An often asked question: What is CRM?
At its core, customer relationship management helps companies nurture their presence in the markets. A relevant reason-why for CRM is to validate the brand’s way of interacting with stakeholders. CRM can be defined as enabling an organisational culture in how to interact with stakeholders. CRM is more than just a tool; it is a strategic definition that spans well beyond simply “keeping in touch with clients.” It includes managing many marketing processes, especially the sales process. Instead of leads or customers, we should define them as people, stakeholders who may have different stages of relationship with the brand, ranging from unaware unawareness to aware interest (or aware lack of interest) to repeat customers. These are all kinds of relationships, from none to close, that matter to the business. As Adrian Payne said in his book “Handbook of CRM“: “Companies large and small across a variety of sectors are embracing CRM as a major element of corporate strategy for two important reasons: new technologies now enable companies to target chosen market segments, micro-segments, or individual customers more precisely, and new marketing thinking has recognized the limitations of traditional marketing and the potential of more customer-focused, process-based strategies.”So it seems difficult to look into what CRM really is.
Even in its most popular meaning, CRM defines a tool for business management, much more than just getting in touch with customers. But well beyond the tool, CRM is mainly a logic, the method to define the strategy of relationship management. Customer relationship management is the approach that helps businesses gain insight into the behavior of their customers by integrating knowledge from marketing, sales, and customer service, organizing all their data and metrics under a customer-centric approach. As a tool, the primary goal of a CRM system is to facilitate business management by collecting and storing data to shape aggregate information for decision making. And since there are a variety of tools available in the market, companies may benefit from outsourcing the know-how from a specialized CRM solution provider.Why hire a CRM expert?
Using a CRM consultant involves outsourcing know-how to support organizational skill pattern development for a limited time. CRM consultants are meant to help organizations not only in setting up the best CRM system but also in supporting the organization to leverage their own relationship culture to design and implement a tool that enables the execution of the CRM strategy. Good CRM consultants will help organizations overcome obstacles on the CRM journey.
In conclusion:
In order to truly benefit from any CRM implementation project, it is not enough to just buy good software. Companies need to design procedures and processes inside the tool that are capable of fitting their business requirements. CRM, if defined as a strategy, is your own way to serve your customers. The tool you use for that has to mirror your procedures and routines, not force organizations to change them to fit the tool. We help organizations achieve this by implementing their own customer-centric policies and procedures, as well as training staff to leverage the CRM system and become more efficient in their daily duties. Are you looking for a fresh new book on CRM? Take the opportunity to evaluate “Customer Relationship Management for Medium and Small Enterprises“.