4 Key Benefits of a CRM System

Does your business have a CRM system in place?

Or are you keeping customer data in spreadsheets…that can be a nightmare to manage?

It has never been more important to have your internal teams communicating effectively. It can be reputation ruining to make mistakes with customer data because your team doesn’t have a centralised system.

What is a CRM?

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system enables your business to store all customer and prospect information. Accessible to your entire team, a CRM can manage and track every interaction a customer or prospect has with your business through your website, sales conversations and even social media channels.

Why is a CRM important?

A CRM system is the perfect solution to ensure your sales and marketing teams are aligned and can see all the data points of a customer or prospect. CRM software enables you to see where a customer or prospect has interacted with your business and what kind of journey they are having – so you know when and how to interact with them further.

CRM software greatly improves data accessibility; sales reps at companies using a CRM are able to shorten their sales cycles by 8 to 14%. (Source: Nucleus Research).

However, having a CRM isn’t just about allowing your sales team to make more sales. It’s about providing the right information to your customers and prospects at the right time so you can add value at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

It’s all about delighting your customers from the moment they first interact with you to the moment they give you a glowing testimonial and thereafter. A CRM system allows you to build up information on your customers and prospects so you know what content they like to engage with, how they like to communicate and the right time to communicate with them.

For example, a CRM will allow you to:

• see which pages of your website a prospect has visited – so you can send them timely offers and information on those products and services.
• record when a customer has purchased something so you can ensure they’re up to date with the latest information and updates on that product…you could even set up an automated email to check they’re happy with the product/service after a month of buying it
• segment your data based on persona, industry, job title or even location so you can send relevant and timely information to your customers and prospects.

This methodology is very much inspired by the Flywheel model which stipulates that focusing on delighting your existing customers and others in your database is all you need to do in order to grow. Find out more about that here.

Using a CRM system brings four key benefits…

1. Closed Loop Reporting

A CRM system makes reporting and analysing your businesses processes effortless. You can see:

• where the flaws are in your current processes
• where to optimise your efforts to improve sales
• how to provide a better journey for your customers.

You can also view the current trends of your customers and what they want and need in a certain period. By accessing these trends you can switch up your marketing efforts to focus on what your customers and prospects want to see.

Having a CRM such as HubSpot (that links to your marketing efforts) makes your marketing accountable. You’re able to see which blogs are contributing towards inbound leads and even revenue. You can see how much interest your email marketing is drumming up and which pages on your website are contributing towards sales.

You’ll never have this level of visibility unless you have a CRM system that talks to your website!

2. Track Every Interaction

A good CRM should track every interaction a customer or prospect has with anyone in your company – no matter what stage they are in their buyer’s journey. You can use this to ensure you’re providing them with the right information, allowing you to build up a trusted, long-term relationship.

For example, your sales team will be able to see the channels that marketing has used to engage with a customer or prospect and use this to their advantage if a simple phone call isn’t working. It means your salespeople will be able to make contextual conversation around the content they know that person has received.

3. Save On Admin Time

All admin tasks can be simplified with a CRM. Your teams will spend more time doing the things that make a difference and less time doing tasks such as manual data entry, recording conversations, finding emails etc.

A CRM can automate a lot of these tasks for you so you can spend more time speaking with your customers and prospects. Keeping your database clean requires a lot of effort and time so choosing a system such as HubSpot that makes it easy is crucial.

For example, HubSpot’s CRM integrates seamlessly with Outlook and Gmail so all outgoing and incoming emails are automatically recorded in the CRM.

Businesses that leverage CRM software see sales increase by 29%, sales productivity increase by 34%, and sales forecast accuracy increase by 42%. (Source: Salesforce)

4. Integrate With Other Software

Your business probably uses various types of software such as accounting systems, email marketing, marketing automation tools and so on. That means you probably have lots of different data sets in each system.

Any good CRM will bring all of that data into one place so you have a centralised, holistic view of your customer data.

As a marketer, this makes it much easier to created targeted messages based on:

• where a contact is in their buying journey
• the products and services a contact has bought from you previously
• whether a contact has a support ticket or case raised with you.

The possibilities are endless. Having a system that brings all of your data together will allow you to create meaningful, contextual messages for your customers and prospects, thus delighting them at every stage of their journey with you.

If you’d like to learn more about HubSpot’s free CRM solution, come along to one of our free HubSpot CRM workshops. As a Platinum HubSpot Solutions Provider we’re well placed to answer any questions you have and give you a demo of the software!