As businesses have moved into the modern era, many are looking to utilize digital solutions to better take advantage of the fact that more and people are spending their time online. With the increased proliferation of the internet in people’s lives, more and more people conduct most of their purchasing online. This means that businesses need to be where their customers are and be ready to engage with them in the digital arena. One of the best ways to do that is with a CRM.
But what is a CRM? A CRM, or customer relationship management software, is a program that allows you to manage and optimize relationships with customers. These customers don’t just have to be ones you connect with digitally; they can also be ones gained through cold calling, conventions or trade shows, and other non-digital methods of customer acquisition. A CRM can be used by a variety of areas within a business, including information management, marketing, sales, customer success, and finance. However, one of the main reasons that people use a CRM is to boost their sales teams.
How a Customer Success Team and a Sales Team Can Benefit from a CRM
A CRM, can, by its very nature, help you manage customer relationships. This most obviously translates into customer service, where a customer success team can identify where customers are in their customer journey and any pain points that may arise. Utilizing visualized reporting features that come with many CRMs, customer success teams can find the main points of a customer lifecycle where customer churn is more likely to occur. They can then tamp down on these areas and offer superior customer service so that customers are more likely to say.
Where a CRM is often underrated through is for its sales capabilities. Sales managers face two main issues: how to qualify and follow up on leads, and how to prioritize sales activities. A CRM helps to solve these issues by creating a database of all existing and potential customers, allowing sales teams to create buyer personas. Compiling this data is very helpful in determining the quality of a sales lead, and also giving salespeople past data to work with. This can help them determine which sales techniques are the most effective and which are a waste of their time. Furthermore, the sales team can streamline their sales pipeline and cut down on administrative tasks using a CRM. This saves time and hassle, allowing a sales team to focus on what they do best; driving sales!
While there are many other uses of a CRM, utilizing it for customer success and sales is a key way to drive immediate value from it. Not only is a CRM a great tool for companies to boost their bottom line, but it also frees up value manhours and improves customer acquisition and retention. Finally, a CRM is a digital-first tool that allows companies to streamline their digital operations, thereby helping them to find customers where they actually are, and not solely trying to find them through methods they may not want to be contacted through such as phone or direct mail.
