Focus on Customer Relationship Management (CRM): a powerful strategy to handle customer relations

According to Gartner, CRM as a technology will be at the top position regarding business expenses by 2021. The main mission of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is to improve and optimise business relationships. This system allows companies that use it to optimise communications between its various teams and services, to continuously manage their interactions with their customers, prospective clients and suppliers while streamlining their processes and improving their profitability. More than just a tool, this is a powerful strategy, if it is well mastered. Outsourcing specialists master it at their fingertips!

How does CRM work?

By opting for a CRM system, your outsourcing provider has a unique place where it will be able to gather the data of your customers and future customers. This device will also allow you to track the interactions between your company and these customers and it can also be gradually enhanced with information which is gleaned by our agents.

To be clearer, once in place, a CRM system allows its users to access, in just a few clicks, all requests, calls for services, preferences and contact information of each customer of the company. Thanks to this information, he/she will be able to create a unique, personalised, always up-to-date and optimal relationship for satisfaction and loyalty.

Why is CRM a formidable and essential tool today for outsourcing?

For any company that provides services or a product, it is essential to collect, filter, gather, analyse and keep up to date information related to its customers. It is also vital today to be able to track every customer interaction. CRM was therefore created to help companies intelligently optimise customer relationships and, by extension, customer life value (CLV). The amount of pasted data is important and it requires an efficient, simple and quickly accessible organisation.

In order for the company to take advantage of new markets, it is vital to better understand its customers, but also to identify possible and additional cross-sales with relevance.

What happens in the absence of CRM?

The paper medium, the computer and the small flying notes have lived. Today, for the good of the company, no information must be misplaced, put aside or remain untapped; everything must be monitored. CRM is the guarantee of having all data at your fingertips, including, for example, when a key employee leaves the company!

Three important concepts to remember about CRM

• Used as a technology, CRM is used internally to collect, record, track and analyse exchanges between a company and its users.
• Used as a strategy, CRM integrates with the best practices of the company, because it is through it that it will manage relationships with customers and potential customers.
• Used as a process, CRM is transformed into a system to develop and manage relationships.

Benefits of CRM

• Improved contact management,
• Smoother collaboration between every team in the company,
• Productivity optimisation,
• Optimization of sales management,
• Improved accuracy of sales forecasts,
• Clearer and more reliable reporting,
• Optimisation of business indicators,
• Better understood, therefore satisfied and loyal customers,
• Profitability on marketing ROI,
• Improved products and services

Daily CRM

By choosing and installing a CRM software, the company will have a tool through which it will record the contact details of its customers (e-mail, phone number, social network profiles, etc.). But it will also retain crucial information such as customer preferences in terms of communications and organising the data so that it is always up to date.

The interaction between the company and its customers is essential. So it is vital for the former to have perfect visibility to ensure better communication between the two parties.

The importance of CRM

Without a close relationship with its customers, its different departments, suppliers and employees, the company cannot hope to evolve and develop in the market and to retain each party. The CRM is precisely the perfect tool to facilitate all exchanges of information thanks to a dashboard that is usable by all and customizable. It includes the history of customer interactions, the status of their requests, any unresolved internal issues, etc.

Who benefits from CRM within the company?

By having a prowling CRM strategy, the company can win on all fronts:

Sales department: employee progress, target status, up-to-date information, Sales Performance, Products and campaigns. Reduction of time-consuming administrative tasks, better understanding of customers and concentration on the core business.

The marketing department: optimisation of the accuracy and simplicity of forecasts, increased visibility on opportunities, sales leads, planning of the customer’s journey, better control of the sales pipeline.

Customer service: better follow-up of communications between channels, follow-up of meetings with suppliers, partners, registration of requests, note-taking, etc.

HR service: speeding up the recruitment process and monitoring employee performance.

An essential strategy for a modern customer relationship, CRM is above all a practice before becoming in the collective mind a software. Today, its presence is more than valuable within the company, since it allows to improve the efficiency of the sales process. Its use makes it possible to win and realise opportunities and more efficiently manage customer databases. Time saving thanks to the automation of recurring and simple tasks, optimisation of collaboration between the different departments of the company and improvement of agility, it is part of the good practices of outsourcing.