What is CRM and Why is it Critical to Business Success

What is CRM?

Companies are changing the way they do business. Today's managers and strategists are turning to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Great companies have always been built around strong customer relationships.

CRM is a vehicle to connect all the people in your organization with the vision of improving the central relationships of your business through meaningful interactions.  The greatest strength of CRM is the power of CRM as a strategy influencing collaboration in every part of the business.

According to helpscout.net, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase. Therefore, providing an outstanding customer experience is essential for expanding business operations.

Nowadays, there are many software solutions that can help organizations enhance their relationships with consumers on the market. However, the most popular solution used by corporations for improving and managing customer experience, as well as gaining leads, is CRM systems by far.

CRM is a strategy used to learn more about prospects and customers’ needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. There are many technological components to CRM, but thinking about CRM in primarily technological terms is a mistake.

The more useful way to think about CRM is as a process that will help bring together disparate of information about prospects, customers, sales, service, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness and market trends using converging technologies.

A New Definition Clarifying "What is CRM?"

"CRM in the Age of Customer Engagement - CRM is a business science with a defined philosophy and a set of strategies and programs, supported by systems and technologies, designed to improve human interactions in a business environment. Its purpose and its value are to make the customer's experience with the company good enough to provide a mutually beneficial outcome over time, even as expectations change."

-by Paul Greenberg, "CRM in the Age of Customer Engagement" 

"CRM is a business strategy designed to optimize profitability, revenue and customer satisfaction" - Gartner 

Practical Definition: The ability of an entire organization to effectively identify, acquire, foster and retain loyal customers.

The full force of CRM is used to accelerate your business by having a trusted system for those business relationship development activities.

The net benefit of this customer-centric strategy supported by a CRM system for continuous knowledge capture is your have a much more valuable business.  A well implemented CRM system is an appreciating asset of your business.

View a list of Critical Business Issues and Challenges that CRM can help solve! 

Learn "How to Choose CRM Software - Starting Point Guidelines...."

Reasons to Invest in and Results Gained with CRM: 

• Increase the Value of Your Business!
  • Information about Your Customers is an asset that appreciates.
  • Successful Processes and procedures in a trusted system increase the value.
• Accelerate sale velocity
  • Faster conversion of lead to qualified opportunity and to closed sale.
  • Improved follow up and reporting
• Make Informed Decisions- faster and easier 
  • Dashboards of business activity and completed objectives to guide the staff and the business.
• Enhanced Customer Management and Retention
  • Comprehensive Customer Knowledge
  • Higher Customer Satisfaction
  • Enhanced Customer Loyalty
  • Improve and Measure Sales and Marketing Effectiveness Better information for Management Decision Making
  • Reduce Administrative Costs
  • Improved Employee Morale

Benefits of CRM by Your Role:

An integrated CRM system is a component of business improvement strategy focused around the customer. It produces an multiplication of positive results throughout the organization.

View how what benefits are provided to the roles of: C-Level/Managers, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and IT support, here.....

Read about Results Gained with a CRM business strategy and system.

Objectives of CRM: 

• To Target new, qualified prospects
• To Acquire new customers (clients, distributors, partners, etc.)
• To Develop customers - understand this wants and needs to deliver the value in products, services and solutions.
• To Retain profitable customers - a lite-time investment

CRM has the ability to provide a 360 degree view of your Business.

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