Published Date: October 24, 2024
Gone are the days when we had to keep extensive contact books to retrieve the desired contact number. The built-in contact app in our mobile phones has eased our lives by making every contact number accessible with just a tap.
Likewise, when you are running a business, you need to manage your business contacts in one place, keep a strong eye on the consumers who purchase from you, the interests and preferences of your contacts, their email addresses, what services or products they are more interested in, their first touchpoint, etc.
During the sales process of a business, it is imperative to track interactions with customers and prospects; for that, you need CRM. A good CRM manages and organizes customer interactions in a business, which is further utilized to simplify business processes, increase revenues, and strengthen customer relationships.
CRM, or customer relationship management tool, is used to store, sort, and manage business relationships with prospects, clients, employees, and other business contacts. The customer interaction can be turned into valuable insights with the help of Kemo SaaS analytical tools to provide better experiences. A CRM manages crucial data like contact information, previous history, preferences, communications, etc. This data is utilized to track the customer’s journey.
The data in CRM software is utilized by businesses to provide personalized customer experiences, establish a strong brand reputation, and acquire maximum customer satisfaction. Not only is the contact data managed inside the CRM, but the interactions with prospects and existing customers are also managed efficiently. By keeping an eye on these interactions, the sales team can provide the customers ample support throughout the sales process, resolve their pain points, and leverage the opportunities for cross-selling and upselling.
In a nutshell, a CRM is a repository of data to help you streamline your sales, marketing, and customer support. With all the interactions available in a centralized location, it becomes easier for the sales and marketing teams to retrieve them from a single dashboard and use the data insights to offer personalized experiences.
Whether you are a small business, a startup, or running a large enterprise, a CRM keeps your business interactions organized in one place. If you want to track your customer activities and share them across several departments, the robust features of CRM can help you with everything.
At its core, the CRM is used by businesses of all sizes to convey to consumers that ‘We know your needs, and we value you.’ It is no more ‘just another’ sales tool but an essential part of sales, marketing, and customer support activities. The data is constantly in the loop inside the CRM, and the sales and marketing teams analyze it to gather insights.
With these insights, you not only generate more sales but also help the customer support team fix the issues faster and assist the manufacturing and developing teams in improving products and services.
Let’s look into how marketers, sales reps, and customer support teams can leverage CRM to optimize their processes.
Marketers: Marketers bring in new leads, and with the help of a good CRM’s built-in marketing tools, they can create personalized digital marketing campaigns for the leads to encourage them to close deals. With marketing automation, not only is time saved, but the leads are captured, kept engaged with the right message delivered at the right time, and then handed over to the sales team. CRM tools can include email marketing and social media management tools or provide integration with them to improve marketing efforts.
Sales team: The sales team takes on qualified leads and nurtures their interest in conversion. Since sales reps consistently touch potential customers, they must be equipped with all the information required at any sales process step. The CRM helps empower the sales team with all the data and information that might be helpful while dealing with a particular lead, hence optimizing the sales process. The sales team may also utilize the CRM data to calculate sales velocity, sales forecasts, etc.
Customer support team: CRM is not only limited to sales and marketing but also benefits the customer support teams. The customer support team can use the CRM for ticketing purposes and to resolve the issues quickly. They may also improve customer retention and boost brand loyalty. When a customer calls or contacts via any means, the customer support team can quickly see their chat history, purchases (if any), and previous marketing offers and facilitate them accordingly.
If you have just started a business, your needs associated with a CRM will vary from the requisites of a large company. The CRM satisfies the requirements of small and large businesses accordingly. While some CRM systems offer robust automated capabilities, some are more vigilant with performance tracking. However, the components that are common in today’s CRMs are as follows:
With CRM’s built-in contact management feature, you can manage all the contacts in one place, which also assists your team in the easy retrieval of contact data when needed. When the contacts are managed and sorted in one place, it helps you analyze when did the last time you contacted a lead or a customer and what is the best way to reach them. Through the insights gathered from contact management, you can contextualize your communications and engage your customers by offering them personalized content.
Automation enables businesses to carry out vital repetitive tasks automatically without any manual intervention. The built-in automated features in a CRM enhance the capabilities and productivity of sales and marketing teams and beyond. Automation lets your sales team focus on the mundane deal-closing tasks while the leads automatically flow through the sales pipeline stages.
