Many of us know that using any robust customer relationship management system that can streamline and automate the sales, marketing, and customer service processes. With CRM software, you can track customers from first contact to sale and beyond. It can be used to target specific customers for marketing purposes and lead to increased conversions.
How can CRM software help you in your role as a project manager? Let’s take a look. For our purposes here we will be looking at the common Microsoft CRM, but this theory and process can be applied to any quality CRM.
Analytics
One of the greatest benefits CRM software offers to project managers is its in-depth reporting and analysis tools. Relevant analytics tools can be used for sales, marketing, and customer service and can be used to understand client actions and preferences.
Data analysis features within CRM applications can be used to forecast sales and predict customer responses, which allow more effective marketing campaigns to be developed. These tools are often used to correct problems before they have a chance to affect customer satisfaction levels.
Customer and Client Services
CRM software can help you offer high-quality, personalized service to each customer by tracking issues and coordinating services. When a client or customer has a request or a complaint, CRM can help direct the customer to the person best able to handle it. CRM can also be used to identify and reward returning customers. These features and others allow for a faster, more efficient customer care process, which in turn generates customer loyalty.
Many businesses also use CRM for making and tracking customer appointments. The software can automatically generate suitable appointment times based on the specific needs of the client, which the client can confirm or reject automatically.
Sales Automation
By automating much of the sales process, Microsoft Dynamics CRM software allows sales representatives to spend less time on non-revenue-generating tasks. CRM can help generate sales leads and manage opportunities by providing the team with critical customer information needed to close deals. With all of the sales force working on the same system, it is easy to build repeatable sales and drive more revenue to your company.
Strategy
CRM is extremely useful in developing successful strategies for increasing sales, launching marketing, and improving customer relations. Successful implementation of CRM technology can assist in planning and tracking activities, tasks, budgets, and details. Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s embedded document management capabilities can help easily create marketing tactics.
Integration
Because CRM is cloud-based, completely integrated technology, the software can be used for easy collaboration between individuals and departments. This can assist project managers in making sure that the entire team is on the same page and working toward the same goal with each client.
CRM Challenges
One of the biggest problems with customer relationship management software is that no one uses it. CRM systems unfortunately have a reputation for being clunky and difficult to navigate. Usability issues have plagued the software since its inception, leading to data fragmentation and user frustration, which is exactly what CRM is supposed to avoid.
An intuitive design can greatly assist in mapping customer data and in developing the content of a CRM, and customer relationship management technology has made great strides in this area over the past decade. Cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics CRM, in particular, integrates with Outlook, so the user interface is already familiar.
Summary
In short, successful implementation of a CRM can make your life a lot easier. Customer relationship management systems can help project managers with both in-house and external tasks by ensuring that each client and customer is taken care of from the initial point of contact to post-sale.