A CRM is an acronym for customer relationship management. Nowadays a CRM is a reference to a piece of software, typically located on the cloud, which contains all of the information relating to a business’s prospects, leads and clients. However, this software is just one piece of the process. Businesses should focus on customer relationship management as a process to offer the best possible experience to their customers. The better a customer feels about their interaction with your business, the more likely they are to be a paying customer.
What is a CRM?
CRM is an acronym for customer relationship management which refers to the process of interacting and managing customer interactions with your business over their lifetime. Most commonly, the acronym now refers to the CRM software component of the process. There are a wide range of CRM softwares which are currently offered to businesses. When comparing CRMs, Results Guaranteed strongly recommends completing a lengthy research process to find a CRM which matches not only the needs of your organization, but the unique operational processes which you may have.
Why Do I need a CRM?
There are three key components of why you need a CRM for your business. All three of these components contribute to driving higher revenues with lower costs. CRMs help to compile all of your business’s key information and display it in a manner which can be used intelligently to improve performance.
- Tracking Your Marketing Performance
At Results Guaranteed, we are partly bias, but we believe the most important aspect of a customer relationship management software is the tracking of your marketing performance. By setting up tracking and integrating your marketing sources into your CRM, you can easily identify not only leads into your business, but also the revenue being generated by these leads. This level of intelligence is invaluable for improving marketing performance.
As we say at Results Guaranteed, “Not all leads are created equal.”, this means that some leads are always going to be more valuable than others. If a marketing source is producing 10 $80/lead which closes at 25%, these leads are less valuable than a marketing source producing 5 leads $100/lead which closes at 80%.
Without a CRM system in place it is impossible to identify hidden performance like this. By identifying key performing areas of your marketing efforts, you can make smarter decisions about where to allocate your budget in the future. By having a CRM integrated with marketing sources like a fully optimized google ads campaign managed by Results Guaranteed, you can supercharge your marketing’s performance.
2. Reduce Unnecessary Costs
Especially for contractors, a large benefit of implementing a CRM system for their business is the reduction of unnecessary costs. Most CRM systems have cost calculation included within the software. This enables business owners to identify areas where costs are higher than they should be. Whether it is materials or labor, costs may not line up with what was expected. This happens! When it does happen, business owners need to be able to identify and address these unnecessary costs. Business owners are able to address these shortcomings by selling differently on the front end, addressing misuse of materials or correcting underperforming labor.
3. Improved Customer Experience
Additionally, this CRM is able to pull up visits and purchase information for this existing customer at just the click of a button. Having all of this information available at the click of a button provides a more comforting experience for a customer than having to put on hold to retrieve information manually.
Additionally, this CRM is able to pull up visits and purchase information for this existing customer at just the click of a button. Having all of this information available at the click of a button provides a more comforting experience for a customer than having to put on hold to retrieve information manually.
This customer experience benefits your business as well. By having customer information and sales history available with such easy access, customer service representatives and sales representatives alike can easily identify opportunities for cross-selling or upselling.
What are some popular CRMs?
Some of the most popular CRMs are listed below. Just because a CRM is listed below does not mean that Results Guaranteed recommends this CRM for your use. As mentioned above, a CRM needs to match to the individuals needs of your business and a one-size-fits-all approach rarely provides maximum value for the end user.
- Salesforce
- HouseCallPro
- Zoho
- Hubspot
- ServiceTitan
- Industry Specific CRMs (Many Options)
What is the best CRM software?
The best CRM software is the one which best fits the needs of your business. In our experience, Salesforce and ServiceTitan offer the most complete CRM solution for businesses, however; they are some of the most costly CRM softwares and businesses on the small side may not find the value added to their business is equal to the expense which has to be accrued.
Depending on your industry, there may be CRMs which are designed specifically for your industry. Real estate, roofers, salons and many other industries have CRMs which were built and designed to work within the typical workflows of those industries. These CRMs can help business owners to save time by utilizing prebuilt workflows specifically designed for their industry.
CRMs like Hubspot and Zoho are lower cost options when compared with Salesforce which are not industry specific in their design. Nearly all CRMs offer a free trial period for their softwares. When shopping for a CRM software, utilize these trials. Do real world trial and error during the CRM trial period with an existing customer. Take any concerns you may have to the CRM’s team, or ask for a trial extension if necessary. Due to the competitive nature of the CRM software industry, their sales teams typically have flexibility to extend trials or offer discounts in order for you to sign up. Results Guaranteed highly recommends taking advantage of these.
Businesses of all sizes and in all industries can benefit from implementing a customer relationship management software. There is a wide range of softwares available with a nearly endless amount of features and options. Results Guaranteed strongly recommends shopping CRMs over an extended period of time. Afford yourself time to investigate each CRM at length to weigh pros and cons for your business’s operations. Properly integrating a CRM software into your businesses operations can become the nervous system of your business enabling smart agile decisions, backed by solid data and facts.