We know that capturing leads can be cumbersome, but managing and nurturing them to become paying customers is another time-consuming yet core process. CRM automation tools help you score leads and assign them to sales reps based on specific parameters. The leads are managed, passed onto the next stage of the pipeline, and successfully closed into a sale. With efficient CRM tools, you can manage your leads effortlessly and boost conversions.
Email is vital to running and marketing a business, and CRM allows you to manage the plethora of emails at your convenience. You can integrate your emails with the CRM that helps you prioritize your emails, do the follow-ups, and keep a check on the email responses. You can also create or customize email templates to give business emails your touch and use consistently.
CRM allows you to track existing and potential customers, as well as your employees’ performance, contact information, deals your sales team has closed during a specific period, projects your team has completed, etc. The employees’ data helps the HR department manage them effectively.
The gut feelings cannot always drive your decision-making capabilities in the right direction. With the help of analytical data, you can optimize your business operations and make data-driven decisions. The CRM software lets businesses drive data and provide comprehensive insights so they can use this data to make valuable decisions. You can utilize this data to create effective marketing campaigns, offer better customer experiences, and more.
One of the best things about a CRM is that it can be customized to fit your business requirements. You can customize your CRM according to your business vertical by adding layouts, views, buttons, custom fields, and reports, setting custom rules and permissions, creating custom workflows, etc., to make it efficient for your business in the best possible way.
CRM tools can be integrated with other tools to enhance the efficiency of your business operations and improve your workflows. Whether you want to connect it with document signing, call center, billing, or accounting tools, CRM solutions are easy to integrate with your business tech stack. By combining your existing tools with Kemo SaaS CRM, you can offer a seamless experience to your team and customers.
With mobile CRM, you can close more deals and make more business appointments on the go. Whether you are attending an event, traveling on the road, or just juggling different tasks, mobile CRM ensures that your business workflow is never compromised.
CRM is more than sales automation; it’s a central hub for managing business activities and keeping business workflows going. Due to the vast needs of organizations, there are different types of CRMs. The needs that one CRM fulfills might differ from other CRMs. Most CRMs are all-inclusive and combine all the basic features of each type of CRM.
While there are different types of CRM, all of them put leads at the center. From tracking potential customer data to encouraging them into deal closing, every step is tracked and logged in the CRM so you may track the customer interactions right from the first touch point till the deal closing.
A CRM is generally categorized into four types:
Let’s look at what each of these offers and their differences to help you understand how you can benefit.
The main focus of operational CRM is on automation, which simplifies and automates business processes. From lead management to moving leads across the pipeline, the operational CRM takes care of everything, improving your business operations. It helps businesses to scale by streamlining the workflows through automation and reducing the need for manual intervention.
Operational CRM also facilitates and improves customer support by offering self-service options to the customers, including a knowledge base and chatbots programmed to provide the proper support. An operational CRM usually includes features like contact management, sales pipeline management, and sales and marketing automation. Examples include Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, and Kemo SaaS.
A collaborative CRM facilitates collaboration between sales, marketing, and customer service teams and enables them to access up-to-date customer data in one place in real-time. They can access how the lead made its first contact, the purchases made by the customers, any communication with the previous or existing customer, etc. The collaborative CRM lets anyone from the marketing and sales teams pull up any data or record of all past interactions, understand their customers’ needs and interests better, and work together to close more deals successfully. Examples include SugarCRM, NetSuite CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Sage CRM, and Copper.
You always need data to understand your customers better. As the name indicates, analytical CRM is more concerned with customers’ data and analyzing it to understand the consumers’ behaviors and preferences accurately. When you have consumers’ and companies’ data and intent data organized in one platform, it helps you obtain a bigger picture of the core consumer. You can eventually use these insights to make better decisions and offer your customers more personalized experiences. Moreover, you can identify sales opportunities, improve customer satisfaction, and optimize marketing campaigns. Examples include Zoho, Insightly and Bitrix24.
