6 signs that your company needs a CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is now a frequent acronym in the management vocabulary, referring to a set of tools to centralize any kind of company information, such as data on customers or internal processes, and to organize it efficiently in a single cloud-based platform. But why should a company decide to invest in this type of solution?

A well-structured CRM with the help of a certified consultant can offer a considerable number of possibilities, in addition to optimizing what already exists at the level of organizing business processes. For example, automations to replace certain manual actions such as sending notifications, updating files, up to the generation of periodic reports to monitor the company's performance. In fact, a CRM solution makes it possible to manage all the data collected, sort it and use the information thus obtained to make effective decisions that are functional to the company’s strategy and to improve production and maximize ROI.

In the early stages of an organization’s growth, it may seem that CRM is not necessary. The company is informal, data on the first customers are saved on scattered files, paper files or organized with an Excel file, employees are not specialized but they have a wide range of tasks and duties. However, already in the early stages of growth a structure requires the implementation of processes and the management of a lot of information, and more this activity is supported by the right tool, simpler and easier it will be to structure a growth and scale-up path.

As the company grows, the need to define rules, problem-solving plans and standardize processes inevitably arises. Customers start to become many; employees start to specialize and data management requires to be precise and formalized. When projects become more complex and structured, it is no longer possible to manage things manually; on the contrary, the risk is to limit growth potential. A company at this stage can evolve and get the best out of customer data, monitor progress and perfect customer service. Actions that would be truly time consuming and problematic without a CRM solution built specifically around the company’s needs.

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SIGNS THAT YOUR COMPANY NEEDS A CRM

Understanding a company’s stage of growth helps to understand how complex and specific a CRM solution needs to be integrated. There is no scientific rule to determine when a company should implement this tool, but there are some signs that suggest it is time for an upgrade.

1. Information is not centralized

Part of the knowledge is not shared with the team, this happens because there are no rules for data management, files are difficult to organize neatly and Excel documents are not easy to read because of the volume of information they contain.

These are the first symptoms of the need to have a CRM that solves everything by having one place to record data and use it for the benefit of the business and organize all the information you need in one place.

2. There is no transparency

There is a lack of overview of how customers and staff interact, the company does not know the status of sales opportunities, and information sharing between business units is not effective. Gaps such as these tend to arise as the company becomes more successful and prevent management from having an overall view of the company, its customers and its processes. CRM makes it possible to share relevant information quickly and unambiguously by a PC, Tablet or Mobile: such a tool can support management and at the same time empower the staff assigned to customers who will have a broader view of the workflow and the customers themselves.

3. The reporting process is long and tiring

Manual reporting periodically requires someone to dedicate themselves to this activity, thus taking staff away from other activities. In addition, employees are exposed to human error that could be avoided by automating the process. Obtaining accurate and immediate reports serves management to make better decisions to achieve business goals and this is therefore an essential element in monitoring the state of the business.

With the reports of a CRM you can associate the most relevant KPIs for your business and customize Dashboards so that they show you what you want when you want it with no margin for error.

4. Some data gets lost

Different business teams do not have a uniform way of transcribing customer information, for instance the sales team writes notes on the mobile phone, customer service creates files on the desktop, some information is written down as a note on paper or other ineffective annotation methods. These are all different ways that affect the overall effectiveness of the service from the end customer's point of view. The result of this diversity is the loss or non-annotation of data and information that could instead all be saved on a cloud-based platform, ensuring for example the mandatory annotation of certain fields that are important to us, the connection and sharing of information between different teams and the versatility of the tool that can be used by PC, Tablet or Mobile.

5. Poor communication between agents

This point is closely related to the previous one, it means that sales agents do not write down information effectively making it impossible to share it with the whole team to exchange impressions, advice or transfer contacts with all potentially useful information to a new agent. Not sharing this kind of information can also lead to missed opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling, diminishing the performance of the overall team.

6. Non-personalized offer

An intelligent data-driven strategy allows us to get to the bottom of customer preferences and consequently make offers in a personalized manner. In the absence of this, customer conversion rates risk falling because our offer often does not meet their needs. This is the alarm bell in the relationship between customer and company. With a Customer Relationship Management tool, we can record information at every interaction with the customer, get to know them better at every touch point and keep track of the relationship with them over time.

