Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategy used by firms, which applies technology to manage and analyse customer interaction and data throughout the customer life cycle. The aim is to improve business relationship with customers, assistance in customer retention and propelling the sales growth.
CRM systems compile the customer data gathered from different mediums and points of contact between the customer and the company including company website, telephonic conversations, live chat, direct mail, marketing media and social media. CRM systems also provide information regarding the customer information, purchase history, buying preferences and concerns to the company staff which is in direct contact with the customer.
Benefits of CRM:
Better Client Relationship
To forge a stronger relationship with the client you need to knowledge more about them. The data and information is the catalyst in building a healthy relationship between the two. Relationships are the core, central element of a successful business. Basically it builds profitable relationships by maximizing the effectiveness of customer interaction.
Enhanced Cross Sell Prospect
The more you know about the client, more closely you understand their problems and can provide the solution to their grievance. It helps in accessing vital customer information anytime, anywhere even while being disconnected.
Improved Efficiency in Serving Clients
If at every level CRM is used to record customer interactions then the information and data can be proactively utilised for improving the quality of service you provide and increase the efficiency in serving the clients.
Greater Staff Satisfaction
The information is like giving weapons to the employees. The more the information they have, the more are the employees empowered which brings on the table, greater staff satisfaction. And when the staff is satisfied, they tend to perform with enough confidence to keep the customer satisfied.
Cost Saving
The installation of a CRM may cost you a few dollars and the fact that it has a longer gestation period, But in the longer run the investment does turn out fruitful. Because of the data assessment, the sales team is able to schedule and approach the prospects and build a positive relationship with the client.
Customer Satisfaction
Customers are highly satisfied as the data is used productively for providing service of the highest quality.
The four main vendors of CRM systems are Salesforce.com, Oracle, SAP and Microsoft. Other providers are popular among small and medium market businesses, but these four tend to be the choices of large corporations.
Common features of CRM Software includes:
Contact Center Automation
It basically is designed for reducing the tedious efforts of a contact Center agent's task. It includes a pre recorded audio that assists the customer in problem solving and information dispatchment.
The customer requests can be handled by integrating them with the agent's desktop tools using the CRM tool, to reduce the duration of calls and for the simpler Customer service experience.
Marketing Automation
It enhances marketing efforts towards customers in the life-cycle by automating the repetitive tasks using the CRM tools with the capabilities of marketing automation.
In simpler terms, as the tool recognises new sales prospect in the system, it automatically tries to convert the prospect into a full fledged customer typically via emails or social media.
Sales Force Automation
It prevents the duplication of efforts between salesperson and a customer. It is also known as sales force management. The CRM tracks down all the contacts and follow-ups between both the sides to achieve the sales force automation.
Location Based Services
CRM systems can also include technology which can create location based marketing campaigns based on the customer's physical location and sometimes also by its integration with popular GPS based apps.
In order to find sales prospects based on location, Geolocation tool can also be productively used as a networking or a contact management tool.
Auto Numbering plugin
Apart from these features a CRM autonumbering feature gives you additional resource and customer management power.
For a start it makes the jobs of the store manager, marketing manager and the developer as simple as eating a cake. It not only provides incremental addition but also provides dynamic addition with an authority over installing prefix and suffix of the user's choice. The user simply needs to assign a pattern and the auto numbering plugin will take care of the rest.
This plugin introduced by Microsoft, Dynamics 365 Autonumber Plugin is a tool which solves the major challenge of the numbering system. The Dynamics CRM Autonumber plugin is one of those plugins which have ended the need to write complex codes for managing unique identifiers of the user accounts.
Unique features of CRM Autonumber Plugin:
It enables you to add decipherable numbers by generating autonumber to your CRM Records
Easily definable and controllable starting positions of the auto numbering series for different set of business verticals & catalogue types
It supports all entries as well as custom entities
Define your preferred prefix & suffix
Maulik Shah is the Founder and CEO of AppJetty, a fast growing software add-on store selling extensions and plugins for various technologies, including Odoo themes and odoo apps Magento 1 extensions and Magento 2 extensions. Maulik is a tech enthusiast and writes about the various aspects of ecommerce technology.