Marketing CRM combines traditional CRM with marketing automation tools to manage the marketing interactions of a business. It helps businesses manage their interactions with potential and current customers, track marketing campaigns, and analyze marketing performance. With the marketing CRM on board, the marketing emails are automatically forwarded to the leads through marketing automation features. If the lead shows interest by reading your emails, it indicates that this specific lead is ready to be nurtured with a personalized touch. Examples include HubSpot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Marketo, Zoho CRM, ActiveCampaign, and Kemo Saas.
An industry-specific CRM is built to cater to the specific requirements of a particular niche, such as law firm, accounting, healthcare, gym, spa, etc. Whatever industry you belong to, the dedicated industry-specific CRM software offers top-notch efficiency and addresses the intricacies and needs of the specific industry. They offer tailored reporting capabilities, handle industry-specific data seamlessly, and are usually quick to set up.
While industry-specific CRM is dedicated to fulfilling a business’s requirements, it may not be very flexible and offer limited customization ability. Since these CRMs are built around specialized industries, you might struggle with their scalability as your business expands. Moreover, these CRM solutions do not offer robust integration capabilities and are not adaptable to the latest technologies. Since these CRMs are designed for a specific audience, they are typically more expensive.
Examples of industry-specific CRM software are Salesforce, Healthcare CRM, Amazon CRM, Freshsales, and Zendesk.
This is the most powerful and highly customizable CRM. It offers a 360-degree view of the business so you can track what is happening at every business stage. Each detail is captured inside the CRM, enabling businesses to improve their productivity. It offers advanced integration capabilities to optimize your business operations. Unlike industry-specific CRM, the all-in-one CRM technology is scalable and adapts to a business’s changing needs. With this powerful CRM in your tech stack, you can interpret the customer’s data and rapidly fulfill their needs, leading to customer retention. It offers comprehensive analytics to understand customer dynamics and their needs.
Since the all-in-one CRM comes with a wide range of features, it might require more work to learn and understand completely. If you are running a business with complex requirements, you might find these CRM solutions quite expensive.
The most popular all-in-one CRM software are Kemo SaaS, Insightly, VipeCloud, EngageBay, Keap, and Zoho CRM.
The cloud-based CRM is hosted on an external, remote server and easily accessible from anywhere and on any device through the internet. With the data stored on the cloud network, you don’t have to spend lavishly to run the cloud-based CRM. Moreover, it is quick and easy to deploy.
Users are typically charged on a subscription basis for the number of users or usage. For some businesses, a cloud-based CRM is a cost-effective solution, but paying for the subscription for years can make it expensive than on-premises CRM in the long run.
It gives sales and marketing teams quick, round-the-clock access to the centralized database. These CRMs often come with automatized data backup policies that take security to another level. You can easily integrate with other software and apps for maximum flexibility.
The installation and maintenance of cloud-based CRM are sometimes managed by third-party service providers, and in such cases, businesses cannot have complete control over data. Moreover, if the servers are getting repaired, it may lead to potential downtime. If a company wants to switch to another cloud-based CRM, it requires extensive and time-consuming data migration. Moreover, data security is another topmost concern with cloud-based CRM because if an external company acquires the cloud provider, the security of your data might be compromised.
Some of the popular cloud-based CRM software are SalesForce, PipeDrive, HubSpot, Zoho, Agile CRM, and Insightly.
This type of CRM is installed and maintained on a company’s server and generally works inside the building with its infrastructure and servers residing in-house. You have to establish a complete backend infrastructure, set up its maintenance and upgrades, and manage all the expenses that come along. Due to the high maintenance and deployment cost, on-premise CRM can be costly for small or medium-sized businesses but is a cost-effective solution for large enterprises in the long run.
With the on-premise CRM software, data is secured on the business’ in-house servers, so there is no threat to data manipulation or theft from outside resources. It gives businesses greater control over data security and customization as they can make modifications according to the required specifications. The on-premise CRM can be tailored to your office network configurations, but you need to invest in capable IT resources. While using on-premise CRM, you may also require a dedicated server room or data center to handle extensive data. Since the use of on-premise CRM is limited to in-house, it could be difficult for remote teams to access it.
Some popular cloud-based CRM providers also offer on-premise CRM software solutions, such as HubSpot, Keap, PipeDrive, and Zoho.
