What is CRM and how can it help your business?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems can transform your sales effort. They can improve your sales closure rate and give you, as a business manager or owner, much more visibility and control over the sales process.

What is CRM?

A "Customer Relationship Management" (CRM) system, also known as a "salesforce automation system" is an IT solution that replaces the old salesman's contact book.

A CRM system does these four things:

1. Stores all the contact details for people that your sales team speak to: names, companies, addresses, phone numbers, birthdays etc.
2. Records the contact history between each person and your sales team. (e.g. "Today I rang Tom and he was interested in our proposal but asked me to call back next week.")
3. Automatically reminds you of follow-up tasks. (e.g. "Call Tom Harris today to follow up on proposal.")
4. Allows management to see what's going on in the sales pipeline through a series of reports on the information in 1 & 2 above. This allows you to do things like track performance of a sales team member, see how a product is progressing in a particular sector, or forecast sales for the next quarter.

Why a CRM system is better than a contact book

If you look at the four points above, the first three aren't that much of a leap ahead from the old paper contact book. But with a CRM system, there are some clear benefits:

1. Getting the management reports you need is much quicker and easier.
2. The data remains in your control at all times, as managers of the business. It's easy for a salesman to walk out one day with their contact book, but if you hold the data in a CRM system, those leads stay with you.
3. With more and more companies using relationship marketing campaigns like direct mail, email newsletters and other modern marketing techniques, a clean, up-to-date database of contacts is vital. A well-run CRM system can provide that data.
4. If you have more than one person responsible for sales, a CRM system can help you share the workload. Everyone can see the contact history, so when someone calls your sales team can respond effectively.
5. If you choose to use a telemarketing provider, they can also use your CRM system, making them a more effective extension of your team whilst keeping you in full control.

To find out more about how to choose the right CRM system for your business and how to implement it, download our white paper now - it could transform your sales process and it doesn't cost you a penny.