What is CRM?

This is a simple definition of CRM.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology
For managing your company's relationships and
Interactions with customers and
Potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business
Relationships to grow
Your business. A CRM system helps companies stay
Connected to customers,
Streamline processes, and improve profitability.
When people talk about CRM, they usually refer to a CRM
The system, a tool that helps with contact management,
Sales management, agent
Productivity and more. CRM tools can now be used to
Manage customer relationships
Across the entire customer lifecycle, spanning marketing,
Sales, digital
Commerce and customer service interactions.
A CRM solution helps you focus on your organization
Relationships with individual people — including
Customers, service users,
colleagues, or suppliers — throughout your lifecycle with
Them, including
finding new customers, winning their business, and
Providing support and
Additional services throughout the relationship.
What is CRM for?
A CRM system gives everyone — from sales, to customer
service, business development, recruiting, marketing, or
any other line of
business — a better way to manage the external
interactions and relationships
that drive success. A CRM tool lets you store customer
and prospect contact
information, identify sales opportunities, record service
issues, and manage
marketing campaigns, all in one central location — and
make information about
every customer interaction available to anyone at your
a company that might need
it.
With visibility and easy access to data, it's easier to
collaborate and increase productivity. Everyone in your
the company can see how
customers have been communicated with, what they've
bought, when they last
purchased, what they paid, and so much more. CRM can help
companies of all
sizes drive business
growth,
and it can be especially beneficial to a small business,
where teams often need
to find ways to do more with less.
Here's why CRM matters to your
Business.
CRM is the largest and fastest-growing
enterprise
application
software category and
worldwide spending on CRM is expected to reach USD
114.4
billion
by 2027. If
your business lasts, you need a future strategy centered
around your customers
and enabled by the right technology. You have targets for
sales, business
objectives, and profitability. But getting up-to-date,
reliable information on
your progress can be tricky. How do you translate the
many data streams from sales, customer service,
marketing, and social media
monitoring into
useful business information?
A CRM system can give you a clear overview of your
customers. You can see everything in one place — a
simple, customizable
the dashboard that can tell you a customer's previous
history
with you, the status
of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues,
and more. You can
even choose to include information from their public
social media activity —
their likes and dislikes, what they say, and share about
you or your
competitors. Marketers can use a CRM solution to manage
and optimize campaigns
and lead journeys with a data-driven approach and better
understand the
the pipeline of sales or prospects coming in, making
forecasting simpler and more
accurate. You'll have clear visibility of every
opportunity or lead, showing
you a clear path from inquiries to sales. Some of the
biggest gains in
productivity and making a whole-company shift to
customer-centricity can come
from moving beyond CRM as just a sales and marketing tool
and embedding it in
your business — from finance to customer services and
supply chain management.
This helps to ensure that customer needs are at the
forefront of business
process and innovation cycles.
Though CRM systems have traditionally been used as sales
and marketing tools, customer service
and
support is a
rising CRM segment and a critical piece in managing a
holistic customer
relationship. Today's customer might raise an issue in
one channel — say,
Twitter — and then switch to email or telephone to
resolve it privately. A CRM
the platform lets you manage the inquiry across channels
without losing track and
gives sales, service, and marketing a single view of the
customer to inform
their activities. The ability to connect these three
functions, and the teams
that deliver them on one platform and with one view to
the customer is
invaluable for delivering relevant, connected experiences.
Running a business without CRM can
Cost you real money.
More administration means less time for everything else.
An active sales team can generate a flood of data. Reps
are out on the road
talking to customers, meeting prospects, and finding out
valuable information —
but all too often, this information gets stored in
handwritten notes, laptops,
or inside the heads of your salespeople.
Details can get lost; meetings are not followed up on
promptly, and prioritizing customers can be a matter of
guesswork rather than a
rigorous exercise based on data. And it can all be
compounded if a key
salesperson moves on. But it's not just sales that suffer
without CRM.