Open-source CRM software is available for public use with its freely available source code. Anyone who is using open-source CRM can freely customize its code to fit into their business needs. Businesses don’t have to invest in high upfront costs as this robust software is available at their disposal either for free or at affordable pricing, which makes this technology cost-effective. It is fully customizable and allows you to modify its source code to perfectly fit your business requirements. Bug-fixing is quicker in these CRM solutions, as a dedicated team of developers and users resolves complications and bugs quickly and consistently improves the system.
Although open-source CRM is available for anyone to use, its implementation requires technical expertise and is more time-consuming. A business with no specific tech expertise in open-source code resolution might struggle with its implementation. While you can access community support in case of any issue, the level of assistance may vary, and you might not find efficient vendor support in certain cases.
Best open-source CRM software include Zoho CRM, SuiteCRM, Odoo, Bitrix24, and EspoCRM.
Doing business is not easy in today’s age, especially when there is so much data scattered around. A CRM helps businesses organize and manage data and gain insights into how to optimize their operations precisely. Companies should use CRM solutions to maximize revenue, cater to their customers with personalized interactions, and increase customer retention.
If you think that you can achieve data management with Spreadsheets, there is a lot of data complexity that spreadsheets are not able to resolve. For businesses to modernize, they must opt for CRM software solutions to increase their productivity. A CRM not only helps you get more valuable leads but also lets you create purposeful communications with them that result in building a loyal customer base.
By accessing information at the right time, sales reps can close more deals by sending the right content to the right people. With all the data in one place, it becomes easier for every team member to access the required data without scrapping the data on multiple databases. When a team member is already aware of the history of the customers, it becomes easier to serve them with personalized offers.
As mentioned, CRM can be adapted to any business type and size. Whatever business niche you have, you need a reliable CRM to streamline your sales, marketing, and customer support efforts. Let’s look at how CRM can benefit different businesses.
B2B: B2B businesses must manage their data with other parties, including vendors and stakeholders, in a secure and accessible place. They use CRM data to manage their sales pipelines, track deals and opportunities, and stay informed about payments and numbers.
B2C: Since the customer lifecycle in a B2C business is shorter than in a B2C business, B2C businesses usually use CRM to communicate with prospects and offer bespoke solutions. To maximize their reach and enhance their productivity, they utilize CRM features such as lead management, sales and marketing automation, instant customer reports, etc.
Enterprise: As businesses grow, their dependability on a CRM also increases as they have to handle a considerable amount of data and interactions. Enterprise businesses use CRM tools to automate repetitive tasks to save the time of sales and marketing teams so they can focus on human activities and their multi-location operations more effectively. The advanced features of a CRM, such as advanced analytics, workflow management, etc., help an enterprise maximize its productivity.
As we have seen, CRM implementation can be the best decision you will make to streamline your business operations and resolve business complexities. It is also one of the fastest-growing enterprise software solutions focused on increasing business productivity and analyzing deeper insights.
Let’s find out some of the exclusive benefits of CRM solutions for a business.
With CRM, customers’ data from all channels is unified in one place, which makes it easier to access data and gain a clear view. This data centralization helps teams across departments understand the customer context and create bespoke sales and marketing solutions, such as emails, sales calls, targeted ads, personalized communication, tailored customer support, etc.
Since the customers’ data and interactions across all the touchpoints, including website, telephone, live chat, direct mail, marketing materials, and social networks, are organized in one place, the customer support team can quickly respond to customer queries. For instance, when a customer calls the customer support agent to resolve issues or inquire about anything, the agent may go through his data, previous history, purchases, etc. This data searching helps him respond to customer queries, and he may even offer suggestions or leverage upselling opportunities.
CRM is widely used not only to gather and organize customers’ data but also to gather insights across multiple sources about what people are saying about your business. When you get feedback and suggestions on your business and products, it helps you identify the issues and improve your products, services and overall business.
Set your goals and use the analytical tools to track your progress. You can monitor how your team is performing, create milestones for them, and see how efficient they are in achieving those milestones. Keep everyone on track and identify where your efforts are needed the most.
