What Does a CRM System Do to Enhance Business Growth?

Technology has advanced immensely since its inception. The Cloud has replaced floppy drives. Landlines have long gone and made way for 21st-century real-time messenger communication. We can go on and on about how technology has evolved and created a strong foothold. Technology is also a growth enabler for businesses. Several businesses rely on their technology counterparts to improve their capabilities, enhance efficiencies and meet deadlines. CRM is ruling the technology roost, especially regarding business growth and scalability.  The software system extends immense possibilities in terms of planning, allocation, strategizing, customer service, and optimization to businesses. CRM has bolstered business growth and improved the bottom line incredibly.  With a bird's eye view into your customers and business processes, your teams can make informed decisions that improve business functions.  There are a lot of things that the CRM can do for the business. This guide will discuss and detail everything you can gain with the CRM systems.

» Top Ways Businesses Can Use CRM Systems

How does your business benefit from the CRM system? What are some of the things you are using it for?  We will answer the most asked question- what can a CRM do for your business? Let's get started. 

› Automates Repetitive Tasks

If someone was to ask you to name a thing that takes up maximum time in your business- what would you say? If we were to guess, it would be tedious and repetitive tasks that take up a chunk of your day's time.  Imagine not having to do these jobs manually anymore! If that seems like a dream, you haven't yet made room for a CRM system. The CRM system is trained to free your resources from tedious jobs. Say, you are a marketing executive, and your job is to send Emails regularly to all the leads in your spreadsheet. The CRM system allows you to automate it.  Create a design, write the content, spend some time defining the conditions, and build the workflow. The CRM will take care of the rest. It will ensure the customer/lead receives the Email as soon as they meet the defined condition.  Several such tasks include social media posting, creating reports, or assigning/deleting tasks. It can take up a lot of manual labor. The CRM will ensure you don't spend much time doing these things.  Businesses can identify the jobs that are tedious, manual, and repetitive that eat into resource time. Check out how to automate them and use the CRM to perform the tasks. Imagine what a productive team you will have. 

› Offers Personalized Experiences

Who doesn't like it when their customer stays in the business a little longer? Everybody does! But how will you ensure that the customer will want to work with you or stay to enjoy your business growth?  When you understand your customer, offer them the exact thing they have been looking for, and make them your priority, you will notice they will stay longer. Personalizing can mean looking into a lot of data, building insights, understanding their needs, and offering them relevant services.  CRM systems can help you create personalized experiences for the customers. They will have all the data at their fingertips. These systems can pull out insights and extend personalized recommendations whenever needed.  It will save your team the time and energy spent reading the data. Moreover, you will ensure customers stay in the business by offering them what they need. 

› Lead Prioritization

As a business, you would know that not every lead converts. Most often, the lead you plan to convert is not ideal for your business. They may claim to need your products but would not end up buying. You are well aware of such a leader’s existence.  How will you know the difference between genuine leads and those who aren't interested? CRM systems will help your business identify high-conversion leads using a tool called lead scoring. The algorithm will check the lead against several parameters and determine which lead is interested in your business.  This will help you realize the hot leads and ensure better prioritization. Of course, this prioritization also saves endless hours of work that your resources will invest to get the details. 

› Build Omni-Channel Communication

Your customers don't enter your business from a single point. When businesses ran offline, there were limited entry opportunities to the business. However, since they went online, the customer can connect with the business via social media, website, chatbot, or even their app.  You might lose out on a potential customer if you aren't ready for their entry and conversations across channels. Imagine a person trying to converse on the website, but your team wasn't available. Now, you don't have any details pertaining to the customer.  The CRM systems can ensure the business is prepared for the customer's entry into the system. They will guard all the entry points with their forms, chatbots, agents, and other tools. Collecting information is integral to the CRM system. They would ensure you have the requisite information to help you reach out to the customer.  They will ensure you are available across channels and help your customers connect with you. 

› Streamline Sales Processes

The inefficiencies within the sales teams can be attributed to the inconsistent sales processes. Imagine creating a uniform sales cycle irrespective of the target audience and product type. That can lead to multiple failures and lackluster sales reports.  You must create and manage individual sales processes depending on your product type and customers. However, that can take up a lot of time. Each time the sales team has to determine the process that will be effective for the particular lead. They may need to manually manage the deal stages and ensure the lead's movement through them. The CRM system can streamline the process. This is one of the use cases of the software solution. Using the CRM, you can create automated cycles for the sales. You can use the different factors and conditions to add the leads. This way, your leads will enter the lifecycle that matches their requirements.  Salespeople can track and monitor the deals and convert them using automation within the system. It makes things easier for the salesperson. 

› Better Lead Follow-ups

A marketing or sales outreach can help you maximize lead generation. You will notice more leads entering your business if you have an exciting and incredible strategy. The excitement dies down when you look at the spreadsheet or manual methods that will help you filter, segment, and follow up with the leads. The entire process of segmentation takes a lot of time. So, you lose out on follow-up time. As a result, the leads lose interest in your business and join the competition. If you have been losing leads to others because of your inefficient follow-up system, you might want to change it. CRM systems guide businesses in identifying the leads that are up for a follow-on discussion. They will tell you the exact conversation you had with them last time. It will help you build the case for the upcoming conversation.  The CRM would also tell you about the customers who need to renew their plans or buy another product from your business. The business can flourish and maintain a retention rate with CRM systems. 

