Customer relationship management (CRM) software has become an essential tool for businesses looking to deliver exceptional customer service and drive sales.
However, many companies fail to fully unlock the powerful features and capabilities within their CRM system. By leveraging your CRM more strategically and effectively, you can maximize its impact on your business.
This article will outline key ways for unlocking the power of CRM software to strengthen customer relationships, improve business processes, and boost revenue.
What is CRM Software?
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a technology that helps organizations manage interactions with current and potential customers throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
The main functions of CRM software include:
- Tracking customer interactions across multiple channels like phone, email, websites, live chat, social media, etc. This allows businesses to capture a holistic view of the customer journey.
- Centralizing customer and prospect data into individual profiles that aggregate contacts, notes, orders, purchases, issues, preferences, and more in one place.
- Automating workflows like lead scoring, opportunity/pipeline management, sales forecasts, customer service tickets. This streamlines processes from lead generation to retention.
- Segmenting customers into groups based on profiles, behaviors, sales stage to enable targeted campaigns and personalized experiences.
- Providing analytics to glean insights from customer data to uncover opportunities, spot trends, identify at-risk customers, and optimize strategies.
- Facilitating collaboration between customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, support to ensure a consistent experience across all touchpoints.
- When fully leveraged, CRM technology serves as the single system of record that empowers businesses to nurture lifelong relationships with their customers through coordinated, data-driven efforts.
6 Effective Ways for Unlocking the Power of CRM Software
The following are six key ways companies can more effectively leverage their CRM investment.
Gather Robust Customer Profiles
One of the primary purposes of CRM is to maintain a single customer profile with all pertinent details and interactions centralized in one place.
Take the time to carefully input accurate customer and lead data such as contact information, purchase histories, needs, preferences, and more.
Ensure multiple users within your company can access and contribute to comprehensive profiles.
With rich profiles, you’ll better understand individual customers to provide personalized experiences and targeted messaging.
Leverage Customer Data for Insights
Modern CRM platforms offer powerful analytics and reporting tools. Leverage built-in features or integrate third-party business intelligence tools to glean valuable customer insights from your stored data.
Analyze things like top-performing marketing campaigns, high-value customers, product attachment rates, customer lifecycles, and more.
These insights can guide strategic decision-making around segmentation, product development, lead generation, and retaining at-risk customers.
Streamline Workflows
CRM automates repetitive processes but its full capability lies in streamlining entire workflows from lead to cash.
Map out end-to-end workflows from initial lead to post-purchase support and configure your CRM to guide each handoff. Automate tasks like lead scoring, opportunity staging, approvals, etc.
Integrate with other systems to trigger actions like marketing campaign allocation or service ticket creation. Smooth, optimized workflows boost productivity and deliver seamless customer experiences.
Facilitate Cross-Department Collaboration
A CRM acts as a single source of truth, unifying previously siloed customer data. Leverage this centralized hub to break down data silos between departments.
Configure security permissions and share records to facilitate collaboration. Enable tasks, comments, and internal messaging to streamline hand-offs and ensure a unified customer view across departments. Collaboration tools in modern CRMs like Salesforce increase coordination for better outcomes.
Conduct Omnichannel Marketing and Sales
Integrate marketing automation and configure your CRM for omnichannel messaging.
Trigger automated nurture streams based on lead profiles and behaviors across web, email, mobile, and live chat.
Route leads and opportunities to the appropriate sales reps. Capture all digital and in-person interactions in centralized contact records.
With centralized campaign management and a consistent view of customer history, you can deliver engaging, personalized experiences across channels.
Measure KPIs and ROI
To understand the impact of CRM use on key metrics, establish clear KPIs for lead generation, conversion rates, average deal size, customer retention, and more.
Set performance goals and benchmarks. Leverage analytics dashboards to monitor progress.
Routinely audit CRM usage across departments to identify optimisation areas. Analyze ROI on CRM spend through increased revenue, cost savings, and intangible benefits.
Benchmark results help refine strategies and showcase CRM’s value to stakeholders.
