16th July, 2022
In a world where customers expect service anywhere and anytime, businesses need efficient customer relationship management (CRM) systems and processes to stay ahead of the curve. Here’s how.
To build a successful business, one of the most important elements is exemplary customer service.
This involves more than just answering the phone quickly or responding to emails on the fly.
Effective customer relationship management (CRM) means having a system and strategy to manage relationships and interactions with current and potential customers.
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These days, when people talk about CRM, they’re often referring to the use of a CRM system, a technological aid that businesses used to manage, analyse, and streamline a variety of factors, including contacts, sales, workflow processes, productivity, profitability, and more.
Here’s what you need to know about CRM systems today to help move your business forward.
A CRM system is a platform for you to store information about prospects and clients, as well as updates about all the interactions you have with these people.
As a centralised tool, the tech enables users to easily share data between colleagues and teams.
Business managers and marketers can use the information captured in the CRM system to foster better business relationships, to grow their venture and improve profits.
In the past, businesses often missed out on valuable intellectual property and customer relationships when employees left or when details were lost or forgotten.
Today, though, thanks to CRM, information is retained, organised, and always on hand to drive activity. It’s there to make note of when anyone in the business interacts with a customer, whether on the phone, in person, via email, during a meeting, on social media, at an event, or elsewhere, and what’s been learned. As such, data stays up-to-date and relevant.
Not only does this mean relevant details about every customer are at your fingertips any time, but you also better understand your client types and what they’re looking for.
Opportunities won’t be lost as frequently either, as follow-ups can be scheduled and delegated within CRM systems.
By better understanding customers, you’ll be able to win business, more easily up-sell and cross-sell, and receive referrals from current clients.
The below video from CRM provider Tall Emu (which was recently acquired by MYOB) explains further.
CRM systems were first developed to act as a place to file and share information.
But over the years, the systems have become increasingly feature-rich as developers have listened to businesses about the functionality they require.
Now, CRM systems act as a contact database, track and store customer emails (many integrate with programs like Outlook and Gmail), and log calls.
READ: Top 10 CRM benefits for your business
They can be used to schedule meetings, help handle client complaints and set up to remind you when to make customer calls or send emails.
Advanced CRM systems can also integrate with other core business solutions, such as MYOB, in order to create a holistic view of key financial data.
The technology can be programmed to automatically send an alert when a customer hasn’t been contacted for some time or when an event, such as a birthday, might be acknowledged (with a birthday gift voucher or discount code, as an example).
READ: What is relationship marketing?
The most common use of CRM is tracking leads and opportunities, to help you keep track of deals and close new business, but the specifics of how you might use a CRM system most effectively in your organisation will depend largely on your type of business, your marketing strategy and your customers and clients.
Mike Nash, CEO of Tall Emu provides some examples for how CRM systems may be used.
“A wholesale company might use CRM systems to help sales representatives manage their diaries and site visits, keep track of stock and take orders in the field,” he said.
“Alternatively, a company that sells hardware could also use CRM to track the service history of those items, as well as tracking of customer issues or jobs related to that hardware.”
In contrast, a small online retail business might use a CRM system to automate email communications with website visitors that abandon a shopping cart before purchasing, as another example.
Below are some of the key ways you might find a CRM system is useful in your organisation.
With a CRM system, you’ll find it easier to track the performance of sales employees and use data insights to support their training.
For example, the most effective salespeople can be quickly identified and their experiences can be shared as tips and tricks for their colleagues to learn from.
As a CRM helps generate sales and manage related data, a good CRM system should offer everything you need to raise quotes and manage sales from beginning to end.
Track results of marketing campaigns, determining which are most effective in different markets and channels. With better customer data stored in a central place, you can become more scientific in your approach to running campaigns.
Identify potentially hot new leads and come up with cross-selling or up-selling opportunities for sales teams to implement.
A good salesperson will naturally develop their own CRM systems and processes, but with a dedicated, central system in place their work becomes much easier and the data is made available to the entire business.
By using a CRM to understand which customers are buying what products or services, you’ll be better able to create targeted offers, or review your pricing models accordingly.
Likewise, this data can also be used for forecasting as customer data yields insights around seasonality and other time-sensitive trends.
This is of particular importance in uncertain economic environments, giving business operators the ability to better plan for contingencies and build out their costings into future scenario planning.
READ: How to plan and execute a CRM strategy
To decide on the best software for your venture, get clear about your needs, specifically with regard to integrating with other platforms and systems already in use within your organisation.
After all, there’s no point paying more money for a comprehensive system if you only want it to do the basics.
What works best for a large, multinational firm will be overkill for a smaller organisation.
On the other hand, if you think you want access to certain tools in the future as your business grows, consider a feature-rich solution now that can scale over time.
Price is going to be a big factor, too. Compare costs between the programs on your shortlist and try to make forecasts about the benefits the software will bring you.
Ensure the advantages you’ll enjoy from a system won’t be wiped out by its expense.
As mentioned above, scalability should be a consideration. If you know you’re going to hire many employees in the coming months, consider how much extra users will cost on a program and if the features you’ll need once you have a bigger team will be available.
Hot tip: If you wish to stick with a simpler product to start with, check that you’ll be able to export your important data in a useful format later, when it comes time to upgrade.
Adequate customer support is another necessity. Choose a program that looks after clients by providing local customer service via numerous communication methods.
“We see a lot of customers coming over from other platforms with international support teams saying they found the situation untenable,” Nash explained.
“If you’re having to call a support team in Texas at 2am or you can reach support but they don’t understand your specific needs given your location, then you may want to reconsider working with them.”
Ask about security, too. You’ll be storing incredibly sensitive and valuable information on a CRM system. As such, choose a program that takes security seriously and releases updates regularly to plug risky gaps.
A quality program will also have considered data recovery plans in place.
CRM and business software integration
Something else to think about when it comes to CRM systems is how it will integrate with other solutions, such as your inventory and accounting software.
Integration with other systems, where they all ‘talk’ to each other, saves time and avoids the need for data to be entered and managed twice.
It’s essential for the product you select to easily integrate with accounting, document and contract management, marketing, sales, scheduling, and email software, plus various other cloud-based apps.
Many integrations these days are ‘native’. This means they come built into CRM software by the developer and can be turned on with a single click or two. These are the easiest integrations to use and implement but are typically limited to just a small number of the most popular business tools.
Third-party integrations, on the other hand, are developed by independent developers.
READ: How to manage your CRM implementation effectively
Since CRM software platforms can’t integrate every feature themselves, they often enable others to set up connections between tools.
There are specific integration marketplaces selling hundreds of third-party integrations for different systems.
Your other option is paying for custom integrations. In this case, you’ll have a developer use application program interfaces (APIs) to develop specialised features to work with your CRM.
If you’re already using MYOB products in your business, the good news is that there are some great CRM systems available for your use.
Small business operators in Australia and New Zealand will find Tall Emu’s small business CRM is an out-of-the box system that integrates with MYOB to assist with customer marketing and so much more.
For bigger businesses, MYOB Acumatica includes CRM functionality that can be further extended with third party solutions.
For more detail on other, third party CRM solutions, you can look for options via the MYOB App Marketplace for Australian businesses. New Zealand operators can click here for the App Marketplace.