What is CRM? How does it work and why is it worth using in your company?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It refers to the totality of processes and tools with which a company administers its interactions with customers. The commonly used term ‘CRM system’ means specialized software that supports such procedures.

Nowadays, CRM systems used by companies help them improve their market position, efficiency and achieved results by far-reaching improvement of the internal organization of work and by supporting activities that customers perceive as beneficial for them. As a result, clients are more likely to choose such a company from among many entities offering similar goods or services. This is a win-win situation – for both the supplier and the consumer.

Why use a CRM system?

Imagine a small, one-person company that functions in a rather traditional way. Its owner (and the only employee at the same time) can usually remember most of his clients, he also knows their needs and habits. On the basis of this knowledge, he is able to prepare an offer adequate for a given group, as well as, for example, plan his expenses and schedule of activities. And although he can use a phone or a notebook to save important data, the entire intricate map of connections between many scattered information exists only in his head.

The situation becomes more complicated in a company where more people work. Let’s say one of them is not present in the office on a given day, and the problems with finding contacts to the clients he serves, the history of activities performed under previous orders, purchase history, notes containing important findings or recommendations soon arise. Even if things run perfectly smoothly in the current business, what will happen when a given employee responsible for contacts with clients leaves the job permanently? Will he take all the detailed knowledge about them with him and leave his current employer out in the cold?

CRM is a value in the company

A properly selected and implemented CRM system counteracts such threats. Thanks to it, you can overcome the organizational chaos and save a lot of time, so far wasted on constant search for necessary information. Above all, however, the entire knowledge of individual employees about the company’s customers permanently becomes an integral property of the employer, becoming an additional value in the company, independent of the current availability of this or that person from the sales department.

How does the CRM system work?

A typical CRM system compiles data from many different communication channels, including the company’s website, telephone, e-mail, live chat, and more recently social media. It allows the company to learn more about its target customers and how to best meet their needs, thereby retaining them and driving sales growth. CRM can be used for former, current and potential clients.

A CRM system supports the work of the enterprise both at the operational level and at the management level. In the first case, it allows, inter alia, to take over activities related to sales or customer service by various employees, depending, for example, on their current availability, allowing for the maintenance of optimal smoothness of operation and ensuring the agility of the organization. In the second case, such a system enables cross-sectional and analytical insight into all processes that concern contractors/consumers, facilitating, among others, forecasting results, analyzing patterns and behaviors of clients, making planning decisions, optimizing costs incurred on marketing campaigns, etc.

What can a CRM system do?

A CRM system allows authorized employees free access to all information needed in their daily work. It enables quick insight into data, notes, documents, statistics and reports, contact details, history of activities with the client, etc. It allows, among others, to check at what stage the order is being carried out, whether the client is in arrears with payment for the services provided, or offer him goods or a service selected on the basis of the history of his previous purchases.

The benefits of using CRM in the company also include: easier communication, easier cooperation within one team and between people working in different departments, increased efficiency by automating many processes, analytical insight into the operations carried out, a better image in the eyes of both current and potential clients.

A system tailored to the organization

All concepts, procedures and principles that an organization follows when communicating with consumers, understood as customer relationship management, should be properly reflected in the architecture of the implemented CRM system. The detailed functionality of the solution implemented in a given company should therefore be adapted to its profile and the way it works – fortunately, modern CRM systems allow for far-reaching adaptation of the configuration to the individual needs and requirements of a given user.