When you hear the acronym CRM in the business world, don’t let it throw you. It simply stands for . The next thing you are probably thinking is why should I care about it, and what can it really do for my organization?
Generally speaking, for most businesses, CRM is often seen as contact management, or computer assisted marketing, but it is much more than that. The use of CRM as a business strategy for bringing silos of disparate information together for the use of all employees leads to better customer satisfaction and service. This typically leads to higher customer retention levels, and repeat business.
So how does CRM accomplish all this? Think of data that you have in your other line of business applications. You most likely have some form of accounting or other software to manage operations.
CRM can grab relevant pieces of information from these systems and display them to your sales team or other employees without having to show everyone where to find the data in each different system. Users gets the information they need quickly and easily, saving everyone time.
CRM should also bring to mind the idea of a central place to find everything about an existing or potential customer. Items such as quotes, proposals, invoices, contracts, contact info, and anything else that you think is necessary to track for your customers.
It can be like a electronic filing cabinet that can store events with your customers or suppliers such as meetings, quotes and proposals, or emails. It can also record other information that you specify for all users of the organization to see and use.
Providing employees with the information that they need at their fingertips is a key element in maintain and keeping delighted customers. Otherwise, how many times are your customers going to be asked for the same information from your employees?
-By Nicolas Cole – MBS Solution Specialist – your
