A Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) has become a valuable, must-have tool, for small to medium size businesses in recent years. Managing customer relationships, interactions and touchpoints automatically, and staying connected with your prospects all play an important role in contributing to the growth of revenue and sales volumes. Making use of a CRM will assist your sales team with planning and growth opportunities, to gain insights into customer behavior and to have access to real-time customer data which will make all the difference in creating a memorable customer experience.
Here are our top 5 benefits to using a CRM:
1. Managing incoming leads
A CRM will allow you to take leads generated from online sources – such as lead capture forms or gated content on your website or social media, and convert them into new opportunities. If you make use of integrated tools such as HubSpot or Lead Forensics for example, you can also record and track data in your CRM to determine a leads position in the sales pipeline, in real-time. From there your sales team can identify and grade the leads, prioritizing those they are wanting to engage with. With the data captured in the CRM, it will be easier to identify what type of information the leads are likely to be consuming and when would be the ideal time to make contact with them.
2. Nurturing those leads through email
With the internet giving your customers all the information they need to make a decision at the push of a button these days, it’s well-known that the customer has already started forming ideas about your brand or product well before your sales team can even see them coming. Capturing lead information in a CRM will give your team a better idea of the type of problem your lead is looking to solve. From this information you’ll be able to create lead nurturing email campaigns to provide information and targeted messaging according to the different stages of the buyers journey. This will help to move your lead through the sales funnel stages to a point where he’s ready to make the purchase.
3. Managing tasks
As your lead, prospect and customer lists grow, so does the need to systematically manage and maintain the information and tasks around these contacts. Within a CRM your sales team can tag, manage and prioritize their important “to-do” items, ensuring they respond in a timely manner, or schedule regular check-ins to remain top of mind and move these opportunities through the sales funnel. This will ensure professional and efficient productivity in your team.
4. Improving customer experience (and customer relationships)
Capturing all documents and touchpoints between yourself and your customers and prospects, will ensure anyone in your team can pick all the relevant information at any given time, getting a whole picture of that particular customer journey and their purchase history. Having this information up to date, in one location and easily accessible will allow your teams to offer a personalized service and keep your best customers “feeling the love”, while at the same time wooing any prospects. It will also allow your marketing team to send specific customer segments personalized communications or special offers.
5. Don’t get left behind – your competitors are already using a CRM
Implementing a CRM will ensure that your business remains competitive in the industry. It’s quite likely your competitors are already working with some form of CRM software to help offer a personalized service. Some are even using their CRM data to identify upselling or cross-selling opportunities, growing their share of wallet in the industry.
Taking this a step further, investigating integration opportunities for your business will assist with streamlining and automating your business from the front end, right through to the back end systems; integrating CRM with ERP and manufacturing software, for example. With most window and door manufacturers typically sitting somewhere 8 – 10 years behind ‘the cutting edge’, this year we’ve seen an increase in the introduction of technological improvements as businesses change strategy to ensure long term success.