› Analyzes Your Customers

No two customers behave the same way. You cannot use the same method to sell a particular product to them. For some customers, a single conversation is enough to complete the purchases. On the other hand, you will notice a few others remain undecided even after several conversations.  How would you know which customer needs more push versus those needing a continual relationship? That's where the CRM steps in and helps businesses. It can give you a detailed customer behavior analysis based on different factors. You will get a detailed view of their conversations with the sales and marketing teams. You will know where the customer is more likely to connect with you. The reports will detail the customers who have been loyal versus the ones who are on the verge of moving out. You can jump into customer conversations to note what they are talking about. Are they planning to purchase more things? Are they sharing their disappointments? The CRM systems can give a complete view of all customer lifecycle aspects. This can help you make better decisions in the longer run. 

› Dig Deeper into Sales Cycles

The sales cycle starts with the entry of a hot lead and goes beyond conversion. Depending on what type of product/service the customer has purchased, the sales cycle will be defined. For instance, if a service requires renewal, you might need to develop the cycle accordingly.  Each stage requires a different level of effort. For example, if you are in the preliminary stage, you must send quotations and proposals. These can consume a bit of time. Similarly, you must be on the negotiation table when you are nearing the deal closure stage.  If you don't close these aspects on time, you might note that the customer will move to the competition. You can use the CRM systems to streamline the proposal to the negotiation stage. You can also check for bottlenecks that delay these aspects of deal closure.  When you dig into the sales cycles, you will know why it fails. You can determine the steps that will help boost the cycle. 

› Competition Analysis

Knowing the competition is equally important. Monitoring the customers who sail off to competition will help you plan your sales strategies better. However, if you were to monitor it manually, it can take time.  How does the CRM help? You will know which customers have moved out of your business. You can check with them what they are currently using. Talk to them about the need to move to a competition. Seek their feedback and add it to the system. When you have enough understanding about the move and know where you are lacking, you can create better strategies. It helps build a stronger sales process.

› Strengthens Customer Support

Let's recreate a regular situation within the business. A customer approaches a customer support executive with a complaint. It seems they have been facing this issue for a while. However, your agent isn't aware because there is no history related to the issue.  That's where the CRM system can help the business. It will give the customer support team a detailed history of the conversations between the support/sales team and the customer. They would know the exact assurances made by the support team. Your agent would also know the nature of conversations and the current responses. Your agent can make a more informed decision regarding escalation. They can also determine ways to bring peace to the customer.  These things will help enhance customer support and eventually lead to a satisfied customer. A CRM system can enhance the support a business extends to its customers. 

› Bird's Eye View on Revenue

You can use the CRM to get complete visibility into your business's revenue. Let's understand how. If your sales team has managed to keep some loyal customers who renew the plans, you know how much you will generate. The customer insight will tell you about the people who will move out. Similarly, you will know which new trends are likely to hit the market and boost revenue. You can also identify opportunities for cross-selling or upselling, which can improve your business revenue. The CRM helps the sales teams know everything needed about the sales cycle. 

› Strategic Planning

Strategies are important for the success of a business. However, a strategy is incomplete if you don't know your customers, prospects, conversations, or deal-related information.  The CRM gives a complete view of your marketing, sales, and support cycles. It offers you extensive data into the issues the customer is facing. You can look at the bottlenecks within the processes. It also presents opportunities for your business. The whole system will give you a view of the reasons for the lead decline. You will also know why your opportunities aren't converting.  This data can help you in implementing effective strategies. The CRM system is like an advisor to the business and helps them with effective suggestions. 

› Know retention vs. churn rate

This is an important parameter for every decision-maker. Knowing which customers will run longer with your business versus the ones who will move out is crucial. It will tell you a few things:

• • The exact revenue you are likely to generate in the coming month
  • Customers you need to approach to prevent attrition
  • Reasons why your customers are staying or moving out

When you have a detailed view of the reasons, it becomes easier to take the right steps. You would know what to do to make them stay longer. You can also reward your loyal customers with appropriate rewards. 

› Build a Stronger Business

The CRM becomes the foundation for the business. It helps streamline the marketing, sales, and operations-related processes. You will notice that the CRM focuses on identifying insights, eliminating bottlenecks, and enhancing business outcomes. When you have all relevant data in a single place, you can collate it to build stronger processes and strategies. It will eventually contribute towards business profits and stable growth. 

» Conclusion

CRM systems can help businesses with diverse tasks. It can reduce the heavy lifting and contribute towards increased efficiency.  You will notice stable growth, scalable business, and increased profits with the CRM systems. It is very crucial to choose the right CRM system for your business. Choose a vendor with minimal lock-in, extended features, and a smooth onboarding experience to enhance business growth.