The optimization of the company's management is generally done through regular monitoring and control of certain key elements such as organization, treasury, commercial management and marketing. The emergence of "customer relationship management" (CRM) has revolutionised the philosophy of company management. Indeed, CRM is essentially focused on maintaining a quality relationship with customers in order to build loyalty and maintain a lasting relationship with them. The advantages of a CRM can be found on several fronts. Not only does it optimise control of cash flow, sales management and marketing, but it also makes it possible to ensure the rigorous follow-up of after-sales services with customers, thus enabling the company to adapt its offers to their needs.
Description of the CRM
CRM is a set of tools and techniques used by companies to collect, analyze and process customer and prospect databases, in order to implement strategies to guarantee them a better quality of service and increase their satisfaction. In addition, CRM facilitates communication with customers and maintains a quality relationship with them. The different stages of the customer relationship, such as pre-sales, marketing, sales and after-sales service, are automated, so that customer needs can be responded to quickly or instantaneously, allowing the company to better follow up and save considerable time.
CRM data provides companies with important new information about customer needs and behaviors, enabling them to tailor and personalize products to target customer segments. In addition to these benefits, the data collected by the CRM system provides solutions to problems outside of a company's marketing functions, such as supply chain management and new product development.
To test a free demo on how to use CRM in effective business management, please visit startupcrm.com.
Requirements for the effective integration of CRM in a company
To benefit from CRM software, its use must be incorporated into the company's management policy. Indeed, the effectiveness of CRM is intimately linked to the clarity of the strategy adopted by the company. In addition, it will also be necessary to review the organization of the company. It is also important to raise employee awareness through circulars or meetings on the usefulness of CRM and to offer them training so that they can become familiar with CRM tools.
Furthermore, the integration of customer relationship management within a company must involve a change in working methods, as this requires the sharing of information between different departments and employees, as well as the automation of certain tasks.
The advantages of CRM in sales management
Commercial management enables the company to ensure the continuity of its operations, by controlling invoicing, customer receivables, stock monitoring, or to quickly access customer information.
The major advantage of CRM in commercial management is the sharing of a single database and the use of a single application for managing customer relations, invoicing, stocks, purchases and delivery.
Among other things, the CRM tool makes it possible to increase the quality of service by reducing delays and errors and to reduce costs by improving inventory management. In addition, the CRM system provides better profitability through price adjustments and automatic reminders of unpaid invoices. In addition to these qualities, the automation generated by CRM reduces administrative tasks in the areas of accounting, invoices, quotes and delivery notes. And finally, CRM provides a better understanding of the company's strategy through business analysis, dashboards and reports.
CRM's contribution to marketing
The CRM management software is very useful in the marketing strategy, in order to improve the customer relationship and increase the turnover.
The CRM tool makes it possible to discern prospects and customers from a complete database. The analysis of this data facilitates the implementation of marketing and support operations.
Mass e-mailing or launching a telephone call campaign, based on behavioural objectives, can be done by linking the CRM tool to web analytics tools and to a large extent to multi-channel objectives. This optimizes lead acquisition costs and lead qualification.
Fragmentation makes it possible to launch very specific actions with the implementation of tailor-made promotional or commercial offers. The CRM tool incorporates analysis and action follow-up functions. It allows you to manage communications (e-mails, faxes and texts) from a single interface.
This control makes it possible to concisely forecast the company's budgets. The advantage of tracking, automating and analyzing propaganda from a CRM is independent of financial capacity. An important asset, this type of solution allows small and medium-sized companies to channel and develop their communication and marketing plan efficiently and at a lower cost.