What Are CRM Tools and How Can They Help You?

Keeping up with your customers is critical. If you don’t know who’s buying from you, or who’s close to buying from you, you won’t know who you’re marketing to. Consequently, your sales will go down and your entire company will suffer.

Thankfully, there are tools out there to help you track information about your customers and maintain relationships with them. Chief among these tools is a content relationship management (CRM) system. You can benefit immensely from using a CRM.

But what is a CRM, and how does it work? Keep reading to find out. Then subscribe to Revenue Weekly, our email newsletter, for more digital marketing tips from the experts!

What are CRM tools?

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a system that manages your company’s interactions with new and existing customers. The primary goal of CRM software is to improve your operations and business relationships as your company grows. An effective CRM system allows you to stay connected to customers, streamline internal operating processes, and increase overall profitability.

CRM tools help your company optimize operations across multiple departments, from marketing to sales to customer service. These tools allow your business to enhance communication with colleagues, suppliers, and customers. CRM software can also consolidate all forms of communication in one place, from telephone calls to text messages to emails.

How CRM tools work

A prospective customer might enter your CRM system initially by completing a contact form to gain access to gated content. After a few follow-ups from your sales department, the customer’s files begin to expand based on what your sales representatives learned about the customer. At that point, other departments can start strategizing on how your company can effectively appeal to the individual’s needs.

You can accumulate and track this information both automatically and manually. With all the data accessible in a single CRM system, you reduce unnecessary paperwork, enhance communication, and improve customer satisfaction. The software can perform duties like automating mundane data entry tasks, setting reminders for scheduled events, and creating red flags for anything that needs immediate attention.

What CRM tools can do

CRM tools allow your marketing and sales teams to successfully manage their essential daily functions, including lead qualification, forecasting, and sales closure.

Some examples of the specific tools and functions a CRM system might include are:

• Lead management: This tool can help track all the touchpoints between your business and the customer, regardless of the contact method. This information allows sales and marketing to engage more productively until the sale is complete.
• Marketing automation: Some CRM marketing tools can automatically generate emails or other customer correspondence at specific periods. The primary goal of this tool is to keep customers engaged and avoid overlooking them.
• Sales tools: CRM software can help salespeople attract new customers, follow leads, and track the activity of your business’s current customer base.
• Workflow enhancement: CRM workflow management software can handle daily tasks from setting appointment reminders to generating lead follow-ups to reminding customers about payment due dates. 
• Sales and marketing analysis: Most CRM software contains built-in analytical tools to boost customer satisfaction. It accomplishes this goal by making the same information available across various departments and tracking the progress of all correspondence. In addition, these systems can automatically recognize patterns from existing customers that can lead to securing new accounts.
• Data organization: Besides the insightful sales and marketing reports, CRM tools allow you to see who visited or downloaded content from your website. The tools also let your employees see whether your salespeople have already contacted these leads.

Advantages of using CRM tools

Regardless of your company’s type and the size of your marketing and sales teams, CRM tools can provide an unlimited number of benefits as your business grows. Several examples include:

• Creating a centralized database: A CRM system maintains all sales and marketing information for new and existing customers in one central location for departments to access. This feature prevents wasted time searching or digging for lost files.
• Boosting productivity and reducing costs: CRM tools allow your organization to run smoothly by keeping all your employees on the same page. Through centralization and integration, you’ll streamline department activities because employees no longer perform repeated tasks. Your company also benefits by maximizing labor costs because your workers become more efficient with their time.
• Segmenting your customers: CRM software can process your sales information to reflect the specific segmentation of your customer base, allowing you to see which demographics you have more success at servicing. 
• Eliminating human error: Manually compiling the number of sales follow-ups you need to make can be a daunting task. Sometimes it takes more time to research the accounts and plan a schedule than to conduct the actual follow-ups. CRM tools allow your employees to focus on the task at hand without forgetting about an important sales call.
• Increasing team member satisfaction: Eliminating the monotonous data entry and scheduling tasks in your sales and marketing departments allows your employees to use more creative energy and become more productive, enhancing their overall work experience.
• Minimizing new hire training: CRM tools can provide your company with a low-cost alternative for hiring new employees to complete the tedious tasks related to customer management. Besides saving you money in new-employee training, CRM software lets your salespeople focus on the duties that matter most, like closing new accounts.

Once you successfully follow the CRM implementation steps to incorporate these tools into your operation, you have taken the first step in increasing customer retention and sales closure rates.

Businesses that can benefit from using CRM tools

Because CRM systems provide a broad range of benefits, many companies can capitalize on using one, regardless of their size or expertise.

Whether you’re a freelancer looking for more automation in your business or a multi-million dollar company with dedicated marketing or sales departments, CRM tools can increase the efficiency of many daily tasks. While there are industry-specific CRM options, it’s usually best to go with a general CRM.

Your customers will also benefit from increased service levels and enhanced communication, resulting in more meaningful, long-lasting, and profitable relationships.

Start benefiting from a custom CRM system today

Utilizing CRM features can enhance your company’s success by developing stronger customer relationships and leading to more sales. At WebFX, we offer Nutshell for small and medium-sized businesses to meet your needs. Nutshell provides you with all the CRM features and tools you need to successfully generate more leads and close more deals. 

Plus, we have over 28 years of experience providing optimal digital marketing and retargeting strategies to businesses worldwide.   

Contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 today to get started with a custom CRM system tailored to your business. We look forward to hearing from you!