a proof to that, there are a lot of trends occurring in the software. The major trend that is ready to occur in CRM is the integration with external tools and services. Customers are demanding for more mobile features and that are being gradually fulfilled. This will increase user productivity and will support customers to perform actions seamlessly. Vendors are working on integrating data’s across sectors like accounting, management, purchasing etc… which are other than sales and marketing

 AI (Artificial Intelligence) will be the next generation technology in the CRM system and would be the most significant improvement for CRM in the near future which will rapidly drive the sales cycle. AI will boost the CRM system and will enable the organization to anticipate the needs of the customers and will help in answering all the questions of the customers, which will enhance the customer experience. AI integrated CRM will comprehend the usage pattern, scrutinize data’s, predicts trends, makes essential conclusions and automatically performs the everyday task; by this, it will reduce the workload of the employees.

To get closer to the customers, businesses have started to utilize social networks developing virtual communities. Allowing a healthy interaction with the existing customers it helps in fixing complications with ease.

Major features of the CRM software

• Marketing automation: The marketing automation capacity in the CRM software elevates the marketing attempts to customers at various levels in their lifecycle this is achieved by automating the repeated task. It also enables the organizations to easily trace the performance and determine which marketing efforts are effective and are driving more productivity
• Sales force automation: This feature in the CRM software automatically tracks all the interactions between the customer and the salesperson to prevent duplicate attempts between the customer and the employee. Sales force automation, in other words, is called as sales force management.
• Contact center automation: It is designed to reduce the monotonous work of a call center agent’s job by encompassing pre-recorded audio with facilities that assist customers in solving basic problems and helps in information dispersal. By deploying this, various tools of the software will be present in the agent’s desktop that allows to manage customer request in order to cut down the challenges of an IVR and simplify customer service process
• Geo-location technology or location-based services: This tool is used to locate customer’s whereabouts using GPS tracking to create marketing campaigns based on customer’s location. Sometimes the tools integrate with certain GPS applications to find the location. This tool also enables the company to find the sales details based on the location.