Part 2: Who actually uses CRM?

CRM or customer relationship management is a set of processes that the business would use to successfully organize any contacts with current customers and potential customers.

How this is done in each individual business is down to the owner of that business, but it usually involves all employees using a particular type of CRM software.

There are different CRM software providers on the market right now and it is down to business owners to decide which one is the best for them and their business. Many of the CRM software programs available have various features which can be used or disabled - so in effect a business can tailor make their own CRM solution. So who uses CRM?

An easy answer to that question would be to say “Any business with customers would use CRM” - but it is not always straightforward as that. Here are the type of businesses that could stand to benefit from using customer relationship management.

• Any businesses that have a sales team - as customer relationship management can help salespeople to identify various trends in their customers behaviour it can assist them when selling products.
  
  
• Any businesses that use any form of marketing - when using a good CRM solution businesses can use sales information from customers records to finely tune their marketing campaigns. Statistics have shown that targeted marketing is much more profitable than flooding as many markets as possible with marketing campaigns. Doing this not only wastes money, but it is also ineffective and inefficient.
  
  
• Any businesses that create quotes and invoices - having an inbuilt courting and invoicing tool on a software program that is used daily can really speed up the quality and invoicing process. Using just one software program to do everything in a business can increase productivity dramatically. No more switching between programs to complete tasks - everything can be done from one program.
  
  
• Any businesses that want to show their customers that they are a priority - customers like to feel as though they are wanted, and using CRM can do this. For example, even if a customer telephones a business and get through to the wrong department the person they speak to, can use their CRM program, find that customers details and transfer them through to the correct department in moments. This cuts down on customer frustration and make the customer feel as though that business really values them. It might seem like something small to a business, but when it happens in reality to customer it will stick with them and give them a better customer experience.
  
  
• Any businesses that want to increase efficiency - using just one CRM software program means that a great deal of time is saved each day.
  

As you can see there are number of reasons why any business would choose to use customer relationship management, and there are more. Using CRM provides numerous benefits to both businesses and customers and that is why so many businesses use CRM.

In Part 2:  Are CRM benefits real?