The strategic impact of CRM on customer management and business growth

Understanding CRM: What is it?

For those of you who are not familiar with and have never used a CRM before, you might be asking yourselves, “What exactly is a CRM?”. CRM, which stands for Customer Relationship Management. It’s a system businesses use to manage their interactions with current and potential customers. It helps companies organise, automate, and synchronise sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support. By consolidating customer information into one central database, CRM systems help businesses to better understand and adjust to their customers needs.

This results in improved customer satisfaction, increased sales, and more efficient operations. Some of the most well-known CRM systems include: Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho and Bitrix

How does a CRM work?

Most modern CRM’s come with powerful, user friendly dashboards that let you manage various aspects of your business from one central location. These dashboards provide comprehensive insights and tools to oversee various functions such as deals, customer interactions, sales performance, marketing campaigns, and customer service operations. For instance, you can track deals in the pipeline, monitor their progress, and analyse win/loss rates. You can also manage customer interactions by logging communications, setting reminders for follow-ups, and viewing customer histories. Sales performance can be monitored in real-time, tracking sales targets, revenue forecasts, and individual team member performance. Marketing campaigns are streamlined with tools to measure effectiveness, segment audiences, and assess ROI.

Potential risks

It all sounds great, doesn’t it? But that’s not all – CRM systems truly reach their full potential ONLY when properly integrated with the rest of the company’s infrastructure, such as accounting systems and websites. In the past, I have encountered multiple systems that were poorly implemented, and instead of helping, they often caused more problems for companies due to improper deployment. For example, some clients received a CRM without integration with their existing systems, or the implementation was poorly executed. This resulted in the need to perform most tasks manually, despite having a CRM in place. One of the main goals of a CRM system is to automate these processes, yet the lack of integration meant employees had to enter data multiple times across different platforms. This not only wasted time but also increased the risk of errors.

I know examples where sales teams had to manually update records in both the CRM and their separate website or accounting system, leading to inconsistencies and significant delays. Proper integration and careful planning are essential to avoid such pitfalls and to fully realise the automation capabilities of CRM systems.

Proper integration is the key!

Implementing an appropriate CRM requires a thorough understanding of the client’s business. At Granite5, we focus on ensuring seamless integration with existing systems to maximise the automation capabilities and overall efficiency of the CRM. Before we begin the implementation process, we strive to:

• Analyse your company structure, processes and workflows
• Identify key customer touchpoints and interactions
• Understand the sales cycle and pipeline management needs
• Assess the current data management practices and requirements
• Evaluate the existing technology infrastructure and integration needs
• Determine specific industry regulations and compliance requirements

With our extensive experience and technological expertise, we can handle even the most demanding implementations and provide personalised support tailored to our clients’ needs.  We ensure a customised approach for each client and ongoing integration and system development that evolves alongside the growth of the business.