CRM software forms an integral part of the business process and therefore, it is a must to take into consideration a few pointers before opting for one. Of all the factors to consider, one of the major factors to keep in mind is aligning the software features and offering to business-specific goals.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is used to increase business productivity by enhancing marketing, sales and customer service functions. With CRM software, companies can easily target, segment, and prioritise the hottest leads to convert faster into opportunities and eventually the customers. Additionally, the customer support team can be a step ahead by keeping a track of communication logs and recording them for future references.   

The current CRM market is estimated at $120 billion and this figure is expected to grow exponentially in coming years. Now that you have started to think about getting a CRM system, let’s also quickly take a look at the prerequisites before choosing one. 

1. Improved Customer Relationships

Over 90% of organizations with more than 10 employees use  CRM software to boost their customer relations in order to achieve higher ROI. (Source: CRM Magazine). This system enables organizations to centralize, optimize and streamline client communication. The better you know your customers, the stronger your relationships will be with them.

2. More Sales

Companies have experienced 65% more sales by replacing traditional processes with a CRM system. With CRM software, companies can track leads from different sources, score leads as per their weightage, nurture them through highly personalized content and automation campaigns to convert them into opportunities. Therefore, the sales team receives highly qualified SQLs. Needless to say, the whole conversion process becomes easier and faster as compared to its traditional counterpart.

3. Improved Productivity

With a CRM system, customer service representatives have customer data and communication logs ready with them whenever needed. As a result, the resolutions are faster and productivity gets boosted by almost 50%. Unlike traditional times, where customer support team would have to put you on hold for long minutes with that irritating waiting tone, CRM systems help retrieve data and important documents within seconds. This is because the software allows a central repository to store product related documents for sales and customer support teams to provide better and faster service. Thus, a lot of time that usually gets wasted in monotonous tasks, can be better utilised elsewhere resulting in better productivity.

4. Reduced Labor Cost

CRM system is designed to automate manual tasks. Hence, companies can save 40% of the workforce budget. Alternatively, recruiters can hire professionals with high demand skills like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to upscale their product and services. For instance,  XYZ company offers chatbot services. It aims at nurturing its leads to convert them into opportunities. So instead of involving multiple resources into email campaigns, a CRM system can create automated workflows to deliver the right content to leads throughout their journey. Hence, the additional resources could be utilized in enhancing the product like adding an extra feature of conversational AI in chatbots.

5. Mobile-friendly Interface

Digital landscape has changed dynamically across the globe. Universally, the number of mobile users have grown from 2.5 billion in 2016 to 3.5 billion in 2019. Therefore, many vendors offer Mobile CRM solutions for quicker access. With Mobile CRM users achieve the freedom of mobility without being restricted to stick to office desks.

Summary

An ideal CRM software is designed to alter manual tasks and automate them in a way that it offers the highest productivity and drives maximum ROI. The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is the backbone of any organization. It not only generates leads but also scores them to be converted into most relevant opportunities and eventually the highest billing accounts. Marketing, Sales and Customer Service departments are benefited from CRM software at identifying lead sources, pinning lead scores, creating sales forecasts and nurturing them with qualified content. Furthermore, as a part of customer support, the reps can retrieve communication history throughout the customer journey.