What does CRM mean?

“CRM” stands for Customer Relationship Management. A CRM is a software designed to help centralizing as much information as possible about a company’s customers, as well as all their past, present and futures interactions.

Any company which expects to prosper and grow will have to integrate this powerful organizational tool to their working habits to save time and money, increase market share and maintain customer trust in the long term.

A “customer”, can include a lot of things here, it can be a client for a company, a donor for a charity or another company. The flexibility of a good CRM allows you to make it fit your needs

What is the goal of CRM ?

The main idea is that the customer guides the company. They drive innovations, provides feedback and brings the funds.

At the end a company can value this but the satisfaction of the clients becomes very important and to get it the company will need a better understanding of them.

To facilitate this understanding, a good centralization of the information allows the company to have a global vision of the needs and expectations of his clients and potential market.

How does the CRM work ?

This is what a CRM is all about : compiling sparse information within a single software and making it clear, and easily accessible to everyone based on different level in the company.
First of all, the CRM will allow you to keep detailed history of all customer interactions with the company. This will get the key to provide a customized offer relative to the identified needs and expectations

The CRM is a mean to an end :
The mean : the centralization of data to have a global view of the company, it’s clients and its market
The end : to save time and money but mostly to guide the company in right direction

The main advantages of a CRM solution

Adopt market best practice while fitting your business nature: By implementing & customizing a CRM, you can learn the best practice from market player while incorporating your business nature & standard.An homogenization of the enterprise standard:

A unique system to be mastered by the teams.Better time management : Do not miss a deadline. You know what has been done, what should be done.

Data Centralization: Interconnecting information in order to best understand and use it.
Automatic workflow control: Allow you to build Automation of redundant and time-consuming tasks as well as quick and easy access to key information.

Multi-angle Report Analytics & Dashboard: Allow better understanding of your company current & growth status, extract trends and evolution and allows you to quickly identify tactical errors and rethink them.

What size of enterprise is a CRM for?

A CRM is suitable for any kind of business, it will save time and money in the long run whatever its size. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the CRM of a company of 4 people will not require the same amount of work than a company of 500 people.
It is a question of choosing the right CRM for your company, the one adapted to its size and needs.

There are many questions you have to consider :

Timeline & Budget :

How much time you are can spend to master the tool ?
How much can you spend for it?

Functionality & Features :

How complex and powerful do you need it to be ?

Change Management :

Do you have IT team?
What can a CRM manage? 

What can a CRM manage?

Depending on the size of the company and its expectations, there are different services that a CRM can provide.

Level 1 – Save emails, customer database, take notes, lists of any interaction, Allocation of activities, standard Lead to order process, basic analytic.
Level 2 – Marketing automation, customer support services, Campaign…
Level 3 – Customizable Pipeline, Advanced Analytics & workflow customization. Pre-defined integration, Collaborative platform.

In short a good CRM is :

• Managing the relationship of a company with its customers.
• Boosting the efficiency of customer engagement & nurturing process.
• Offer a centralization of information and a homogenization of methodologies.
• Allow considerable time savings and a global vision to think about the evolution of the company.
• Suitable for any type of business, but becomes more and more necessary as it grows.
• Coming in many forms and must be chosen with respect to the expectations and size of the business.