Is your CRM working in the right direction?

CRM is considered as an easy tool to handle. The clue lies in its own name ie. customer relationship management and it is being developed on three major principles – 

- Clients 

- Relationships

- Management 

CRM is not so much a tool and more of ethos that makes use of software with the aim to help attain its target. 

1. Clients 

When we talk about a business, its lifeblood is not mere sales, but also the clients themselves. All the varied activities undertaken by a business should stress on offering improved level of service to clients, both the old and new. CRM acts the role of a central repository for all client data, by offering one comprehensive view of all things in regard to clients since it helps in client retention. Enhancing the client retention by mere 5% has the potential to push profits in the range of 25% and 95%.

2. Relationships

It is a known fact that people only purchase from people. Hence, it is essential that relationships make up the core of all the interactions that take place. Marketing can set up relationships and sales team can help cultivate them. The service team of a company can review and further boost new opportunities based on these relationships. CRM offers you a tool to successfully capture the relationship details, quickly analyze trends and also find new opportunities. 

CRM can help transform every individual in a company into sales personnel, as they are selling your business in some way or other. For example, clients would state things to the sales personnel which could be later used as a sales opportunity. The support team member might not know it but since the information is all recorded, a sales personnel can view it and then use it for following up. Just the simple process of recording details has numerous benefits for other departments. 

3. Management

Creating successful relationships with the clients is one aspect, but at the same time those interactions are required to be managed if profit is what you are eyeing for. You will also require tools to capture and also analyze the relationship data to help keep the sales, marketing and services on the same track. CRM can also be successfully used to automate many of the varied account management tasks to being improvement in client service like easy transfer of leads between marketing and sales and also offering your firm a complete understanding of the clients’ requirements and preferences.  

It has been found on an average basis, sales and marketing expenses make for nearly 15-35% of overall corporate costs. Hence, the effort to automate for enhancing sales effectiveness is an absolute must. In many cases, it has been found that sales surges in the range between 10-30% due to advanced CRM technology. As the average time a sales representative dedicates to sales stands at nearly 50%, while the administrative tasks receive 39% of time. 

As CRM can be a very efficient tool for businesses, it is absolutely necessary that companies ensure its usage to enhance their profitability, productivity and also revenue. 

The article is also available at http://salescrms.weebly.com/blog/is-your-crm-working-in-the-right-direction

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