Top 10 CRM benefits for your business
Top CRM benefits for businesses:
1. Better client relationships
The purpose of CRM software is to foster better client relationships. Many CRM features allow you to gather important data, manage client information and build a 360-degree picture of a client in one place.
Seeing your clients’ demographics, what they’ve previously purchased from you and all past communications means your entire team has everything they need to understand each customer’s purchasing journey. This unified view makes it easier to create personalised experiences — for example, contact management features allow you to organise contacts by customer attributes such as age and shopping preferences for more effective marketing.
2. Improved customer retention
Attracting new customers is rewarding, but it’s your existing customers that bring in the most revenue. CRM implementation makes it easy to create engaging, ongoing experiences for people who know you and have already bought from you.
CRM systems also facilitate 24/7 connectivity, routing complex enquiries to customer service during operational hours and auto-responding during off-hours. Always-on engagement enables resource-efficient customer service, without the need for constant human involvement.
3. Organised customer information
Imagine having all the data you need in one place. No more spreadsheets, endless email threads or disconnected tech stacks. Instead, a CRM brings together customer data from across channels and consolidates it in a central dashboard. You can quickly see who’s doing what, who’s recently bought from you and who engages with your business the most.
Every CRM system collects data differently, and many integrate with existing software. CRMs gather and sync information to securely log all customer interactions, from support team interactions to website visits. This detailed breakdown makes it easier to segment your customer base, highlight the most valuable information and locate information without having to dig through old documents or search through multiple platforms.
4. Lead and opportunity tracking
One of the most important benefits of CRM software is lead tracking. As leads interact with your brand and make purchases, CRM systems continually update their profiles, providing a full view of a customer's journey and buying likelihood.
CRM sales reports create in-depth profiles of your regular buyers or top spenders, showing how they found your business and their barriers to sales. For example, if CRM reports reveal frequent shopping cart abandonment, you may need to improve your checkout process. By identifying and tackling these issues, CRM systems help convert leads into successful sales.
5. Lead scoring
CRM automation serves as a powerful tool for guiding prospects through the sales funnel. For instance, a CRM can send automated emails based on a customer's stage in the sales funnel, nudging them toward the next step. This is instrumental in nurturing leads and is more efficient than sending outreach emails yourself.
CRMs also allow you to score leads using custom parameters, such as website visit frequency or past purchase volume. Based on lead scores, you can identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities for effective marketing campaigns and sales strategies. Marketing teams can use scores to understand which platforms and content types generate the most customer engagement. In addition, sales teams can focus on high-scoring leads that indicate a higher likelihood of conversion.
6. Task and workflow automation
CRM software simplifies workflows and minimises inefficiencies. Automation covers a range of activities — from marketing to sales outreach and customer onboarding — freeing up your team from administrative work. For example, instead of manually sending follow-up emails to leads, a CRM can automate this task, allowing your team to focus on strategic activities like closing deals.
With a CRM, you can also create customisable workflow templates. For instance, you could create a template for a customer onboarding process, including automated welcome emails and follow-up reminders. As your team grows comfortable with the CRM system, these workflows operate in the background, streamlining your operations and making routine tasks more efficient.
7. Marketing automation
A CRM will continuously capture fresh data about your customers. It logs every new purchase, every visit to your website and each interaction with your support team to build a complete picture of a customer’s wants, needs and interests. The continuous influx of new information means you can create increasingly relevant marketing messages and tailor them to each customer. Even better, you can segment your audience and create a trigger-based email series.
Say, for example, someone visits your website and buys a skincare product for dry skin. Instead of sending them generic emails about skincare routines and beauty products, you could segment them based on their skin type (dry) and put them on an automated drip campaign for people with dry skin. This campaign might include a handful of dry skin tutorials, a list of recommended products or an upsell based on their previous purchase.
8. Simplified invoicing
Manual invoicing is a huge headache. You have to remember when to send the invoices, track whose paid them and send reminders when a payment is overdue.
A CRM that has invoicing functionality makes this process much simpler, allowing you to create invoices, automate their delivery and see who’s paid at a glance. Some CRMs offer additional features like custom branding and templates, and automatic conversion of quotes into invoices.
9. Secure sharing
An important benefit of CRMs is the ease of accessing customer and sales information online and securely. With most modern CRM systems you can add different permission levels to make sure stakeholders can see only what they need to see. You can also use a CRM to collect and store unlimited digital signatures to better manage your works in progress.
10. Remote access
CRM mobile apps let you conduct business from wherever you are, whether you’re commuting to work or relaxing on a beach. Remote access also means your sales reps can access customer accounts on the go when they’re in between meetings or with a client in person. This access helps them make quick decisions, spend more time having meaningful discussions with clients and close more deals.
Integrated CRM with MYOB
As your business grows and scales, the benefits of CRM software become extremely clear. However, when your CRM is integrated into your broader business management platform, the results can be transformative for your business.
MYOB is a business management platform that addresses the six core workflows that any business may need to handle: customers, suppliers, projects, employees, finance, accounting and tax. Cloud based, you only pay for the software you need, but can add on capabilities across all workflows as your business matures and your needs become more complex.
Try MYOB’s Tall Emu. FREE for 14 days!
Disclaimer: Information provided in this article is of a general nature and does not consider your personal situation. It does not constitute legal, financial, or other professional advice and should not be relied upon as a statement of law, policy or advice. You should consider whether this information is appropriate to your needs and, if necessary, seek independent advice. This information is only accurate at the time of publication. Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of the information contained on this webpage, MYOB disclaims, to the extent permitted by law, all liability for the information contained on this webpage or any loss or damage suffered by any person directly or indirectly through relying on this information.