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February 8, 2020

How to use CRM to achieve a competitive advantage

How to use CRM to achieve a competitive advantage.

Today’s business landscape is fast-changing, and companies are looking for ways to stand out from their competitors.

Product quality and pricing may help your customers differentiate you from other companies. However, you can’t ignore the importance of customer interaction or the relationship you build with your audiences.

That’s why you need a CRM software.

Customer relationship management, is a set of technology that helps manage customer data. It supports lead management and helps deliver actionable insights that help salespeople to maintain a healthy relationship with customers.

In fact, the stats show that 91% of businesses with more than 11 employees have started using CRM.

Every company is slowly recognizing the value CRM has to add to their business. For instance, it easily integrates with almost any other software, including ERP, legacy databases, social media, and more.

Earlier, CRM was a tool reserved for the elite only, but now it is accessible to the smallest of companies. So if most organizations use it, how do I achieve a competitive advantage?

The fact is that although CRM may be readily available, not everyone chooses to reap its benefits.

Why is CRM software becoming so popular?

▪️Streamlines and automates the sales process

CRM automation refers to the system’s ability to streamline and simplify complex processes and automate repetitive and manual tasks. It improves productivity and customer satisfaction by ensuring consistent service delivery.

And, automation can free up time to focus more on meaningful and strategic work.

CRM automates a wide range of work across sales, marketing, and service activities. For example, it can save you time from creating a contract every time you sign a deal.
It will keep the customized templates and automatically generate it, when requested. Thus, you waste no time in closing the deal.

▪️Acts as a centralized database

CRM does more than just contact management. By integrating with other systems, it acts as a centralized database where all the information relating to customers, deals, orders, and deliveries made is stored and maintained. It then enables you to generate and track automatic billing, invoices, and more.

And it significantly reduces double-entry with two-way communication, minimizing the chance of human errors by always displaying accurate and up-to-date information.

▪️Provides the sales team with necessary tools

The most significant advantage of CRM is that it enables the sales team to streamline every process. It helps in closing deals faster by converting quotes into an order, and then to invoices to generate revenue.

It helps everyone to reach targets more quickly since order processing and preparing quotes is automated.

It also streamlines communication and syncs information in real-time so that the sales team stay updated all the time. The sales manager can also view all planned activity for the reps within the CRM, and keep an eye on their progress.

▪️Enables faster service to customers

With the use of smartphones, consumers have instant access to everything within a second. They expect fast replies when they call up customer service to know about the status of their order or in case they have any queries.

CRM can be of great use as it enables your customer reps to have instant access to the database and provide quick assistance. It doesn’t matter whether you are working from home or a cafe,  you can have real-time access to company information whenever required.

In addition, CRM ties all the departments together. Thus, regardless of who receives the calls from a prospect, they will know exactly how to respond by viewing the past interactions.

CRM enables you to both grow your business and protect it from competitive attack. Here’s how…

1. CRM creates new business opportunities

A CRM software helps you create opportunities by providing great insights into your business activities.

It can help assess a lead and use effective tactics to convert them into opportunities. For instance, CRM provides the complete lead profile that contains the added information that can be useful to assess a company’s background, their interaction with your brand, and their competitors.

So if you see a client is buying a product X from you but not Y, you may be able to create a personalized offer by combining the product X and Y that will enable the client to achieve cost savings. Thus, it provides you an opportunity to cross-sell.

2. CRM enhances the customer experience

In today’s time, businesses usually operate on multi-channels to expand their reach.

However, the main concern is whether they can provide quality customer experience across all channels. A study revealed that 89% of customers were not satisfied due to the inconsistency among channels.

This problem can be avoided by using CRM to manage the customer data flow from different channels from a single platform. It gathers and collects all the required information into a single database, which enables you to align customer experiences across different touchpoints.

One example is how restaurateurs can gather information on their customer’s food and beverage preferences. So that when they come next time, waiters can immediately open up their profile and improve their experience.

3. CRM increases customer retention

The primary purpose of CRM software is to improve customer retention. And only by increasing customer retention by 5%, you can increase profits by up to 75%.

There are various ways in which CRM can help retain customers. For starters, it can help map customer’s experience from the point of initial contact to the process of engagement, and how the engagement process turned into a long-term customer relationship.

CRM tools help in providing insight across the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing strategy. It provides guidelines as to how to re-engage your customers.

In short, CRM aligns marketing and sales goals and activities. This helps the whole team in delivering a complete experience while making the customers feel that they are valued.

4. CRM lowers overhead costs

Profitability can be achieved by decreasing overhead costs and allowing more investments to be made in enhancing the customer’s experience.

CRM automates tasks and saves time on manual procedures, which again can be used to focus on more critical tasks. It increases the productivity of every employee.

Training Magazine’s 2017 Training Industry Report stated that companies spent an average of $1,075 per trainee in 2017, and the cost keeps rising.

Training employees on different systems takes time and also increases the training overhead. So instead of investing time towards completing project goals, they are stuck with learning multiple systems.

Thus, integration of CRM with other systems helps reduce the time required to get teams working together. Plus, CRM’s operate on standard procedures that are easy-to-use and also help avoid doubling of tasks.

Final Words

CRM empowers the sales management team. It helps them do a better job of lead management — nurturing leads into opportunities, and into customers.

In fact, you gain the most by integrating the CRM function with your company’s ERP solution. It allows you to see the company’s sales activity and forecast its demand based on past insights. It shortens lead capturing times and, thus, helps you outperform your competitors.

So are you ready to use CRM and gain more revenue for your business?

— Himanshu Singh is a marketing specialist at SoftwareSuggest, He is well versed in software platforms like eCommerce platforms, project management, invoicing software. He is also interested in domains like Machine Learning and Semiconductors. In his spare time he enjoys guitar, badminton, and photography. He can be reached on LinkedIn here.

• Posted 2.8.20 at 05:32 am by Roy Osing
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