CRM empowers businesses with every tool to increase customer loyalty. The personalized, simple, and relevant communications with the customers on their preferred channel evoke the emotional connection that encourages potential customers to buy from you and helps in retaining existing customers. A tailored conversational experience is vital to keeping customers loyal while increasing your chances of upselling.
A CRM accommodates your growing needs if you want to scale your business. The features of CRM software facilitate the data management of every sort and when the centralized database combines with powerful automation and omnichannel communication, it helps in scaling your business at the desired pace.
The CRM data is up-to-date and easily accessible to the team members. The reason CRM is an indispensable part of businesses lies in the collaborative environment that it promotes. It becomes easier for every team member to track how a specific customer is served previously. With data sharing inside the business ecosystem, customer experiences are improved as they are delivered with consistent messaging.
While a CRM streamlines and simplifies all the hard work for you, it does not necessarily have to be expensive. The CRM solutions are easy to customize according to small and large businesses, so their cost will also vary. Some of the free options are also available, but they come up with certain limitations that lead to disappointment.
Before purchasing a CRM, specify your needs and the features you are looking for. Some CRMs are available at subscription-based prices, while some of the CRMs charge based on the number of users who will use it. The CRM vendors may offer free trials, which you should sign up to see if the specific CRM satisfies your business needs.
If you want value for money in CRM software, Kemo SaaS covers you with its affordable plans. Whether you are looking for a CRM for a small business or a startup, we have affordable options available to cater to your needs. Our premium plan starts at $149/month and brings several perks to benefit your business. A 7-day free trial is also available to give you a sneak peek into our CRM tools and features.
Choosing a CRM and building a CRM strategy significantly depends on how your business works and how you sell to your customers. After aligning your business goals, evaluate the needs associated with a CRM.
A CRM should not only be used as a huge storage center for your data but also properly managed to reduce data complexity and make it easier for users to access and use it. The data inside the CRM should be consistently updated and connected for easy retrieval.
Now that you know how to pick the right CRM for your business, it’s time to implement it.
Determine how to get a lead or attract a potential customer to get his data into your CRM. How will the sales team facilitate them once they are inside the CRM? What activities will the sales reps perform after a lead is assigned to them, and what happens when a sales rep successfully closes the deal? Take the time to map out your sales process.
Since your team will use CRM directly, educating them on every CRM aspect is essential. If your team is not provided with enough guidance, you cannot implement CRM in your business efficiently. If your team is misusing it, it will not perform its functions optimally. Train your workforce and test them periodically regarding what they have learned. By enabling your team to use the CRM solutions properly, effectively, and efficiently, you will be able to provide them with more efficient workflows and improved productivity.
One of the core benefits of using CRM is that it does the heavy lifting by automating repetitive tasks to save time and effort. You can set automation on multiple tasks, such as automating data entry tasks, assigning tasks to a salesperson, sending emails, etc. Not only does automation assist in carrying out vital tasks proficiently, but it also reduces the chances of potential errors arising from manual intervention.
The data collected in the CRM should be turned into actionable insights. The best CRM uses built-in analytics features to transform the captured data into insights that you can use to make optimized business decisions. If you are not taking advantage of the data captured inside the CRM, you will most likely lose golden opportunities to close more deals.
The best way to take the most out of the CRM is to use it at its maximum potential.
Here are a few ways to use CRM effectively and make it a valuable asset to your business.
Running a business comes with a unique set of challenges for everyone. To get over these challenges, you should keep your data resources, leads, customers, and team aligned in one place. The Customer Relationship Management Software is a powerful way to organize your business contacts in one centralized location. We understand that managing interactions on multiple channels can be chaotic, but with CRM on board, you can leverage seamless data management on the go.
The Kemo SaaS CRM’s interface is user-friendly and not complicated at all. The power it brings to your business workflows makes it worth investing in to accelerate your business performance.
CRM stands for customer relationship management, and it is a vital tool for managing and organizing business data.
Some of the prominent features of a CRM are contact management, sales and marketing automation, integrations, customer support, analytics, and reporting.
There are four types of CRM, including:
CRM has the potential to increase conversion rates by up to 300 percent, which indicates that you can grow your business with CRM.
Yes, it is possible to customize CRM to fit into your business. You can customize the user interface, add or remove fields, build custom workflows for automation, customize reports, and much more.
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