CRM software has become very popular lately. CRS stands for "Customer Relationship Management". CRM software can help companies manage prospects, current customers, and other business contacts. However, many people do not have a full understanding of how sales and CRM software can be directly correlated. In this article we will go over some fundamental facts about CRM software and the headaches and issues it can solve in your business.
When a company decides to implement CRM, it is making a commitment to implement a strategy that will help drive overall sales, customer support as well as in house tech support. In fact, a CRM can help you effectively measure the profitability of a single prospecting campaign.
If you are looking to improve your sales team, then making an investment in a CRM system can help you effectively identify the areas where your sales team excelled as well as locate the areas that need a significant improvement. Microsoft CRM can help your company by providing access to your customer base via Microsoft Outlook regardless of their location. Additional features include the MS CRM's ability to export CRM data to a PDA or Smartphone, alleviating the need for a traveling laptop. This feature, in and of itself can helps streamline a segment of your sales efforts.
CRM can help your company's sales efforts by "chaining" different steps of the sales process so you can pinpoint where a salesperson is going wrong. By understanding what portion of the sales model seems to be causing your sales force to lag, you can identify core issues. This will help you also define exactly what sales strategies need to be focused on. Again knowing exactly where in the sales process you need to make improvement will have a direct correlation on your profits.
As a business owner or executive, CRM will also allow you to see what actions have been taken with specific leads and how your target audience is responding to your sales message. If you see a recurring trend in your sales process, you can easily address it with the bird's eye view that CRM can give you.
CRM will give you the ability to easily automate the processes in your business that are the most profitable by providing analytics so you can decide what practices to improve on or cut out. And finally, if you sell a product that needs quite a bit of technical support, you can use CRM to create a web portal so your customers can access company data on a specific inquiry. If your customers are not able to find their answers, they will be able to submit a ticket for further technical or sales support from your company.
Having the ability to watch your sales process, see an overview of your business analytics and allow customers to search specific areas of company data, all by CRM, can put your company miles ahead in terms of overall production and customer service, both internal and external.
Regardless if you have a small company that is getting started or a well-established company, your sales and CRM will be correlated.