Comparing Top CRMs in 2024
| COMPANY | FORBES ADVISOR RATING | FREE PLAN | PAID PLANS | STANDOUT FEATURES |
| Zoho CRM | 4.8 | Yes, up to three users | $14 to $52 monthly per user (paid annually) | Multiple pipelines, marketing automation, multichannel communication |
| Salesforce | 4.3 | No (free 30-day trial) | $25 to $500 per user, per month | Robust reporting, pipeline customization, product catalogs |
| monday sales CRM | 4.3 | No (free 14-day trial) | $12 to $28 per user, per month | Project boards, quotes and invoices, account management |
| Apptivo | 4.3 | No (free 30-day trial) | $15 to $40 per user per month (billed annually) | Custom fields, workflow automation, configure price quote (CPQ) |
| Agile CRM | 4.2 | Yes, up to 10 users and 1,000 contacts | $9.99 to $64.99 per user, per month, billed annually | Appointment scheduling, form builder, help desk |
| HubSpot | 4.1 | Yes, up to five users | $15 to $3,600 per month (paid annually) | E-signature software, call transcription, conversation routing |
| Bitrix24 | 4.1 | Yes (unlimited users) | $49 to $249 for five to 100 users | Online store, website builder, paid marketing management |
| HoneyBook | 4.0 | No (free 7-day trial) | $8 to $33 per month (billed annually) | Contract management, proposal management, invoicing |
| Nimble CRM | 4.0 | No (free 14-day trial) | $24.90 to $29.90 per user, per month (billed annually) | Data enrichment, group messaging, form builder |
| Salesmate | 4.0 | No | $23 to $63 monthly per user (paid annually) | Calling and text, web forms, custom roles |
| Zendesk Sell | 3.9 | No | $19 to $115 per agent per month (paid annually) | Multiple pipelines, marketing automation, multichannel communication |
| Pipedrive | 3.9 | No | $14 to $99 per seat per month (paid annually) | More than 400 integrations, personalized onboarding, AI sales assistant |
| Freshsales | 3.9 | Yes, for up to 3 users | $9 to $59 per user per month (paid annually) | AI assistance, Kanban views, mobile app, email templates |
| Insightly | 3.9 | Yes, for up to two users | $29 to $99 per user per month (paid annually) | Marketing and service integration, custom apps, lead assignment |
| SharpSpring | 3.8 | No | $12 to $80 per month (based on the number of contacts) | AI content recommendations, polls and surveys, drag-and-drop email templates, contact management |
Information Source: https://www.forbes.com/
How to Choose the Best CRM Software for Your Business
With countless CRM options on the market, choosing the right software can seem like an overwhelming task.
To select a CRM that truly meets your business needs, you must evaluate solutions based on key selection criteria.
Following the below process will help you avoid costly mistakes and ensure you unlock the full potential of your CRM investment.
Define Your Must-Have Features
Before browsing vendors, determine which capabilities are essential based on your business model, processes, and goals. Core considerations include:
Relationship management – Does it capture robust customer profiles?
Marketing automation – Can it facilitate targeted campaigns?
Sales management – Does it support your sales team’s workflows?
Customer service – How robust is case and ticket management?
Integrations – Can it connect to your other business systems?
Identifying baseline functionality helps filter options.
Assess Your Budget
Narrow choices based on price points – whether you require entry-level, mid-market or enterprise-level pricing.
Request vendor quotes to compare total cost of ownership factors like implementation support, customization, training and upgrades.
Aim for an affordable solution with room to expand without cost barriers inhibiting adoption and new features.
Evaluate Platform and Deployment Options
Leading CRMs like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics come in public cloud, private cloud or on-premise versions.
Consider factors like data security, compliance needs, customization flexibility and IT resources.
An intuitive, user-friendly interface is also important for adoption across teams.
Consult User Reviews and Analyst Insights
Researching industry reviews and ranking reports from Gartner, Forrester and others grants valuable buying perspectives.
Factor in client testimonials and reviews to assess real-world experiences with ease of use, reliability and support quality.
Positive ratings indicate a vendor’s commitment to customer success.
Test Drive the Top Contenders
Request free trials to explore top CRM dashboards, configurations and feature functionality firsthand. Track how effortless data input/access is.
Properly testing mimics real processes and workflows to identify any deal breaking limitations or pain points to address with the vendor before purchase.
By prioritizing these key selection steps, you can confidently choose the right CRM for powering customer relationships and exceeding your business goals. With the right fit, CRM becomes a competitive advantage.
Conclusion
In conclusion, simply implementing CRM is not enough. Organizations must strategically leverage its full capabilities by unlocking the Power of CRM Software. Practices like robust profiles, data insights, streamlined workflows and collaboration unlock a CRM’s power. Regular reviews refine strategies and maximize impact over time.
When implemented properly, CRM transforms functions at every customer stage. Relationships and experiences become personalized and seamless. Teams gain visibility, collaboration and productivity. Insights guide strategic decisions.
Highly leveraging a CRM takes work but delivers long-term benefits strengthening competitive advantage. Businesses seeking customer loyalty and performance must optimize CRM use. Following best practices unlocks unprecedented value from these tools.