The strength of an effective CRM such as Salesforce’s is that it contains an impressive number of functions designed for the most varied processes and can therefore be customized according to very specific needs. Furthermore, it is an open system, which means that the possibilities of being associated with other systems are many, such as social, applications and even with virtual environments in the Metaverse with which data can be transmitted and managed all within Salesforce.

The main reason for a company to invest in a CRM is that it increases overall productivity by making many actions that are usually done by hand automatic and immediate while saving resources.

No less important is the Sales Pipeline, with which the customer’s buying cycle is designed and each phase can be constantly monitored and critical points for closing deals can be fine-tuned, marketing campaigns associated with them and the overall ROI maximized.

Recognizing one or more of these points, therefore, is a good sign, it means that the company is growing and that the time has come to integrate CRM into its business strategy.

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SIGNS THAT YOUR COMPANY NEEDS A CRM

Understanding a company’s stage of growth helps to understand how complex and specific a CRM solution needs to be integrated. There is no scientific rule to determine when a company should implement this tool, but there are some signs that suggest it is time for an upgrade.

1. Information is not centralized

Part of the knowledge is not shared with the team, this happens because there are no rules for data management, files are difficult to organize neatly and Excel documents are not easy to read because of the volume of information they contain.

These are the first symptoms of the need to have a CRM that solves everything by having one place to record data and use it for the benefit of the business and organize all the information you need in one place.

2. There is no transparency

There is a lack of overview of how customers and staff interact, the company does not know the status of sales opportunities, and information sharing between business units is not effective. Gaps such as these tend to arise as the company becomes more successful and prevent management from having an overall view of the company, its customers and its processes. CRM makes it possible to share relevant information quickly and unambiguously by a PC, Tablet or Mobile: such a tool can support management and at the same time empower the staff assigned to customers who will have a broader view of the workflow and the customers themselves.

3. The reporting process is long and tiring

Manual reporting periodically requires someone to dedicate themselves to this activity, thus taking staff away from other activities. In addition, employees are exposed to human error that could be avoided by automating the process. Obtaining accurate and immediate reports serves management to make better decisions to achieve business goals and this is therefore an essential element in monitoring the state of the business.

With the reports of a CRM you can associate the most relevant KPIs for your business and customize Dashboards so that they show you what you want when you want it with no margin for error.

4. Some data gets lost

Different business teams do not have a uniform way of transcribing customer information, for instance the sales team writes notes on the mobile phone, customer service creates files on the desktop, some information is written down as a note on paper or other ineffective annotation methods. These are all different ways that affect the overall effectiveness of the service from the end customer's point of view. The result of this diversity is the loss or non-annotation of data and information that could instead all be saved on a cloud-based platform, ensuring for example the mandatory annotation of certain fields that are important to us, the connection and sharing of information between different teams and the versatility of the tool that can be used by PC, Tablet or Mobile.

5. Poor communication between agents

This point is closely related to the previous one, it means that sales agents do not write down information effectively making it impossible to share it with the whole team to exchange impressions, advice or transfer contacts with all potentially useful information to a new agent. Not sharing this kind of information can also lead to missed opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling, diminishing the performance of the overall team.

6. Non-personalized offer

An intelligent data-driven strategy allows us to get to the bottom of customer preferences and consequently make offers in a personalized manner. In the absence of this, customer conversion rates risk falling because our offer often does not meet their needs. This is the alarm bell in the relationship between customer and company. With a Customer Relationship Management tool, we can record information at every interaction with the customer, get to know them better at every touch point and keep track of the relationship with them over time.

The strength of an effective CRM such as Salesforce’s is that it contains an impressive number of functions designed for the most varied processes and can therefore be customized according to very specific needs. Furthermore, it is an open system, which means that the possibilities of being associated with other systems are many, such as social, applications and even with virtual environments in the Metaverse with which data can be transmitted and managed all within Salesforce.

The main reason for a company to invest in a CRM is that it increases overall productivity by making many actions that are usually done by hand automatic and immediate while saving resources.

No less important is the Sales Pipeline, with which the customer’s buying cycle is designed and each phase can be constantly monitored and critical points for closing deals can be fine-tuned, marketing campaigns associated with them and the overall ROI maximized.

Recognizing one or more of these points, therefore, is a good sign, it means that the company is growing and that the time has come to integrate CRM into its business strategy.

OTHER PEOPLE ARE READING: