Customer relationship management (CRM) is a system used to track all communications and nurture valuable relationships with prospects and customers. CRM can replace the paperwork, databases, spreadsheets, and apps many businesses combine to track client data. This encourages efficiency, organisation, time management, and improved customer experience.
A CRM tool connects all the data that involves your sales, leads and customers, including contact information, interactions, service requests, purchases, assets, and proposals. It gathers all the data in one place, making it easy for your team to deliver outstanding services. This system allows businesses to have a complete customer profile and build a solid relationship with them.
Types of Client Relationship Management
CRMs are classified into 3 types because of the numerous business needs they need to provide solutions to.
Analytical CRM
Analytical CRM seeks to help you better understand your customers. It focuses on connected data, analysis, and reporting, and it can connect patterns and behaviours of customers to provide a more personalised and consistent customer experience. Therefore, you will have a profile on all customers, and no matter when or how they choose to interact, you will be fully ready to meet their expectations.
Operational CRM
An operational CRM focuses on helping a business simplify and streamline its primary business activities; it is involved in sales, marketing, and customer services necessary to satisfy and retain customers. The 3 essential components of an operation CRM are as follows.
Marketing Automation
This simplifies the marketing processes within various digital marketing campaigns; it can include website monitoring, live chat, email marketing, and lead generation.
Sales Automation
This simplifies all the manual and time-consuming tasks during the sales process.
Customer Service
This component mainly automates customer service processes, such as information management and call centre routing; it also provides various customer service options, such as automation tools, chatbots, customer management, etc.
Collaborative CRM
A collaborative CRM integrates sales force automation, marketing automation, CPQ, and ERP data for businesses so that everything will work together to give the company a clearer picture of customer needs and expectations and to close deals.