Synopsis: Investing in a customer relationship management (CRM) system can be one of the best investments you’ll make. The reason is a CRM system gives you a central place for all prospect, customer and vendor interactions so that your team can be more organized and efficient.
There are many CRM systems in the market today, all with their specialties and key features. Knowing about essential features can help you make an informed decision about the best CRM for your business.
According to reports, CRM software is poised to earn revenues of more than $80 billion by the year 2025. The CRM elements can provide business benefits such as increased sales to enhanced customer retention. But to harvest the full benefits of CRM, it is essential to know why you need a CRM and the specific CRM features that will help your business thrive.
Why do you need a CRM?
Whether you are running a business that is just starting or an established one, you will need a CRM solution to perform the following:
- Capture leads easily
- Auto-update lead details with social media information
- Quickly manage contacts in one centralized location
- Receive complete context, whether it’s sales or marketing leads
- Connect with customers via tools like chat, phone, or email
- Manage deals in a visual pipeline and take them to close
- Optimize the sales process and forecast sales with analytics
As far as sales and marketing are concerned, a CRM solution helps in the automation and management of the customer’s life cycle. It helps to gain an understanding of 5 key features of custom CRM software that you think will be useful to your business prospects.
Contact management
This is one of the key features of CRM which helps you to strengthen your relationship with your customer. Whether it is your first customer or your hundredth, CRM will organize all the details related to them in a classified database.
The CRM contact management feature will help you compile details such as:
- Name and addresses
- Demographics
- Social media accounts
- Transaction history
- Communication history for each customer
You don’t have to worry about navigating through tons of information. The program will display your required search with a click.
The contact management system should also provide you with follow-up reminders and necessary customer insights across various departments. According to studies, implementing a CRM can increase the customer retention rate by an impressive 25%.
Contact management is a must in any reputable CRM system. It’s not just an address book. It is a feature that allows you to track all customer interactions right from the first instance through the entire customer journey.
Workflow automation
CRM software can make things easier by automating your workflow. All you have to do is look for software that lets you set custom rules and comes with Salesforce automation to help you and your team become more productive.
Following the rules, set up your CRM software to automatically perform a specific action based on a trigger or event. Prompts can include the following:
- A potential customer fills out a contact form on your website, and CRM software automatically directs the message to the concerned sales representative or department.
- When a sales rep receives a message, the CRM software automatically sends a preset response to acknowledge the message.
- If a prospect, lead, or opportunity does not respond to your message or offer, the CRM software automatically sends a follow-up message after a set time, such as 48 hours or two business days.
- When a sales rep calls or messages a contact, the CRM software automatically logs the hours and keeps track of all communication.
- When sales reps complete tasks, the CRM software automatically reports them to supervisors and upper management for performance reports.
This essential workflow automation feature can also take the hours and legwork out of tedious sales tasks. Order processing, order tracking and inventory control become smooth.
Social media
With built-in social media monitoring features, CRM systems can help your marketing team save considerable time. They won’t need to switch between different platforms to perform the essential task of monitoring your company’s social media presence.
An ideal CRM software has tools to make social media work for you to:
- Know what people are saying about your brand through social listening.
- Get information about the number of social media actions your brand receives, such as comments, shares and mentions.
- Check each social media channel (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) to optimize your social media strategy accordingly.
- Gain insight into your customers.
- Identify and leverage your brand.
- Manage the daily tasks of posting on your social media accounts.
Your CRM software can simplify this process by pulling up your contacts’ social media profiles (i.e., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), so you can reference them in your messages with your CRM.
Get in touch with a reliable firm for innovative CRM application development that takes you ahead of your competitors.
Lead Management
As the name suggests, it implies tracking the sales as well as their distribution. Businesses that benefit most from this component of CRM are sales industries, marketing firms and customer executive centers. It includes efficient management of campaigns, designing customized forms, finalizing mailing lists and many other elements.
A potential customer is more valuable if it converts into a final sale. It is here that the key management function of CRM comes in handy. A comprehensive study of the buying patterns of customers, as well as potential sales, helps to capture the maximum number of sales to improve sales.
You also get to set lead scoring which can help you estimate how likely you are to convert it into a paying customer. Expert CRM software development company can help you meet your business objectives.
Tracking emails through a traditional inbox can be overwhelming. But CRM email features will help you market your products to the specific demographic it caters to.
Every single sales email needs to be received and addressed promptly to increase its chances of generating revenue.
An email feature in CRM helps keep your sales reps organized and productive. They can integrate their calendar to schedule appointments and engage prospects and customers accordingly.
Another beneficial email feature is the ability to automatically pull in email templates, so reps spend less time crafting email content.
You can use this feature to create multiple email templates, such as:
- Basic information about the company
- Follow-up after a phone call
- Follow-up after an email is sent
- Follow-up for an offer that reps are waiting for customers to return
Of all other marketing strategies, email marketing can garner the highest ROI. Email CRM software can be a useful tool for businesses of all sizes, but it’s really important to choose an effective platform that best suits your needs.
Final thought
With the consumer base becoming increasingly global, you can find your business dealing with thousands of customers in the B2C and B2B crm segments. They all expect you to provide personal attention so they know you care about their business.
From contact management and social media integration to workflow and email marketing, the essential CRM features can help you develop and nurture prospects and customer relationships.
You should have a list of requirements based on your business before you start, and understand what challenges you want to solve with your CRM system. Consult with one of the top CRM development services to help you decide how it will be good for you in the long run.
