Customer relationship management (CRM) is the technology brands use to nurture relationships with their customers. These solutions are designed to help sales and service agents communicate with customers more effectively. And because 91% of businesses with more than 11 employees use a CRM, marketers would be wise to learn about all they have to offer.
In this piece, we’ll dive deep into CRM systems and their impact on marketing teams. We’ll cover:
The benefits of CRM
At their core, CRM systems are designed to facilitate customer and sales relationships. From the most basic solutions to the most complex, CRM software stores, organizes and shares customer information to facilitate connections. They collect basic information such as customer websites, emails, phone numbers, purchase dates, social media data and much more. Some even record data in the form of lead scoring based on internal analysis systems.
CRM platforms track user activity across many online channels and seek to guide them through your sales funnel. In essence, they work to paint a picture of the customer to better understand them and, ultimately, fulfill their needs. This approach saves brand resources by focusing on potentially profitable actions, rather than adopting a hit-or-miss approach and hoping customers “bite.”
Organizations of all sizes can take advantage of CRM’s wide range of benefits, including:
- Improved information organization.
- Automated data entry.
- Customer segmentation.
- Process scaling.
- Prospect follow-up reminders.
- Improved reporting.
“Corporations invest in sophisticated CRM, or customer relationship management, programs to effectively oversee their relationship with their customers at every point during the buying process,” says Marc Ostrofsky, entrepreneur and bestselling author of “Get Rich Click.”
CRM platforms can save brands time and resources, yet their ability to enhance customer relationships is their greatest asset. Trust is a bigger success factor than ever in our transformed digital landscape, and brands that fail to keep their customers happy from the get-go will most likely lose out. A CRM system can help organizations combat this challenge by speeding up communication, offering insights to help anticipate needs, and orchestrating marketing activities to deliver relevant information to enhance customer journeys.
Types of CRM systems available
CRM systems are often confused with customer data platforms (CDPs) because they both store customer data, but the two are designed to meet different challenges. CDPs bring together customer data from various sources and unify it, creating shareable profiles in the process, while CRM software enhances the communication and brand relationship with customers, leveraging their data to craft more engaging communications.
At their core, CRM tools offer solutions to help support sales and service agents with customer communications. Unlike CDPs, CRM systems use their technologies to ensure each step of the customer’s experience is as frictionless as possible.
There are a variety of CRM formats available — cloud-based, on-premise, industry-specific, etc. — but there are three main function groups most solutions fall into. Each of these reflects a specific business function designed to address brands’ customer relationship needs.
Operational. The main purpose of operational CRM systems is to help sales, marketing, and service teams better streamline customer interactions. These use various forms of automation to help provide customers with the best experiences. Salesforce and HubSpot are some of the most popular operational CRM tools.
Analytical. Many CRM systems are designed to store vast amounts of data, but not all are effective when it comes to categorizing and drawing insights from it. Analytical CRM software can help marketers determine customer preferences and points of contact more easily through data warehousing, data mining and online analytical processing (OLAP). Zoho Analytics is a good example of an analytical CRM.
Collaborative. Clear communication is key when it comes to sharing customer data across sales, marketing, and customer service departments, which is where collaborative CRM systems thrive. These use interaction and channel management features to give relevant teams a 360-view of customers. Microsoft Dynamics 365 and SAP Customer 360 are popular collaborative CRM systems.
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