What is CRM?

CRM, the acronym for "Customer Relationship Management", is a set of techniques, methods, and technology that businesses employ to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle.

The purpose of having a CRM is for businesses to strengthen their customer service relationships, increase client retention, and improve sales.

Who Should Have A CRM System?

A CRM system can be greatly beneficial for teams that are in sales, customer service, business development, and marketing.

This is mainly because these teams are very much customer-oriented.

Full visibility and productivity on customer data will be crucial.

With the help of a CRM system, the teams can easily record and maintain customer information without hassle.

This in turn improves the collaboration and productivity of teams, while at the same time helping to come up with better customer service strategies.

Businesses of all sizes can grow with a proper CRM system.

However, small businesses, in particular, can benefit from it significantly because they are constantly encouraged to do more with less.

Also read: Does Your Business In Malaysia Really Need It

What Are The Benefits of Using A CRM?

A CRM solution may be used in a variety of ways and has multiple advantages for your company.

Here are 5 significant advantages that a CRM can bring.

1. Better customer service

2. Increased sales

3. Improved customer retention

4. Detailed analytics

5. Higher productivity and efficiency

1. Better customer service

Having easy access to all customer data is key to making great customer service possible.

Customer data such as demographics, past requests, purchase history, and more, can be critical when it comes to providing personalized customer service.

With proper CRM, businesses will be able to help their teams provide better services to their customers, thus increasing customer satisfaction and improving customer experience.

2. Increased sales

When your sales or after-service teams are able to provide better customer service, it will help increase the sales of the company too.

There's no doubt about that.

However, that is not the only reason why CRM can help improve the sales of businesses. CRM can be a very powerful tool for businesses.

Automating key manual tasks, streamlining sales processes, analyzing sales data, and more, can all be done in one single tool.

By having a centralized CRM that helps manage all things related to customers and sales, your teams will then be able to design an effective step-by-step sales funnel that generates profit.

3. Improved customer retention

Customer retention is one of the key efforts that keep a business afloat.

Businesses with a high customer turnover can bring a lot of negative impacts such as losing profit, gaining a bad reputation, cash flow interruption, etc.

To improve customer retention, it is important to keep your existing customers happy through better problem resolving and timely responses.

This can be easily achieved through CRM.

4. Detailed analytics

It's one thing to have comprehensive customer information, but the ability to understand and analyze them is crucial too. 

Analyzing data can be challenging, no matter how experienced your teams are.

That is what CRMs are for. 

CRM software often has built-in analytic tools for contextualizing data and breaking it down into actionable items and KPIs that are easy to understand. 

With proper data analysis and visualization, your teams will be able to assess any performances more effectively and easily.

5. Higher productivity and efficiency

One of the main reasons most businesses implement a CRM system is to automate their workflow. 

Following up with customers through automated email sending, customer data updates, reminders on customer orders, etc, can all help improve your teams' productivity and efficiency. 

In a nutshell, a CRM can be a comprehensive, powerful tool that is absolutely worth the investment for your teams and company.