What is CRM? ft.com

[Pages:19]What is CRM?

Table of contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 About customer relationship management (CRM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 How small businesses can use a CRM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 How CRMs can help grow your business and increase sales. . . . . 8 How to segment leads and customers with a CRM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 How a CRM integrates with other systems to increase efficiency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 How CRM reporting and analytics can enhance your business. . 14 CRM glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Introduction

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Introduction

Customer relationship management (CRM) software has been around since the mid-90s, but has come into its own over the last decade.

The reason for this growth has a lot to do with how consumers interact with businesses today.

We can reach out to businesses on Twitter and they reply with personality. We expect marketing emails to address us by our first names. When we contact customer support, it's obvious that they should have a record of our last phone conversation on file.

For businesses that stumble in this area, the effects can be disastrous.

Without software designed to help stay on top of the details, business owners can run themselves ragged trying to keep up. This has firmly established CRM as a must-have for small business owners who want to improve their relationships with their prospects, clients, and other contacts.

This eBook will tell you everything you need to know about CRM: its benefits, how small businesses can use it, the most important features to look for, and how to integrate a CRM with your other systems.

? 2019 Keap | All rights reserved

About customer relationship management (CRM)

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About customer relationship management (CRM)

What is CRM? Customer relationship management (CRM) is a powerful way of connecting data from your sales leads and clients into a single tool. A CRM records and analyzes e-mails, calls and meetings and, if used correctly, can help enhance customer service, drive sales, and boost revenue.

Imagine being able to personalize at scale as you delight each of your prospects and customers with customized messages. You can track, segment, and parse your data to make your marketing and sales smarter, more efficient, and more potent.

Customer relationship management is a literal description of what a CRM does, but those three vague words only scratch the surface. The sheer volume of data that you can gather and track for each customer in a cloud-based CRM system is staggering--and exciting.

CRM and automation functions

Multiple teams across your company can leverage CRM, from sales to marketing to customer support. After all, the primary function of a CRM tool is to organize and track customer relationships--every part of your business can benefit from better understanding your customer.

CRM and automation functions will vary based on your company size, business goal, and what kind of product or service you're offering. For example, a small company without a dedicated sales team may use CRM to automate the sales process. On the other hand, a larger company may use CRM to build complex email nurture campaigns to convert leads.

? 2019 Keap | All rights reserved

About customer relationship management (CRM)

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Either way, there are 4 standard CRM functions that apply to everyone:

1. Capturing leads: CRM software stores all information about a potential customer, or lead, in one place. You can add this information automatically, when site visitors fill out a form for example, or manually, if sales reps want to add names to the database.

2. Tracking the sales pipeline: Once you capture all of your leads, your CRM can then track opportunities as they move from stage to stage based on specific actions. This increases visibility and reporting, allowing sales reps to accurately forecast accounts, see how close he or she is to hitting quota, and prioritize leads who are more likely to become paying customers.

3. Streamlining customer contacts: You may be wrangling spreadsheets, lists, and pie charts in an attempt to capture the diverse activities related to managing customers. It can be difficult, if not impossible, to connect different sources of information to tell a cohesive story. CRM makes it possible to organize contact information, communication, customer service, sales and revenue for tracking, reporting, and analysis all in a single system.

4. Delivering and sharing information: With such powerful data and reporting consolidated in a single resource, delivering information when and where it's needed becomes much easier. Collecting all this information in your CRM calls for an organized team with a consistent process. Establishing this process and encouraging transparency between process owners will foster information sharing. When one area of your business process improves, other areas do too.

CRM benefits

The benefits of a CRM are numerous. Smart small business owners know they need to store and manage data for all of their contacts, but many still struggle with inboxes, spreadsheets, and even sticky notes as their primary method of organization for those contacts. Having a high number of contacts is great, but those old school methods just become overwhelming.

? 2019 Keap | All rights reserved

About customer relationship management (CRM)

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If you have dozens of contacts, it's time for a CRM where each field can be customized to your needs. Think about the different data touchpoints you need to keep track of like name, phone number, email, address, website, and even the type of customers. A CRM can organize all of this data. It also can help with contact title, lead scoring, company size, several contacts within a single company, stage in the pipeline, and even additional notes like who makes decisions at the businesses you sell to.

The best part of organizing your information into a CRM system is that it's not daunting. Most small businesses already store their contacts in an Excel spreadsheet. All you need to do iscollect your contacts in a CSV file and follow the prompts in the CRM to import and map that data. Some CRM companies provide consulting for their products and it could be helpful to get some seasoned insights to get the most out of a CRM. Check out these tips on how to accelerate your CRM adoption process.

In addition to increased organization, here are three benefits of a CRM:

1. Increase sales: A CRM can help you boost sales as it can vastly improve the efficiency and productivity of sales teams. With sales teams freed up from administrative tasks like manual data input of contacts, for example, they can spend that time closing more sales. A CRM will also provide sales reps with more information to help track the journey of each potential buyer, making it easier to spot opportunities.

2. The ability to personalize communication: In addition to more efficient use of sales resources, your customers can benefit from the personalization features many CRM tools offer--a huge advantage when 86% of consumers say personalization played a role in their purchasing decision, according to a study by Infosys. All of that data in your CRM database can be used to build deeper customer relationships through personalized communications. One way to do this is by addressing customers by their first name in e-mails or creating nurture campaigns based on industry.

? 2019 Keap | All rights reserved

About customer relationship management (CRM)

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3. Increased retention: Another way CRM can benefit sales is that it exposes who your highest revenue-generating or most engaged customers are. You may be able to identify a subset of customers who attend webinars or open all of their e-mails through a CRM. Why not reach out to them to advocate on your brand's behalf? A CRM can also increase retention among your existing customers. Through a CRM and its ability to aggregate customer behavior, you may be able to spot patterns like when a customer is about to churn. Having insight into customer behavior can help you develop a plan or program to retain at-risk customers.

? 2019 Keap | All rights reserved

How small businesses can use a CRM

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How small businesses can use a CRM

A CRM can help you with list management and campaigns, and can help you stay organized and avoid repetitive tasks. Did you know that you can even set up appointments or send invoices through CRMs?

And for those who run service businesses, meeting with prospects and clients is a critical step in building trust, selling your services, and scaling your business. But scheduling and managing meetings can feel like a time-consuming chore. Back-and-forth phone calls, e-mails, and texts to find a mutually beneficial time to chat can drive anyone crazy. Then, more time is lost when calendars don't sync or when there are scheduling miscommunications.

Fortunately, some CRMs provide appointments features which allow you to manage appointments from a single platform, giving you one place to access prospect and customer data, your calendar, and even notes before the big meeting.

What features should a small business look for in a CRM?

As a small business owner, it's important to get the most out of every precious minute and dollar you spend. Time is money and you need to effectively manage both to run a successful business. Implementing a CRM system is a great way to streamline your marketing efforts--saving you time as well as increasing your revenue.

While this goal is not unique to small businesses, the features you look for in a CRM will be different than the needs of a one-to-twoperson start-up, or a large business with more than 500 employees.

You'll resonate with the needs of a small business if you have two to 25 employees and make between $100,000 and $3 million in revenue. You're also in the sweet spot of growth, with a high potential for more headcount and revenue in the future. As a result, as your business grows, you'll need a CRM that can grow with you.

? 2019 Keap | All rights reserved

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