Customer Relationship Management software – what is a CRM system?

You may have heard of Customer Relationship Management software, also referred to as a CRM system, but in this article we’re going to cover what a CRM solution is and how it can boost your business.

As you will know, customer relationships are integral to the success of any business, and in the age of Artificial Intelligence, that human connection has never been more important.

Customers’ buying processes and habits are constantly evolving, and keeping track of what’s going on with each customer can be quite a daunting process when there are so many channels to reach them on. A sure-fire way to differentiate your business from the competition is to build better relationships with your customers, showing them they are truly valued and becoming their trusted adviser. This is where CRM software comes in.

What is a CRM system?

CRM systems are designed to help businesses better manage their customer relationships. A typical CRM system will be a collection of business data and processes, but using the latest technologies to use this information to improve efficiency, provide a better service and free up resources to make better business decisions.

Who uses a CRM system?

You don’t have to be an enterprise-level business or a fancy tech company to use CRM software. If you have multiple members of staff who all perform different roles and interact with customers, then they can use CRM software to ensure they have a single source of truth to draw information from, rather than duplicated data and files in multiple locations.

What is a CRM system used for?

Most CRM software can be used to store:

• customer and prospect contact data
• support case information
• files relating to specific customers
• service issue information

However, the best CRM systems can go beyond this and also be used to:

• track your sales pipeline, from initial enquiry right through the order stage, ensuring that required information is being capture at every stage
• inform you of when contracts are coming up for renewal, with email and push notifications
• ensure that Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are being met to ensure customer satisfaction
• provide a central data source to facilitate even the most complex reporting requirements

For example, say one of your sales team has been speaking to a customer about upgrading their service. The sales rep goes on annual leave and the customer calls to continue the discussion. They’ve been approached by a competitor, and they’d like to ask the sales rep some questions about your product based on their prior conversations. With CRM software, all that data will have been recorded, so another member of the sales team can pick it up, without the customer becoming frustrated at having to repeat everything, or the potential sales opportunity being missed because a competitor swooped in.

Does my business really need a CRM system?

Every organisation will have some sort of CRM solution, from pieces of paper to Excel spreadsheets, but at some point, these manual and outdated processes will no longer support a growing business. It becomes near impossible to stay on top of managing all interactions with existing and prospective customers, leading to disjointed processes, a lack of collaboration, and severely hampering productivity. You may have already begun to spot these tell-tale signs, but here are ten signs that you business is ready for professional CRM software:

1. Time-consuming manual data entry

Using traditional methods like Excel or paper notes to record customer data can be time-consuming and increases the chance of human error. Duplicate records, typos, and simple mistakes waste your resources, time, and money. Furthermore, manual data entry can limit other employees from being able to access that valuable information.

However, with a good CRM solution, data entry can be fast and efficient. Forms can be customised to ensure that all the essential data you need to help service your customers is captured and validated; data which can then be easily accessed by other members of your organisation.

2. Inadequate customer service

It’s much harder to find new customers than to keep your existing customers, so losing them due to poor service is the last thing you want. If your customer service team is constantly spending more time resolving customer complaints rather than proactively anticipating their needs, that is a sign indicating your business needs CRM software.

A CRM system would help you offer a proactive service to your customers by:

• ensuring that support tickets are assigned promptly and to an agent with the correct skill set
• providing a shared knowledgebase that can be curated by your support agents to help answer common questions in the future
• ensuring that all relevant customer communication is tracked in an efficient manner, so staff have a complete view of past client interactions
• providing support where your customers need it – whether that’s on the phone, live chat, email etc.

An intelligent solution, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, allows your organisation to effectively manage cases via multiple channels, track entitlements or SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and collect valuable customer feedback to analyse and improve your service.

3. A lack of business insights and reporting

Analysing data is as important as collecting it. Being able to create insights, management information, and reports from your data helps inform important business decisions which could change the growth and development of your company. However, if members of your team are manually producing reports, this is an inefficient use of their time. The right CRM software can automatically create insights and utilise real-time dashboards, which can easily be accessed in one place. An intelligent CRM system can even “clean” customer data, such as removing duplicates or automatically fill in missing information.

4. Struggling to manage leads

Do you have more leads coming in than you can manage? Everyone wants a lot of inbound enquiries, but if there is an inconsistent process in managing them, it can have an adverse effect and lead to lost revenue. Comprehensive cloud-based CRM solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales can efficiently prioritise and organise your leads. It can present leads in order of importance, delegate each one to the right salesperson, and store templates or messages to ensure a consistent sales process is being followed.

5. Many manual, repetitive processes

Most businesses have some element of repetition in their processes, such as sending out reminder emails, scheduling appointments and creating follow-up tasks. With intelligent automation your employees’ time can be freed up to have them working on the more varied and interesting tasks, while a CRM system handles the day-to-day. And with tasks being automated, you can ensure that nothing gets missed and mistakes are not made.

