Advantages of Using CRM for your Business

CRM stands for customer relationship management, and is an important way of tracking data about your customers to help you serve them better. If you can’t afford a marketing department, start with a CRM program. Digital CRM systems are more than just an online rolodex – they can track your customers’ demographic categories, aggregate customer service notes, and even automate certain marketing practices. Below are 6 ways a CRM system can help you deliver the best possible customer service.

How You can Benefit from Using CRM for Your Business

1. Contact information all in one place

If you have an ad-hoc system for keeping track of customer contact information, you’ve probably spent a lot of wasted time looking for a phone numbers or email addresses on business cards and websites. If you have a CRM database, all of the information you need about your customers is in one place all the time; the only thing you need to do is be diligent about entering their information when you receive it. In an accounting program like Billomat, you will make a customer number for them as well, streamlining your accounting and marketing efforts.

2. Easily create materials tailored for specific customers

With an automated CRM system, you have all the information you need to create documents such as invoice templates for specific customers automatically. If you use Salesforce, you can download your contacts into Billomat so that their contact information is uploaded onto their invoices. This saves you the hassle of entering their address every time you invoice, and reducing the likelihood of an error. You can also add notes about their invoicing preferences, since Billomat allows you to add your own parameters to customer descriptions – so if there’s the odd client that still wants a paper copy of their invoice or their disbursements explained in more detail, you can easily make a note of those preferences in their profile.

3. Automate marketing and follow up emails

Some CRM systems can also help you automate emails that don’t need much personalization, such as marketing emails or follow-up emails. Additionally, they may be able to post to social media on your behalf, so you can spend less time on marketing. Even if you’re not at the point where you’re sending regular marketing emails yet, it is a good idea to have a list of all your existing customers just in case there is news about your business you need to share with everyone you do business with, such as a change in procedure or management.

4. CRM will help you know which marketing strategies are working

Marketing can get expensive, and CRM can give you a picture of which sales strategies are paying off, and which ones you can pull the plug on. Additionally, a CRM system like Salesforce can let you know which demographics of customers are responding to which campaigns, to help you use different marketing strategies for different demographics. With so much advertising surrounding us, marketing strategies need to be extra savvy and target the right demographics at the right time to avoid pouring money into wasted efforts. Some systems will even be able to tell you the point in the sales process where customers buy your product, helping you focus on the parts of your sales strategy that turn profits.

5. Record interactions with customers in one place

Having a record of all of your interactions with a customer in one place can help you deliver top-notch customer service. When a customer has an issue, it’s frustrating for them to have to explain it over and over again to multiple people in a business – but with a CRM system, these issues can be logged for each person to look at before they interact with the customer. This can be especially important for delicate issues such as collections, when you have to keep track of previously agreed upon timelines in order to formulate your response. Additionally, having a log of customer interactions over time can tell you where you’re getting things right, and what areas you might need to improve.

6. Increasse Self-Serve options for customers

CRM software can also help customers find what they’re looking for on their own. Billomat, for example, offers a customer portal where they can access all of the invoices you have created for them – without the ability to modify them, of course. This way they can always find copies of invoices and other important documents in their portal rather than having to email you or your team for them. This can be a huge bonus when year end approaches and everyone is scrambling to reconcile their accounts – instead of the deluge of clients asking for statements, they can access them online on their own.

These features are just a fraction of what CRM can do for your business. If you’re a fan of analytics and have a business website, a CRM program will show you all the reports you’ve been dying to see about who your customers are and what they’re after. Since marketing and accounting practices are so highly dependent on each other, it’s a good idea to make sure the software you choose can talk to each other so your CRM practices will benefit from your accounting skills, and vice versa.