Benefits of CRM

By Niall

The cost of new customer acquisition are around four times the amount relative to maintaining an existing customer. Whilst the direct cost of losing customers can be measured, there are also less tangible costs..

Benefits of CRM tend to cite improved customer retention and more precisely targeted marketing activity as key benefits realised from their deployment.

However, sales and marketing teams are not the only ones to benefit directly from CRM deployments. Business processes are also seeing improvements. CRM:

General benefits of CRM

1. Reduces duplication and time wasting across multiple departments.

1. Centralisation of customer information is probably the single biggest benefit afforded

1. Improves communication between teams such as sales and finance.

1. Improved order tracking and management.

1. Better pipeline tracking has improved their ability to predict manufacturing and production requirements.

These issues are related. Improved pipeline and order tracking strengthens customer service but also feed directly into production environments, where staff need as much advance information as possible to ensure that customer requirements are fulfilled in a timely manner.

The benefits of CRM to management include improved decision making due to the quality of information available. This helps in making strategic management decision and can lead to superior forecasting resulting in better cash flow and business decisions.

Sales forecasts are one of the key metrics on which critical decisions are made. Any tool that improves the accuracy and visibility of both short-term monthly and quarterly forecasts and longer term pipeline is enormously beneficial to decision makers.

Mobile CRM offer sales teams the ability to continually update customer information is a logical step for businesses that put customer service and retention at the top of their agenda. Enhanced customer service options such as ticket tracking, service level reporting and customer web portals are another popular option, as well as enhanced support desk management such as returns management and defect tracking.

Benefits of CRM – our interactive infographic guide

Nucleus Research published a report few years ago, stating that 80% of deployments are not realising the full benefits of CRM. This mostly comes from a lack of collaboration – in other words, CRM has been bought for one purpose… one department… one reason. When used across an organisation, no matter how large or small, CRM can bring numerous benefits.

For example, many organisations know that sales automation is a key function within a CRM, but how many also use that data to report back to senior management? How many organisations extend that same CRM to customer service? After all, the sales data held within the system can give a 360-degree view of the customer, which can also help your marketing department.

This interactive infographic looks at the key areas within a business in which CRM can integrate, some interesting CRM statistics and explains the benefits of CRM.

Benefits of CRM

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View this image on thinglink.com.

Need help to understand the benefits of CRM?

A CRM system benefits an organisation through the visibility of its activities. This visibility is fundamental to managing performance and control of the process. This visibility enables management to understand why, when, who and how the organisation is performing. If it cannot be monitored, it cannot be managed. The visibility offered within the CRM system also allows management to make educated business decisions based on
hard data. A CRM system will enable structured data to be used to access performance.

ProAptivity are a CRM solutions provider. We focus on the implementation, training, and support of highly customised CRM software solutions. Our CRM software supported by our team of experts provide clients with the tools needed to successfully embed CRM within organisations.

If you need help in understanding ‘why my organisation needs CRM’, maybe some of our eBooks could help! Contact us today on 0330 223 6362 for a free CRM consultation that will assess if your organisation is CRM ready. Alternatively email us on info@proaptivity.com.