Customer relationship management is one of the most important parts of any business. CRM software can help automate many of those tasks, but more importantly, can process far more data than a human ever could, giving you actionable insights that will improve your bottom line.
Keeping up with competitors is a big part of keeping your business profitable. As CRM and marketing automation become more commonplace, those without it will be left behind. In this post, we'll break down 5 of the ways that CRM and marketing automation can save you time and make you more money.
1. Reduce double handling
When you have several different systems that all rely on accessing customer information and they are all keeping their own copy of that information, several problems can develop. The first is simply wasted time - transferring customer information from an order to your shipping software and then to your accounting software takes time that could be better spent doing other things. Aside from the wasted labour costs, there is also the very real possibility of human error when transferring the information. If any of the inputs are entered wrong, or any of them become out-of-sync, then the validity of your data is compromised and customer support could suffer as a consequence.
CRM software unifies your customer information. With all of your systems connected to one central database, they will always be in-sync with each other and the correct data will always be on display. Provided that your data is adequately maintained, there will never be the possibility that a customer's address has changed but one of the systems wasn't updated - your staff will always get the correct data every time they look for it.
2. Increase visibility on trends
You cannot effectively run a business if you do not know the overall health of the business. While you can certainly get by without a CRM, having one will supercharge the information that is available to you, making key performance metrics front and centre in an easy to understand dashboard that will allow you to identify and act on trends in your business performance. You'll be able to quickly compare current trends with past data to see if something is out of the ordinary and needs acting on or it is a part of the normal ebb and flow of business. Because most of your commonly used software can be integrated into a CRM, you'll have data that represents the entirety of your business all in one dashboard, giving you a more complete picture of how your business is operating and what needs to be changed.
3. Improve performance on marketing activities
The analytics provided by CRM software provide actionable insights that you can use to improve your marketing efforts, reduce spend, and maximise ROI. You will learn which customers contribute most to your profitability, which customer segments are likely to purchase a given product, and even information about individual customers that will allow you to personalise your marketing to them and increase the chances of making a sale. Your sales staff will automatically have all of this customer information on hand.
Utilising Marketing Automation, you can apply the information that you gather to build the perfect journey for your customers with automated outreach at each step. Once you've used this information to make changes to your marketing strategy, you'll be able to use information in the dashboard to track the effectiveness of the change and adapt as necessary. It will allow you to make continuous refinements to your marketing strategy that would not have been possible otherwise, with all of the information in one convenient location.
4. Increase transparency and accountability
Without a centralised customer database, you could be put in a situation where only the salesperson handling an account has the information about a customer needed in order to effectively provide service to that customer. With a CRM, anybody will be able to jump in at any time with all of the customer information that they'll need in order to handle any problems that arise or to effectively make a sale to that customer. Not only does this allow your entire team to be more effective if another member is unavailable to handle an account, but it provides a level of transparency that allows everyone in the organisation to see the details of your company's relationship with a given customer. Everyone on the staff having access to key information about the customer will not only result in improved sales numbers but in improved customer support as well.
5. Improve communication and workflows
Having all of the customer information available in one place does more than allow for one person to seamlessly take over for another, or give customer support more information about a customer. It allows teams to work together more effectively by providing a unified place for information that everyone can access and modify as needed while they collaborate. This is especially important for teams who are on the road or staff members who work remotely. Freed from the burden of managing multiple copies of data across multiple locations, your teams will get more work done in less time. The powerful dashboard with insightful metrics will also make their jobs easier and provide everyone on the team with the information that they need more quickly.
As you have seen, CRM software is great at consolidating information and presenting it in a format that is easy to digest. As it works hard to provide this information to you, your staff can be busy working hard on other things. You'll enjoy a more productive workforce that has more information at their disposal than they could have without a CRM system. The result is increased sales, decreased labour costs, and more efficient marketing.
We would love the opportunity to discuss how Act! CRM and Marketing Automation software can help you achieve your business goals. We invite you to visit our website and try a free 14-day trial of Act! Growth Suite today. Of course, if you have any questions about the software, or about CRM in general, you can contact us at any time and we'll be glad to help.
