The origins of CRM can be found in the 1980s, when direct marketing databases began evolving into what we now know as database marketing. By the late 1980s we had "contact management software," which was bulky and clunky but gave us the first glimpse into what it could mean to companies if we could have a 360-degree view of customer activities. In the early 90s, database marketing led to sales force automation, and contact management systems began including lead and opportunity management. Established enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like Peoplesoft, Oracle and SAP began including more contact management features. The term CRM was finally coined 1995. Over the next 10 years ERP and CRM technologies grew rapidly, and by the mid-to-late 2000s CRM had matured into cloud-based enterprise systems accessible to businesses of all kinds.
However, today the term CRM is used loosely by various software providers. Some systems claim to have a CRM module when they only offer a robust contact database. Others focus on specific areas like text/sms marketing or email marketing, falsely branding themselves as CRM. The question is, can all these things truly be considered CRM? Not really.
Understanding CRM is essential for making informed software decisions that align with future advancements. The following 8-minute video will explain to you exactly what CRM is, and the benefits it offers to your company.
Transcript
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Welcome to the MentorWerx Customer Relationship Management (CRM) overview. In the next 10 minutes, we will dive into the concept of CRM and its significance across various
departments, including sales, marketing, customer service, and administration.
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By grasping the true potential of CRM and understanding how it can fuel business growth, we know you will be inspired to invest in and fully embrace the process of implementing and utilizing your CRM solution.
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So what is CRM? Well, CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. To begin with, CRM is not software. To do CRM well, you must support it with software, but CRM is a business strategy. When you choose CRM as your business strategy, you are setting the "effective management of customer relationships" as a primary strategic objective.
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CRM involves understanding your customer's needs, preferences, and behaviors to deliver personalized experiences and build lasting connections. Furthermore, CRM is a commitment to understand your customers, not just through your perceptions and assumptions — which are nearly always flawed, even for the most astute observers of humanity — but through data that monitors how customers behave, what they respond to, and what they tell you through feedback mechanisms.
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By choosing CRM as a business strategy and supporting it with robust software designed to deliver results, you set your company on a path to true differentiation and competitive advantage.
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Implementing CRM brings numerous benefits to your organization and employees. Let's take a look at some of the key advantages. Let's start with improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. By leveraging CRM, we can better understand our customers' requirements, address their concerns promptly, and foster long term relationships based on trust and satisfaction.
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Next, we have enhanced sales and marketing effectiveness. CRM enables sales teams to manage leads, track opportunities, and close deals more efficiently. For marketing, it provides insights for targeted campaigns, customer segmentation, and effective lead nurturing.
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CRM helps you streamline customer service processes. It helps customer service teams manage inquiries, track cases, and provide timely resolutions. It ensures a consistent and efficient support experience for your valued customers.
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And finally, efficient collaboration across departments. CRM promotes cross-functional collaboration and information sharing, allowing different teams like sales, marketing, and customer service to work together seamlessly, aligning their efforts, and providing a unified customer experience.
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Successful CRM involves three components.
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People. Successful CRM implementations require involvement and buy in from all employees. It's crucial to foster a customer centric culture and encourage collaboration across departments.
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Processes. Streamlining customer-centric processes is essential. This involves defining standardized procedures for capturing and managing customer information, handling inquiries, and resolving issues consistently.
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And technology. CRM software tools play a vital role in managing customer data, interactions, and analytics. CRM enables us to centralize customer information, track customer touch points, and gain valuable insights to drive informed decision making.
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Now, let's see how CRM supports different roles within our organization. CRM's primary purpose is to help you generate more sales. In a comprehensive CRM system, every feature serves this purpose. For sales teams, CRM provides a centralized platform to manage leads, track opportunities, and close deals more effectively. It helps prioritize tasks, monitor sales performance, and provides insights for targeted sales strategies.
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In marketing, CRM helps you put marketing firmly in support of sales, which is where marketing is supposed to be. Too many companies make marketing the star of the show and forget that without a clear sales effort to close deals, marketing can burn through a lot of money without delivering financial results. In marketing, CRM enables us to segment customers based on their preferences and behaviors, which helps to create more targeted campaigns and personalized messaging. It allows us to track campaign effectiveness, nurture leads, and optimize marketing efforts.
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CRM gives your customer service team every tool they need to WOW your customers from onboarding through repurchase, increasing customer loyalty through every interaction. Customer service and support teams benefit from CRM by having a comprehensive view of customer interactions, history, and preferences. This helps them provide more personalized support, resolve issues efficiently, and deliver excellent customer experiences.
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CRM provides a centralized repository for customer information, facilitates accurate reporting, and helps identify areas for improvement. In administration, CRM assists with data management, reporting, and overall business efficiency. CRM can significantly offset labor costs while getting to tasks that you always mean to do, but nobody has time or remembers to do consistently.
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· To maximize the benefits of CRM, consider the following best practices.
· Foster a customer-centric culture across the organization.
· Encourage all employees to prioritize customer needs and align their efforts to deliver exceptional customer experiences.
· Promote collaboration and information sharing among teams.
· Encourage open communication and the sharing of customer insights and experiences to enhance overall customer satisfaction.
· Regularly update and maintain accurate customer data.
· Clean and reliable data is essential for effective CRM usage and accurate reporting.
· Continuously monitor and measure CRM performance.
· Set measurable goals, track key metrics, and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your CRM strategy to make informed improvements.
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CRM is a powerful tool that helps us build and maintain strong customer relationships. By understanding our customers' needs, delivering personalized experiences, and leveraging technology and processes, we can drive business growth, enhance customer satisfaction, and succeed in our respective roles.
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Thank you for completing the CRM overview training. Remember to apply this knowledge to your daily tasks, and always keep the customer at the center of everything you do.