Your customers may be contacting you on various platforms
— including phone, email, or social media — asking
questions, following up on
orders, or contacting you about an issue. Without a
common platform for
customer interaction communications can be missed or
lost in the flood of
information, leading to a slow or unsatisfactory response.
Even if you do successfully collect all this data, you're
faced with the challenge of making sense of it. It cannot
be easy to extract
intelligence. Reports can be hard to create, and they can
waste valuable
selling time. Managers can lose sight of what their teams
are up to, which
means that they can't offer the right support at the
right time — while a lack
of oversight can also result in a lack of accountability
from the team.
What does a CRM system do?
A customer relationship management (CRM) solution helps
you find new customers, win their business, and keep them
happy by organizing
customer and prospect information in a way that helps you
build stronger
relationships with them and grow your business faster.
CRM systems start by
collecting a customer's website, email, telephone, and
social media data — and
more — across multiple sources and channels. It may also
automatically pull in
other information, such as recent news about the
company's activity, and it can
store personal details, such as a client's personal
preferences, on
communications. The CRM tool organizes this information
to give you a complete
record of individuals and companies overall to better
understand your
relationship over time.
With a consolidated view of every prospect and customer,
a CRM system is then used to manage day-to-day customer
activities and
interactions. From a marketing perspective, this means
engaging your prospects
with the right message, at the right time, through
targeted digital marketing
campaigns and journeys. For sales, reps can work faster
and smarter with a
a clear view of their pipeline and accomplish more
accurate
forecasting. Commerce
teams can quickly launch and scale eCommerce — from
online orders to the curbside
pickup — for their consumer shoppers (B2C
commerce) and business
buyers (B2B
commerce). And customer
service agents can respond to customer needs on any
channel
— from home, in the
field, or the office.
A CRM platform can also connect
to
other
business apps that
help you develop customer relationships. CRM solutions
today are more open and
can integrate with your favorite business tools, such as
document signing, accounting
and billing, and surveys, so that information flows both
ways to give you a
true 360-degree view of your customer.
And a new generation of CRM goes one step further:
Built-in intelligence
and AI automate
administrative tasks, like data entry and lead or service
case routing, so that
you can free up time for more valuable activities.
Automatically generated
insights help you understand your customers better, even
predicting how they
will feel and act so that you can prepare the right
outreach. AI also helps you
to find opportunities that may be hidden in your business
data.
Here's how a CRM system can help your
Business today.

1. CONNECT YOUR BUSINESS SILOS.
   Fifty-six
   percent
   of
   business leaders admit
   that organizational silos negatively impact the quality
   of their customers and
   prospects' experiences. Information silos are a huge
   the problem, but a shared
   platform and process for managing customer relationships
   across functions can
   help. 80% of business leaders from the same
   study say they are
   increasingly using their company's CRM as a single source
   of truth about their
   customers across departments.
   With a shared CRM, employees are empowered with the right
   tools and data to manage customer relationships more
   effectively across lines
   of business, and they have visibility into customer
   interactions from other
   departments. They can more effectively and efficiently
   work together to enable
   connected customer experiences.
   Read
   the
   Study
   Base: 484 director-level and above decision-makers
   responsible for CRM strategy and technology investments.
   Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester
   Consulting on behalf of Salesforce, August 2019.
2. MAKE IMPROVEMENTS TO YOUR BOTTOM LINE.
   Introducing a CRM platform has been shown to produce real
   results — including direct improvements to the bottom
   line. Using Salesforce
   CRM, global customers across all business sizes, have a
   proven track record of
   producing the following:
   Average Percentage Improvements Reported by Salesforce
   Customers
   Source: Salesforce Customer Success Survey
   conducted from 2017–to 2019. Survey respondents were 3,384
   Salesforce customers
   randomly selected. Responses per question vary.
   Learn more about Salesforce solutions for startups, small
   businesses, and enterprises.
