Crm – What It Is And What It Does

By Author: Jessica Heald
Total Articles: 2
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Today, more and more businesses are using a CRM software in their operations. CRM (Customer Relationships Management) means different things to different people, but the ultimate aim of it is to maximise efficiency and profitability. It is a method by which a company can manage its' interactions with its' customers, both existing and potential, in order to keep them happy and on side.

What may seem strange is that the term CRM today is used to handle things such as stock control, which is somewhat removed from the customer. What levels of stock you have of a certain item and where they are stored is of absolutely no direct concern to the customer unless it puts you in a position where you are unable to supply. Equally, your manufacturing and procurement processes do not directly affect your customer. Yes, both may have an affect on your customer, but then so does everything else about your business.

Even your accounts department has an effect on your customer because it sends him invoices and sends him follow-up letters if he doesn't pay on time but referring to it as CRM is stretching the point rather far. Threatening ...
... to sue a customer who is well overdue with a payment is not exactly the best thing for a customer relationship. Some people even refer to things such as distribution CRM, wholesale CRM, and manufacturing CRM, as though there are different types of CRM. The front-line contact that your sales people and customer service people have with your customer is CRM and is what is most important: the type of business that you run is irrelevant.

CRM is helping to build a relationship with your customer that is aimed at creating a loyalty and therefore ongoing long-term revenue. At its' most basic, a CRM creates a simple user interface that contains every detail about a customer including sales visits by a member of the sales team, and also other points of contact including emails, letters, phone calls, and voicemails. Your website can be part of your CRM, as can social media sites, and also your marketing materials. CRM can identify actions that have closed a sale and also those that have not so that the business can learn from its' mistakes. Knowing which conversations, contacts, and marketing materials have resulted in sales and which have not is of benefit to every business.

All businesses should use a CRM software as part of their armoury. Learning who your customers are and why they do or do not purchase your products is not just for big business but should be a part of every business because a CRM should be infinitely scalable. If you know your customer purchase history, it helps you to spot trends and anticipate future needs and therefore be ready to fulfill them in due course. What is more is that it may enable you to aim future products or promotions at specific customers based on their buying history.

CRM can also help a business to achieve greater efficiency by organising and automating some aspects of the business. If you can see that certain products are going to be in greater demand, it may well be that you could speed up a manufacturing process, or buy in stocks in greater quantities. You might also find that there are peaks and troughs for certain items at different times of the year. For instance, some products may sell in greater quantities in the North West and Scotland during Wakes weeks. Others may be in greater demand in certain seaside towns during the holiday season.

CRM can be used for analysing data using pattern recognition and data mining in order to improve customer satisfaction. Certain businesses could also pool their data, sharing certain customer information with other companies and businesses. This kind of collaboration can work well by ascertaining information to which a business might otherwise not have had access.

CRM software can be modified to suit almost any type of business, including not for profit. When considering CRM software, it is important to think about what information is useful for your business. Ask yourself how many times you make contact with a customer before gaining an order. What sort of information would be relevant to your sales procedure? Thinking about this before purchasing CRM software will help you to get it right.

ProspectSoft 365 Stock-Aware is a CRM that is ideally suited to manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors who sell physical products business to business.