7 Characteristics of a Good and Successful CRM
What are the characteristics of CRM that must be considered for implementation in your business?
Customer relationship management or CRM can help develop and automate a business in managing customer relationships and making sales. Different types and scales of businesses may require different CRM applications to meet their needs. Regardless of whatever CRM application is used, there are several CRM characteristics that must be considered for implementation in business.
Businesses depend heavily on customers. Therefore, customer service and customer satisfaction must be a major concern in business. CRM is here to be the business solution.
What is CRM? Customer relationship management or CRM is a term that refers to the implementation, strategy or technology used by companies to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. CRM helps businesses grow by managing customer relationships and data so businesses can run more efficiently and effectively.
What are the characteristics of a good CRM?
Many businesses have turned to CRM systems because they recognize the benefits of CRM and its usefulness, especially in automating and streamlining sales processes. This sales process automation is often called Sales Force Automation (SFA) .
CRM applications available on the market today have various features and various CRM modules . It can be confusing to choose which is the best. Of course, these features and modules must be adapted to business needs. Although business requirements may vary, in general, the following are the characteristics of a good CRM for successful implementation in a business.
7 Characteristics of a Good and Successful CRM
1. Improving the customer experience
As the name implies, CRM or customer relationship management aims to maintain good relationships with customers. A good CRM must be able to see the customer profile as a whole, not just a collection of contacts. CRM applications should make it easier for businesses to answer customer questions and provide services that match their needs.
A successful CRM can increase customer retention , which will lead to increased sales and business revenue.
2. Easy to integrate
The ease of integrating a CRM system is important to ensure that no time is wasted when the system is implemented. One of the characteristics of a good CRM is the ease of entering and synchronizing data from existing databases, such as from Microsoft Excel or Gmail, as well as with external applications such as the Whatsapp API .
3. Easy to use
The transition period is one of the issues in implementing CRM software, because employees have to adapt to the new system. This of course requires more time and effort. Therefore, make sure to do an analysis of the ease of the user interface before choosing a CRM application for your business. This is to avoid possible obstacles in CRM implementation.
4. Adaptable
CRM aims to grow the business. Therefore, one of the characteristics of a good CRM is not only being able to meet current business needs, but also adapting to future business needs.
5. Ease of reporting and performance analysis
A good CRM must be able to analyze customers, employee activities and overall business performance. This is important to see business growth as well as a basis for future business planning and strategy. For this reason, the characteristics of a good CRM include reporting and tracking features, both on customer information and interactions, as well as employee and sales performance or key performance indicators (KPIs). Make sure the CRM software can also function as a KPI software and tracking application.
6. Automate business processes
One of the main functions of CRM is to automate business processes, or often also called sales force automation (SFA). A good CRM can automate business tasks such as sales processes, track customer interactions, and analyze sales forecasts and performance. Thus, the business avoids repetitive work and can focus on making sales.
7. Help managers make better decisions
Managers must be able to see the business as a whole and make decisions quickly and accurately. A good and successful CRM is able to provide important quantitative and qualitative information needed, such as performance reports and seeing the stages in each ongoing sales process in the sales pipeline.
Knowing the characteristics of the CRM above and the 7 Keys to CRM Success, can help successfully implement CRM in your business.