Amid so many advertisements on social networks, product offers, and other purchase stimuli, investing in relationship marketing is a way to maintain proximity with customers and make them remember you before doing business with them—the competitor.
However, many brands must simultaneously learn how to do this with hundreds or thousands of consumers. After all, they live in different cities, have other profiles and behaviors, want to buy different products, etc.
You can’t do this with a notebook in hand, an Excel spreadsheet, much less using three or four separate tools, do you agree? This is where the importance of knowing what CRM is and how to use it to optimize brand relations with the public comes in.
What Is CRM
The acronym CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and it is a set of practices, strategies, and tools to manage the relationship between brands and consumers.
Essential practice in today’s market, where there is excellent competition for consumer attention. When the brand succeeds in creating ties with people, the relationship is strengthened, ceases to be merely commercial, and becomes effective.
Therefore, CRM intends to provide the best experience for consumers during the sales process — before, during, and after purchase — and generate more business results.
Difference Between CRM Strategy And CRM System
Many people use the term CRM to refer to the CRM system, a type of software responsible for centralizing customer data, generating reports, and automating relationship actions.
A platform like this is essential for managing customer relationships, as it qualifies the strategies and allows scaling the ties with thousands of contacts simultaneously.
But customer relationship management goes far beyond a tool! Therefore, it is important to understand the CRM strategy. It includes planning of actions, the definition of objectives, organization of processes, data analysis, and other practices that optimize the use of the software.
How A CRM System Works And Its Main Features
A CRM system combines all the information about customers the brand needs to carry out marketing, sales, and related actions.
Check out some of the main features you should find in this type of system:
- funnel management: identifies each stage of the sales funnel, allows you to visualize bottlenecks, improve strategies and optimize conversions;
- email integration: integrates the system with email marketing tools to optimize communications, track deliveries, follow up and generate reports;
- Activity management: records marketing, sales, and service activities; allows you to schedule, assign tasks, and issue appointment reminders;
- contact management: records all profile, browsing, interaction, and purchase data to generate strategic information about customers and customize actions.
As you can see, the basis of the CRM system is the customer record, but don’t be alarmed by thinking that you need to record user information manually.
The Benefits Of Using A CRM System
As the company grows and the number of customers increases, using a spreadsheet, calendar, and email becomes insufficient to manage consumer relationships.
In these cases, using a CRM system is necessary to keep the information concentrated in the same place, generating a series of advantages for the team and the company as a whole.
Check out our list of the main advantages of adopting a relationship management tool.
Organize And Control The Commercial Process
The CRM system concentrates on one platform the data and processes you need to relate to customers and close more sales.
Through it, it is possible to view and manage all stages of the sales funnel in real time, which increases the efficiency of the commercial team, which will know exactly where to focus more efforts to close more deals.
Enable Cross-Team Collaboration
On a single platform, employees have access to the same repository of customer data to support their activities and decisions.
In this way, CRM contributes to a more efficient collaboration between teams, especially between different areas (marketing, sales, service, etc.).
Increase Productivity
The CRM system improves team productivity because it allows salespeople to manage the entire sales process in one place.
Calendars, emails, and automation platforms are integrated into the CRM, unifying all customer interactions and optimizing the team’s time.
According to research by the Harvard Business Review, 52% of high-performing salespeople indicated that they make the most of CRM technology, compared to just 31% of low-performing salespeople.
Mapping The Consumer Journey And Qualifying Leads
The CRM system allows you to record the steps taken by consumers in their interactions with the brand. This way, it is possible to map consumer behaviors and needs throughout the purchase journey and use the best strategies at each stage.
With journey mapping and sales funnel management, you can identify which leads are more qualified for sales (which are more mature to buy)—facilitating the information-nurturing process with a more specific sales approach.
Focus On Customers’ Needs
The data that the CRM gathers provide in-depth knowledge about each customer. So, you can identify consumers’ pains, questions, and needs at each stage of the journey and create content and strategies focused on what they need to solve.
Build Loyalty And Retain Customers More Efficiently
The CRM system helps qualify customers’ experience with the brand to keep them closer and more loyal for longer.
By consulting the information in the system, the brand starts working on targeted marketing strategies, offering products according to the consumer’s profile and providing personalized service.
In addition to building loyalty, the CRM system helps increase customer retention, who buy, spend more, return to repurchase, and recommend the brand to others.
Understand The Reasons For Missed Opportunities
Visualizing the sales funnel reveals the key points consumers are dropping off a purchase. A deeper look at these points can also identify the causes for the loss of opportunities, which the brand can work on in its business strategies.
The CRM system helps to understand this scenario more deeply. It provides data that prove the reasons for abandoning the purchase, allowing brands to create specific actions and segment the contact base according to each logic presented.
Also Read: CRM For Industry: Which Are The Best?