3. IDENTIFY AND CATEGORIZE LEADS.
   A CRM system can help you identify and add new leads
   easily and quickly and categorize them accurately. By
   focusing on the right
   leads, sales can prioritize the opportunities to close
   deals and marketing can
   identify leads that need more nurturing and prime them to
   become quality leads.
   With complete, accurate, centrally held information about
   clients and prospects, sales and marketing can focus
   their attention and energy
   on the right clients.
4. INCREASE CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE.
   By understanding your customers better, cross-selling and
   upselling opportunities become clear — giving you the
   chance to win new
   business from existing customers. This helps you to grow
   lasting, more
   profitable relationships with your customers.
   With better visibility, you'll also be able to keep your
   customers are happy with better service. According to some
   studies, happy customers
   are likely to become repeat customers and repeat
   customers spend more — up to
   33% more.
5. OFFER BETTER CUSTOMER SUPPORT.
   Today's customers expect fast, personalized support at
   any time of day or night. A CRM system can help you
   provide the high-quality
   service that customers are looking for. Your agents can
   quickly see what
   products customers have ordered, and they can get a
   record of every interaction
   to give customers the answers they need fast.
6. IMPROVE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES.
   A good CRM system will gather information from a large
   variety of sources across your business and beyond. In
   this way, it can serve
   as a customer-listening engine, giving you unprecedented
   insights into how your
   customers feel and what they are saying about your
   organization — so you can
   improve what you offer, spot problems early, and identify
   gaps.
7. BE READY FOR WHATEVER'S NEXT.
   In a work-from-anywhere world, it's never been more
   important for your teams to be connected on a shared
   a platform that allows them
   to collaborate
   and
   work
   from anywhere. And
   external forces aside, customer expectations will
   continue to push your
   business to evolve, and a flexible, scalable, cloud-based
   CRM can help you
   remain agile and grow your business no matter the
   circumstance. But more on
   that below.
   Here's what cloud-based CRM offers
   Your business.
   CRM and the cloud computing revolution have changed
   everything. Perhaps the most significant recent
   development in CRM systems has
   been moving into
   the
   cloud from
   on-premises CRM software. Freed from the need to install
   software on tens,
   hundreds or thousands of desktop computers and mobile
   devices, organizations
   worldwide are discovering the benefits of moving data,
   software, and services
   into a secure online environment.
   WORK FROM ANYWHERE.
   Cloud-based CRM systems such as Salesforce (Learn more:
   What is Salesforce?) means every user has the same information all the
   time. Your sales teams out on the road can check data,
   update it instantly
   after a meeting, or work from anywhere. The same
   information is available to
   anyone who needs it, from the sales team to the customer
   service
   representatives.
   REDUCE COSTS.
   CRM can be quick and easy to implement. A cloud-based
   the system doesn't need special installation, and there's
   no hardware to set up,
   keeping IT costs low and removing the headache of version
   control and update
   schedules.
   Generally, cloud-based CRM systems are priced on the
   number
   of users who access the system and the kinds of features
   needed. This can be
   very cost-effective in terms of capital outlay and
   extremely flexible —
   enabling you to scale up and add more people as your
   business grows. Salesforce
   is flexible in terms of functionality, too — you're not
   paying for any features
   that are not useful to you.
   A CLOUD-BASED CRM PLATFORM OFFERS YOU:
   • Faster deployment
   • Automatic software updates
   • Cost-effectiveness and scalability
   • The ability to work from anywhere, on any device
   • Increased collaboration
   Keep Learning.
   The
   Transformation
   Playbook
   Learn what it takes to change mindsets, connect business
   silos,
   and recenter around your customer.
   Make
   CRM
   the
   Foundation of Your Customer-Obsessed Strategy
   Read this Study, based on data from hundreds of business
   leaders, to understand why companies are taking steps to
   eliminate departmentally
   silos, learn the two most critical factors for improving
   customer satisfaction
   with CRM, and gain insights on CRM use today and how
   businesses are investing
   in it to achieve customer-centricity tomorrow.