6. A lack of communication and collaboration

Working in an organisation where communication is lacking is never a healthy working environment. An effective CRM system, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, can help improve communication by tracking all interactions related to the customer experience and streamlining it in one centralised location. As a result, team members will know exactly where each customer is in their journey, which immediately improves collaboration between departments.

7. Untracked marketing efforts

When generating new leads, it’s important to recognise which marketing efforts are contributing to those leads, as well as tracking their quality. Without the ability to evaluate your marketing activities, you will not be able to make smart and effective decisions on future campaigns. Marketing software such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, ClickDimensions or Touchdown can collate key marketing metrics from your social, web, and email channels that are crucial to help you identify new opportunities.

8. You are constantly growing

Using spreadsheets and paper to manage a growing business can only work for so long. Eventually, you will be swamped with paperwork and the pool of spreadsheets will soon grow to impractical sizes, meaning the service to your customers will suffer. The right CRM system should scale according to your business requirements – not just in terms of file storage – but in automation, reporting requirements, easy data retrieval and many other aspects.collate data, and create useful insights, will eventually hurt your overall growth.

9. Your business is using multiple disparate systems

Having your sales, customer service, and marketing systems in several different areas can lead to disorganisation and confusion. Furthermore, it’s an inefficient use of time to train staff on several different systems when one great CRM platform can centralise all these functions. As a result, a CRM system will increase user efficiency as all key data can be stored in one easy-to-access central location which helps to create a single source of the truth.

10. Your team has been missing key deadlines with prospects and customers

The busier your organisation gets with inbound enquiries, the harder it is to manage each one. Missing a key initial phone call with a lead because you are consumed with other important tasks in the business, can mean losing a potential customer. The right Customer Relationship Management software can help prevent this through timely automated reminders and calendar integration which ensures any important appointments or meetings are attended.

How can a CRM system improve your sales?

The fundamental goals many businesses focus on include increasing sales and profits. While there are many software options to choose from, it’s important to find software which has been built with sales teams in mind. With Microsoft’s proven sales and marketing products and the right implementation, you can achieve swift results and avoid spiralling costs.

One of the most effective ways to increase company profits is to maximise the productivity of sales teams, a goal which cannot be reached if they are stuck spending countless hours doing mundane tasks, when they could be doing what they were hired to do. They need the right tools to ensure their time is spent efficiently and they are making informed decisions based on accurate data, which can be managed from anywhere.

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales CRM software, your sales team can guide their leads through their pipeline, ensuring scripts and processes are being followed and internal qualification criteria are being met. They can manage their opportunities and more accurately forecast revenue and predict bottlenecks using AI-driven insights. If your team spend hours putting together quotes, Dynamics 365 Sales will also help them to do that effortlessly with a predefined product catalogue, ensuring consistent pricing. Quotes can then be converted into orders when a sale is made. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales can boost your productivity and profits.

How can Customer Relationship Management software help you retain customers?

A sale is just the beginning of a relationship – how customers are handled post-sale is just as important, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service can help you manage this experience.

Give your customer service team the right tools to support customers in a timely fashion, without wasting time passing queries from person to person, leading to frustration for everyone involved. If your support staff find themselves repeatedly responding to the same common issues, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service can help you reduce the time it takes to deal with these, so the team can focus on customers with more pressing issues.

For example, you might consider a self-service portal, where customers can access guidance via a knowledge base and engage with other customers via a discussion forum.

Robust Customer Relationship Management software like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service gives you the power to ensure your clients always receive the right support from the right people at the right time.

Customer loyalty is usually located at the end of the sales and marketing process and can often be forgotten about. Don’t neglect this vital step in your business processes. Capture and analyse feedback from your customers with integrated surveys and forms so you can continue to improve and show customers they are valued.

How can Artificial Intelligence improve Customer Relationship Management software?

It’s a real challenge to use any software in any industry these days and not be faced with some form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) functionality. For example, Microsoft has its own evolving AI solution called Copilot, part of which provides an AI assistant natively built for CRM and ERP solutions.

You can expect to find a chat interface for quick summaries of sales opportunities and leads, updates, meeting preparations, account-related news, and much more. If you’d like to experience a taste of Copilot, you can open Microsoft’s Edge browser and use Microsoft Copilot to ask questions.

The full capabilities of Microsoft’s AI solution are still evolving at a rapid pace, but you can get a great overview on our dedicated Copilot page.

Conclusion

We hope this article has provided you with a great overview of customer relationship management software, what a CRM system is, what it can do, and how you know when it’s time to invest in CRM software.

If you can see any of the signs discussed in this article within your organisation, it is time to take your business to the next level. As a Microsoft Partner, Strategy 365 can help transform your current processes with Microsoft Dynamics 365. If you are interested in an intelligent, secure, cloud-based CRM system, please feel free to get in touch.