CRM System
What is a CRM System?
A CRM system is a customer relationship management system that
helps companies and organisations to manage relationships, contacts
and accounts for customers and prospects. The main components of a
good CRM system are sales automation, marketing automation and
service management. The CRM system will hold all customer
data in a central location so users across a company's network can
see a full 360 degree view of the client activities.
Virtually every organisation or company has the requirement to
hold client data in a database, over the years CRM systems have
started to replace databases and contact management solutions as
the main repository for managing customer data. They have
evolved over the years to include advanced features for helping
virtually every aspect of a company's customer data needs. An
example of a popular CRM System is Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
How can a CRM System help Sales?
The main benefit of a CRM system for sales professional and sales
managers is that is allows them to spend less time on
administration and more time selling. A good CRM system will manage
the whole sales process from inputting a lead into the system, to
creating an opportunity and tracking all correspondence, emails,
phone calls and meetings for clients and prospects. Modern
CRM systems have advanced dashboards and reporting capabilities so
sales managers can keep track of important sales key performance
indicators. Modern CRM systems like Microsoft Dynamics CRM have
advanced integration with email and mobile technology so you can
track emails in the CRM system with Outlook as well as having
important CRM data whilst on the road with a smart phone.
How can a CRM help Marketing
Professionals?
Marketing departments in organisations and companies need to
effectively manage campaigns and need tools to segment data and
track responses. Modern CRM systems like Microsoft CRM allows
your marketing department to maximise your marketing spend and
helps marketing professionals to launch and manage campaigns, with
intuitive response management and insightful marketing reporting
and analytics. Because a CRM works across all departments it
means that marketing people and sales people can share valuable
information about leads and opportunities that have been generated
through campaigns in the system.
The Importance of Linking your CRM system Microsoft
Outlook
A successful CRM System has to be able to store as much activities
as possible about clients, this involves phone calls, meetings,
documents and most important of all is storing copies of emails to
and from the customer. Tight integration between the CRM system and
Microsoft Outlook is an invaluable feature which allows for all
emails for a customer to be stored against the contacts records and
accounts record in the CRM system. With a system like
Microsoft CRM this works within outlook so all emails can be
automatically stored against accounts.
Improving Customer Service with a CRM
System
One of the most challenging aspects of delivery great customer
service is ensuring you never let customers down by missing a
service call or appointment. One of the major benefits of a
powerful CRM System is that is can help improve customer service
experiences and improve customer loyalty. CRM systems have support
and customer service modules that allow users to manage cases,
support calls. A system like Microsoft CRM has a full
customer service module built in that helps empowers people to help
with case management.