Top 5 benefits of CRM for your customers

CRM is a catch-all name for technologies that keep customer information in one place, accessible and organised. They’re secure for customers, but also useful for businesses as they can provide valuable insight in a number of ways.

CRM might be a platform, software solution or database–but whatever the techie terminology, it’s a place to grow customer relationships. And we’re in an exciting time for CRM because it’s becoming more popular and useful than ever before. When people and technology work as one, the benefits of CRM become clear for your entire organisation.

This is the biggie. Keeping customers happy is what CRM is all about. And personalisation is a great way to make that happen. Reflect how well you know your customer, what they like and dislike, by personalising what they see when they hit your landing page and log into your site. CRM helps you understand your customer’s behaviour–how, when, where, and why they’re interacting with your brand–and use this to make them feel valued, all the while helping to boost sales.

This all sounds very nice, but what about when things go wrong? Customer relationships often break down following poor support interactions. But this is where omnichannel and automation go hand in hand.

Make customer interaction a doddle by saving previous conversations, across any channel–be it social media, messaging, phone or email–so you don’t antagonise anyone by making them repeat the same information over and over again. Automated chatbots can get involved in the support process early on, collect basic information, and escalate when needed. This flexibility is one of the key benefits of CRM because you often need that human touch to provide the right solution. And customers appreciate this too.

For staff, using a CRM solution means that sales, support, and marketing information is brought together on one platform. Rather than having to log in to all sorts of systems, a CRM system is centralised, easy to access, and packed with detail.

The key benefits of CRM for employees are that it saves time and reduces stress–everything is so much easier when you can get to the information you need easily.

CRM also helps internal communication because it allows your support team to see what has already been done and easily flag any problems. You can also highlight marketing messages and opportunities for cross-selling, not to mention offers for customers, in real-time. Customer service can be proactive and responsive, which is great for both customers and employee targets. But it also means your support teams can become an extension of sales.

Oversight is an indispensable aspect of CRM for management. Mountains of CRM data allow you to see your customer journey from beginning to end. So you can monitor pain points, busy periods and staffing levels, and make adjustments as needed. This helps managers not only look after their team day-to-day, making sure they’re not overwhelmed, but also work smarter. You can also use CRM to test the efficiency and convenience of innovative workplace solutions in real time.

Leveraging the data-driven insights your CRM system can provide is crucial to reaping all the benefits of CRM. Analysing data across your organisation couldn’t be easier, meaning you can create a real-time snapshot of how your business is performing on any given day or period of time. This is perfect for big picture stuff like spotting trends, setting strategy, and top-level decision-making.

A good CRM system ticks all the boxes–both when it comes to securing customer information and following data protection protocols. It allows you to send automated screens, checklists, and forms to customers and staff, so you can easily spot if anything is missing and rectify any issues quickly.

CRM makes it easy to comply with all the legal requirements on customer data, for example GDPR. Many customer service providers for big brands have suffered huge reputational damage following data breaches because they failed to look after customer data securely. A CRM platform like Zendesk is built around security at its very core. So you and your customers can relax in the knowledge that everything is under lock and key.

Streamlining your organisation with CRM brings huge benefits for your finances too. Automation can reduce headcount, make staff more efficient, and work across time zones to help you access more markets. An integrated CRM solution keeps everything in one place so you’re not paying for lots of different platforms, subscriptions, and providers.

One of the big benefits among the different types of CRM systems is the sheer amount of data they can provide, which creates visibility on staffing levels, distribution of resources, and internal forward planning. On a macro level, CRM data can help you identify and capitalise on trends–whether it’s a new product flying off the shelves or hitting it big in an unexpected country or region. It can also help you understand when you should cut your losses to ensure you’re spending budgets wisely.

All of these benefits help ensure you manage your customer relationships in the right way, which is make or break for business success. CRM solutions make life easier for both your employees and customers, giving you the tools you need for win-win results all round.