Rick Kranz September 2, 2021 A customer relationship management or CRM system is one of the most important ingredients in the recipe for sustainable business growth. After all, you need to stay focused on your customers (and prospective customers) at all times. This is in order to provide them with relevant messaging, informative content, and exceptional experiences.
That being said, what are some of the specific benefits that a CRM system can offer? Let’s dig into that question and see how many key benefits we can unearth.
Important Benefits of a CRM System
1. Efficient Data Entry Automation
It’s amazing how much time a sales rep can spend on manual data entry: logging emails and calls, documenting meetings and customer interactions, updating the deals they’re currently working on, and so forth. With a CRM system, all of this data is automatically compiled and organized. It saves your sales team a lot of time. It also helps them to stay focused on what they do best: engage with and nurture your prospects.
2. Helpful Automated Reminders
Since we’re on the subject of automation, another key benefit of a CRM system is the ability to set automated follow-up reminders for your team. Let’s face it: we’re all busy. It can be easy for things (even important things) to “slip through the cracks” of our schedule. However, when your sales reps get these reminders, they’ll be able to promptly follow up with promising leads. And ultimately convert more of those leads into customers. For example, HubSpot’s CRM system offers reps the ability to set automated email reminders for themselves. So they don’t forget to touch base with a warm lead.
3. Exceptional Customer Segmentation
CRM systems allow you to segment your customers based on specific characteristics and attributes (e.g., age, gender, location, past behavior). Segmentation is an essential step towards marketing personalization. And personalized marketing will be much more relevant, engaging, and persuasive for your audience than general messaging could ever be.
4. A Centralized Database
A robust CRM platform will also allow your entire sales organization to keep prospect information in a centralized database. This is a powerful advantage for any business, especially when a customer interacts with different departments during his or her buyer’s journey. For example, think about customers who make a purchase. And then reach out to customer support a few weeks later with a question about the product. With centralized, easily accessible records in place, all of your employees will be able to quickly pull up the relevant info and give your customers what they need.
5. Comprehensive Communication Management
Your CRM can help you manage both internal and external communication. In other words, communication between team members and communication with prospects.
Internally, your CRM can provide a single point of reference for communications on updates to your brand image, best practices for sales, and other key issues you need to distribute across your company. At the same time, it will be easier for your sales reps to collaborate with one another. Or coordinate with other departments (like marketing) to ensure that each lead is moving through the sales pipeline.
Externally, a CRM platform can help your reps to keep track of each prospect’s individual buyer’s journey. They’ll be able to research every recorded interaction your brand has had with the prospect. This includes emails, phone calls, visits to your website, content downloads, live chats, and more. And again, the CRM can make up for any loss of memory on the part of your sales team. This is since your reps can easily look up whether they already sent a prospect certain materials or resources.
6. Stronger Relationships with Current Customers
It’s definitely important to continue acquiring new customers for your business. However, you shouldn’t forget about the ones you already have. A CRM system can help you to make your existing customers feel appreciated, and identify which ones to focus on when it comes to “re-engagement campaigns.”
CRM reminders can help you to send out personalized messages to customers based on milestones in your relationship with them (one year, five years, 10 years, and so on). You can also keep engaging them with personalized product recommendations and special discounts based on their past purchase history with your brand.
The bottom line is that a CRM can help you to act according to that old saying: “Make new friends, but keep the old: one is silver and the other gold.”
7. Accurate Sales Forecasting
This CRM benefit is on the technical end of the spectrum, but it’s still important for best results. With a robust CRM system in place, you’ll be able to pull key metrics such as monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and year over year growth (YOY). You can also identify any trends in performance or efficiency that these metrics demonstrate. Once those trends have been identified and analyzed, it is much easier to develop sales forecasts for your team.
Of course, with those sales projections in hand, you can then adjust the (estimated) average amount of time each prospect will spend in each stage of the sales funnel. You can allocate your resources toward the most profitable lead magnets in your marketing mix.
8. Unsurpassed Scalability
One of the greatest benefits a CRM can offer a growing business is its built-in scalability. In other words, no matter how big your business gets, or how many more sales reps come onboard your team, you’ll still be able to leverage your CRM for data entry automation, contact information management, internal and external communication, and customer segmentation (among the many aspects we’ve already discussed).
In fact, many CRM systems are designed to accommodate a wide range of company sizes, from SMBs to enterprise-level organizations. As an example, HubSpot offers three tiers of service (Starter, Pro, and Enterprise) depending on the size of your organization and the specific features you need.
Conclusion
Whether your business needs to scale up to meet increased demand from your consumer base, or needs to temporarily scale down to reduce operational costs, your CRM system can provide you with the flexibility that you need.
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