Customers are king. Give them a royal treatment and they will repay you several times over. To lure in new customers, engage them, motivate them to buy and then give after-sales services you need Customer Relationship Management system or CRM. You can make it the core of your business operations and gain a competitive edge. Businesses are data-driven and CRM handles data fluidly to power every aspect from lead generation to sales to support.
You can have simple CRMs that simply aggregate data as it flows in and gives you some features like lead management, campaign management, and reports. Then you have advanced, artificial intelligence endowed enterprise-grade CRMs that deliver predictive business intelligence. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is one such CRM solution you should be looking at, even if you are a startup.
Do you really need a CRM?
There are several business types where an inflow of data is low and so is the number of customers as well as products or the business is in a segment like commodities with repetitive and almost predictable patterns.
However, if your business is one in which you have hundreds of thousands of customers that keep increasing by the day or one in which you must find new customers all the time or keep existing customers happy, then you do need CRM solutions.
If you are a startup you may assume that there is no need for a customer relationship program at the start but that is a misconception. Start with a CRM system today and all your data aggregates in one place besides your receiving the benefit of insightful analytics and advantages of other features of the CRM solution.
CRM that generates more business
You can have legacy CRM with just a few features. It keeps data in one place and gives you a report. You may be able to capture leads and initiate marketing campaigns but that may not be adequate to generate more business.
In today’s times, the CRM must be a revenue-generating tool. The right CRM has advanced business intelligence features with machine learning that becomes smarter as it ages and acquires more data.
You need a CRM that can analyze data in real-time, not historic data from data warehouses, so you have a finger on the pulse of market trends to anticipate demands.
The CRM IVR combine to capture leads
Businesses need new customers all the time and prospective ones may start their journey through an IVR. Linking the IVR to the CRM helps in capturing leads that can then be channeled to the sales and marketing department. These departments can, in turn, follow each lead personally.
Another way is to create a campaign based on automated calls to lists of numbers and get them to respond with key presses.
You get data from these activities and also sales. Normal CRMs may classify data according to rudimentary parameters but advanced CRMs like Dynamics CRM has depth and width that gives more insights into data.
Socializing
Business is not strictly business. Socializing can get you more business and the right solution has inbuilt social media integration. You can keep tabs on what is going on in several social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Set flags for keywords and receive alerts. Use the dashboard to have a bird’s eye view of what is happening and, if you notice something developing, you can jump right in and interact. Apart from this you can initiate campaigns across channels and watch these generate sales for you.
You could do it manually but a smart CRM system automates most tasks, initiates campaigns and tracks them besides helping you stay connected through mobile.
This translates to great customer experience and great revenues for your organization.
Automation
CRM that helps in generating revenue has great automation features across the board.
When it comes to data aggregation from various sources and then segregation, an intelligent automated data handling module works like a charm and based on this you can automate most campaigns including emails and promotions as well as SMS.
Automation also helps identify issues that you can resolve much better and, importantly, maintain data as well as derive intelligence from it.
Predictive intelligence
It is all very well that CRMs capture and analyze stored data. This does give you an insight into your performance and about customers but it cannot help to generate more sales and revenues.
Your CRM should have predictive intelligence capability as can be found in Dynamics CRM.
Data in real-time is captured and analyzed and intelligence from such data gives you a peek into emerging trends so you can be ready to meet demands and grab a major chunk of a market share instead of playing catch up.
CRM must be easy to use
It may have the greatest and the best features but if salespeople, managers, and marketing people find it kludgy they are likely to avoid using it.
If it is not used it is of no use. Managers, for instance, want a CRM that will give them business intelligence displayed on the screen in various ways with just the click of a mouse.
Visual data presentation gives information at a glance and makes it a joy to use and when one likes to use something, one tends to use it all the time. Dynamics CRM, for instance, has great visualization tools.
Lastly, the CRM must be amenable to customization to suit your business model. Choose a top-flight, smart one like Dynamics CRM and get it customized with the help of Dynamics 365 experts and it will truly fly, generating more revenues in the process.
