CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a system that aims to improve relationships with existing customers, finds new prospective customers and wins back former customers.

A CRM system helps companies to stay connected with their clients, streamline processes and improve profitability by higher customer satisfaction.

This system is brought into effect with software that facilitates collecting, organizing and managing customer information. It sets you free from uncertainties of losing revenue as a result of incomplete customer data.

CRM can be implemented in three ways:

As a technology: A technology that is used to record, report and analyzes interactions between a client and business.
As a Strategy: This is a business strategy about how relationships with clients should be managed.
As a process: An implementation that a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.

Benefits of CRM

Better sales performance.
Increased efficiency and profitability.
Quick tactical decision-making.
Stronger data security.
Improved customer satisfaction.

In order to improve management, CRM divides the data into following four major classes:

1. Clients

Clients are the single most valuable asset of a business; no matter what kind of products or services you offer. Clients or costumers drive a company’s sense of purpose and direction. They provide invaluable feedback and that serves as a springboard for new concepts and ideas. Let’s not forget the revenue they bring in for the company. That’s gives the motive to set client-satisfaction at number one on the priority list.

A company’s level of success is determined by the relationships cultivated with its client-base. The importance of client data doesn’t end after collection; you have to maintain accurate and accessible records of customer needs, preferences, transactions and concerns. For instance, with CRM, as soon as a customer contacts your company, your representatives will be able to retrieve all available activities concerning past purchases, preferences or anything else that might assist them to communicate better.

2. Contacts

Contacts are the individual people with whom you have a business relationship. The foundation of using Contacts is to be able to track basic information of a customer such as name, address, phone number and so on. In addition to the contact’s role and buying power, additional information can be added to the contact that allows you to segment them for broadcast communication.

With the help of managing contacts, every new interaction with a client can be personalized, tracked and can be kept up to date. By creating contacts, you can set communication preferences for that contact. That means designating how the individual prefers to be contacted and whether they will allow phone calls or emails. This ensures that opportunity to grow costumer account won’t be missed.

3. Documents

Documentation instills confidence within your business, among potential customers and your clients. All business transactions require paperwork that serve as evidence of the agreed upon terms and conditions between your business and the individual or organization that you are dealing with. Document management is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of paper-based, or electronic (i.e. Word, Excel, e-mail) documents. Therefore, standardized documents and procedures for processing and recording all transactions and keeping track of these documents is necessary.

Creating high volumes of compliant costumer documents can be challenging in a fast-paced, customer-centric world. That’s what makes CRM document generation so important. To keep the business compliant, unlock opportunities and protect the firm’s integrity; the creation, management and handling documents carry vital importance.

4. Notes

Making small notes can help both the seller and the customer to organize their thoughts and record any specific detail or vital information. Online CRM offers this facility as an open text field and can also create a time-stamp on the note. Users like taking notes because they are quick, easy and store minute but important details. The art of note taking is a common habit among the world’s most successful people.

It is quite possible that at one time you are not going to be able to remember everything. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to simply make a note of any information that you might need in the future? It will also help you to summarize information and help you capture simple thoughts or ideas that could be lost. Other benefits of this feature are that it makes the company able to satisfy the customer on a deeper level by remembering every minute detail about their preferences and likes or dislikes.