What is a CRM and 8 benefits to your business.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) definition

The term CRM stands for "Customer Relationship Management" software. It is a software application that helps businesses manage customer relationships.

Several features make up a good CRM, but the most important is the ability to keep track of customer communication and interactions.

Doing so enables the business to predict what its customers need at any given time and understand how many sales it can make within a specific timeframe.

In other words, it's a way for the business to manage customer relationships to maximize revenue generation and scale and ensure customer satisfaction.

Ultimately, the best CRM solution is one that benefits your business by achieving a high level of customer experience with the goal of creating brand advocates who encourage others to use your products or services.

Every interaction with a customer influences whether or not they will return. We must be great every time, or we will lose them." ~ Kevin Stritz

What are the essential characteristic of a good CRM?

There are many types of CRM software. Some are best suited for Marketing like Hubspot CRM, others for sales like Salesforce, Oracle and SAP and others for customer engagement like HelloDuty and FreshDesk.

However, all of them should bear these characteristics to derive the most benefits:

• It should be able to hold customer details, e.g. Name, Email, Address.
• It should store business interactions and communications to your customers. e.g. Emails
• It should have robust reporting and analytics capabilities that help you measure your return on investment.
• It should provide segmentation tools.
• It should be able to integrate with third-party systems.
• It should be able to provide automated and manual communication.
• It should store data securely and segments data visibility per role.
• It should be available everywhere via the internet to the business staff.
• It should be easy to use and navigate
• It should be affordable to the business using it.
• It should be scalable and future-proof to accommodate more data.
• It should come with good support and training.

A CRM system is the most beneficial tool for businesses of all sizes. If you're considering investing in a CRM system that will benefit your business the most, be sure to look for one that has all of the above features.

So what are the key benefits of a good CRM?

The benefits of a CRM (customer relationship management) system are vast and varied. A CRM can help businesses of all sizes, from improving customer relations to increasing sales. Some of the benefits are:

1. Improved customer service

A CRM system can help businesses track customer interactions and note important information, such as purchase history and contact details. The business can use this information to provide better customer service, as staff will have all the relevant information at their fingertips.

2. Provide valuable insights into customer preferences and behavior

By tracking all aspects of your customer's interactions with your business—from initial contact to repeat purchases— a good CRM system allows you to gain valuable insight into their preferences and needs to provide them with better products or services in the future.

By measuring these activities against each other throughout time (and aggregating them across multiple channels), CRM solutions provide a wealth of information about what works well for particular audiences and how different marketing campaigns impact overall performance metrics such as the revenue generated per sale.

3. A CRM benefits your team by helping them focused on the important things.

A CRM is a system that allows your team to stay focused on the most important things.

• A CRM helps your team stay organized by keeping track of their tasks, goals and other information they need access to.
• A CRM will help keep your team focused on the important things by giving them an overview of what needs doing and reminders when deadlines approach or tasks are due.
• When you have a clear picture of what’s happening across all departments in your company, it’s easier for everyone involved to understand just how far along they are with their projects and what still needs doing before each project can be completed successfully.

4. A CRM shows you where your sales are coming from.

You can use your CRM to track how many sales come from each engagement channel or contact method. This lets you know which channels yield the most benefits and what tools are and messages attract and keep the most customers. 

If you’ve got a few different ways of getting leads — social media ads, SEO efforts, cold calls — then knowing which ones work best will help guide future marketing decisions. 

It also lets you compare and contrast how different channels of engagement and communication are performing per specific types of products or services.

You can use the CRM to identify engagement trends among different types of prospects so that you are aware of when one type stops responding as expected (or responds more).

It has features that allow you to follow up with customers after they've purchased from your company so that you can maintain relationships over time - this could potentially lead to repeat business!

5. A CRM is the central point of information across the organization.

With everyone in the business working towards a common goal, that is, to keep customers happy, a CRM is a vital tool to paint a common picture of the customer interaction across business units.

Sometimes, it might be as simple as forgetting to notify a colleague of a change in a customer's business or ignoring key issues that a customer might have mentioned in their email or phone call that lead to a loss of opportunity.

A CRM system helps prevent that. Everyone in the organization should document every client interaction, and everyone who has access can see this new detail about the customer and react or update their work accordingly.

This benefits everyone who uses the CRM because even though there may be multiple teams using it within an organization (e.g., sales team vs marketing team), everyone will have access to all of their own records as well as those belonging to other departments.

A CRM allows them more control over how they interact with each other and share information internally between teams rather than having one group control everything about what goes into or comes out of each department’s records individually every single time something happens so they don't have access!

6. A CRM helps to control access to information.

Not everyone in the organization should have the same level of access to customer information. Sometimes, the information should be controlled to a need basis. E.g a customers service agent should only have access to client information when they are actively serving the client or resolving an issue.

The worst scenario may be loss of data stored to a competitor. E.g a spreadsheet showing a list of customers and their purchasing patterns.

A CRM tool helps control access to relevant data and grants access on a need basis.

7. It can automate the mundane tasks in your business

Automating mundane tasks is one of the best CRM benefits to small businesses. It enables you to reduce the amount of time you spend on these tasks, as well as minimize errors. This means more time to focus on money making aspects of your business that require attention, such as sales and customer service.

Additionally, automating mundane tasks can save money for your company in terms of hiring costs or paying someone else to do them for you — especially if it’s a process that takes up most of your day.

By using a CRM effectively, you can improve efficiency by getting rid of these monotonous processes and freeing up your employees' time so they can focus on higher priority items in their job descriptions (such as customer relationships).

8. A CRM tool can help manage time efficiently

A CRM tool can help you manage your time efficiently and plan your day better. It can help you keep track of all the tasks that need to be done, as well as who does what and when.This allows you to set goals for each day/week, prioritize tasks and tickets according to urgency or importance, and achieve them more effectively by managing time better.

Why is HelloDuty the ideal CRM for your businesses in Africa.

Hello Duty brings the following benefits to your business:

• It is designed for businesses in Africa with integrations to USSD, WhatsApp, SMS and Voice Calls.
• Simple and Easy to use.
• Free for all.
• Secure with data access control,
• Unlimited automations and triggers around your data.