As an SME, preserving your revenue and your bottom line is essential. You might be dubious about investing in a CRM system (customer relationship management system) and the ROI. The last thing you want is to throw money away on another cloud-based system that stores your client data. Or that’s what you’ve been led to believe.
Many companies are guilty of using their inbox as a CRM tool, hoping to recreate in-depth customer interactions, stellar customer service, and even manage tasks from start to finish via their email. It’s easy to imagine that using one platform to handle your customer relationships is a cost-effective and simple way to streamline these often complicated processes. In truth, this approach could be undermining your business, your employees and allowing your business to consistently fall short of the expectations of your customers.
By procuring a CRM system, you can maintain high levels of customer service and tailored marketing strategies whilst nurturing the connection between your company and your clients, at every stage.
Want to know more? Read on to discover why you should stop using your inbox as a CRM tool.
Data is safe, secure, and protected
Storing client data is a regular practice, but when it comes to protecting that crucial information, not everyone is on the same page. Using your inbox as a CRM tool means putting your client data at risk. It is at risk from the following: cybercrime, increasing the possibility of mislaying files and accidental deletion. Searching through an inbox to find the customer file you need is both time-consuming and frustrating, and your client will only agree. Switching to a CRM tool means all your client data is fully protected and collaborated in a cloud-based storage system. This system is accessible to employees across your business, streamlining processes and eliminating email chains and accidental GDPR breaches.
You know exactly what your customers want
Anyone can pitch a sale to a prospective customer or target a certain demographic and see who bites – and when you’re using your email as your CRM, this is often the extent of your reach. But using a genuine CRM system means you’ll have access to detailed customer data, which means you can analyse the genuine needs of your customers and target them with accuracy, even tailoring marketing campaigns to increase the ROI and boost sales.
Cutting down on admin
Admin is necessary, but it slows down those crucial sales and marketing processes. Using your email as your CRM will only pander to this sluggish approach, over-complicating an already complex procedure. Switching to a CRM system means your teams can accomplish more. Eliminating duplicated work and automating many of the tasks that steal time from your employees essentially gives your staff more time to focus on customer relationships.
Customer experience
To put it simply, building customer relationships, rapidly producing automated personal replies, targeting specific customers with relevant sales and products, identifying leads, opportunities and being able to resolve queries faster with personal responses is something your inbox cannot match. It’s time to make the switch to efficient, innovative CRM software.