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What is CRM Software?

CRM software (customer relationship management software) is a tool that's designed to help your organization offer your
customers a unique and seamless experience, as well as build better relationships by providing a complete picture of all
customer interactions, keeping track of your sales, organizing and prioritizing your opportunities, and facilitating
collaboration between various teams.

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CRM - The Strategy

The idea of how businesses approach customer interactions and building relationships with them forms
their CRM strategy. It involves collecting customer data and analyzing the history of customer interactions to
provide better services and build better relationships with the customers to ultimately drive sales and
revenue.

Why do you need a CRM strategy?

Without a proper CRM strategy, your customer information will be all over the place, and it'll be hard to keep
track of all the touch points and interactions you've had with particular customers. This leads to a drawn out
sales cycle, with a generic and sub-par customer experience.

When you have a strong CRM strategy for your business, it allows
you to build personal connections with customers, which in turn
helps you identify their needs and requirements and provide them
with personalized services.

Building great customer relations

Great customer relationships are based on the consistent and personalized experience offered by your
organization, regardless of where a customer is in your sales cycle. This means that every team in your
organization, from Marketing to Sales to Support must offer a consistent experience when interacting with a
customer.

When your business is starting off and you're managing all your customer information on spreadsheets, this
may be viable, but not advisable. The amount of time spent on data entry could be better spent bringing in
customers and closing deals. This becomes exponentially more complicated when you grow your business
and expand your customer base. This is where CRM software comes into play.

CRM-The Software
The origin of modern CRM systems can be traced back to the late 80s and early 90s, that saw the development of Contact
Management Systems (CMS), which then evolved into Sales Force Automation (SFA) technology. As the industry grew,
vendors were pushed to provide a broader set of services to cover everything from marketing to presales and support.

A Customer relationship management software is designed to remove silos in customer information by gathering them in a
central place, to provide a 360º view of all your customer data. Details like the customer's name, email, phone number, and
communication preferences, as well as interaction and purchase history, can be made available to help your teams reach
out to customers for the right reasons and through the right channels.

For every $1 invested in CRM, you get $8.71 in return. An ROI of greater than
750%!

Why your business needs a CRM Software

If you're finding it hard to manage sales, marketing, and customer relations, maybe it's time you upgraded to sophisticated,
all-inclusive business software. If you're on the fence about adopting a Customer Relationship Management solution, look for
these warning signs:

Lack of centralization Lack of knowledge

It's hard to make important decisions when your This is a derivative of the first indicator. Due to the
customer data is spread across your excel sheets, absence of a centralized location for your customer
business cards, and notes taken during meetings data, salespeople will find it impossible to keep track
with the customer. It takes too much time and effort of every detail as your customer base grows.
to collate the data and make sense of it.

Communication breakdown Inability to close deals on the

move
A synergy is required between Marketing, who
nurtures the lead, and Sales, who closes the deal. If you have sales reps out in the field, it's impossible
Often this lack of information flow hurts the for them to keep everyone involved updated on the
performance of both teams, as neither is aware of status of a deal, or send out documents like sales
what the other team is doing. orders and invoices

Turnover costs time and money Poor customer satisfaction

When sales reps leave your company, they take with Scattered information makes it hard to find patterns
them the relationships they built with customers. and personalize your interactions with customers.
Your company needs to invest time and money into This ends with all customers being treated the same
training replacements and getting them up to speed —and runs the risk of driving them to your
on customer preferences. competitors for a better experience.

 
Taking your customer data and business processes to a new platform can be a daunting thought. Will the software be right
for my business? How much will it cost me? Will I have to move to different software when my business grows? These are
some of the questions that you'll probably ask yourself, so we've made it easy for you to choose the right CRM software for
your business.

Effective sales organizations are 81% more likely to be practicing consistent usage
of a CRM tool.

How to choose the right CRM software?

When choosing the CRM tool for your business, the first choice you'll be making is between on-premise or cloud CRM
software. Before you make that choice, let's take a quick look at the pros and cons of both.

Cloud CRM On-premise CRM

Cloud CRM software is built and maintained by the On-premise CRM usually involve setting up servers in your
service provider, on their servers. The service is office and installing the software on all required devices
accessible over the internet through a browser, on your local network. This puts the responsibility for
allowing you to deploy the service without any upgrades, customization, and maintenance solely in the
  software installation on your organization's hands of your IT department.
computers.

 
INFRASTRUCTURE

Requires no additional infrastructure other than a Requires you to set up servers on your business
browser and a working internet connection. premises.

 
ACCESSIBILITY

Your CRM data is accessible from anywhere and any Your data is hosted on local servers and can only be
device. CRM vendors provide a mobile app for accessed by devices on your local network. Building
accessibility while on the move. mobile applications requires an extra expenditure of
time and money.

 
TRIAL

Cloud CRM offer free trials, so you can test the No trial is available, as you need to have the
product and see if it meets your needs. infrastructure on premises to run the application in the
first place.

 
COST

A pay-as-you-go plan, allows you to pay an upfront A large upfront cost for server and software installation,
subscription fee for your total number of users on a as well a monthly licensing fee for the software.
monthly or annual basis.

 
CUSTOMIZATION

Depending on the vendors, customization options The deployment period is longer and more labor-
vary, but are often readily available and quick to intensive.
deploy.

 
INTEGRATION

Easily integrate with other business applications and Depends on the vendor, but requires expert knowledge
through APIs. and additional costs.

 
SECURITY

Vendors are dedicated to providing robust security Your organization will be responsible for the
measures and access control to ensure the safety monitoring and protection of user data. You will have to
and integrity of your data. dedicate a team, and considerable resources, to
keeping your security and privacy measures up to date.

On-premise CRMs were the go-to choice of organizations a decade ago, with 88% of buyers choosing on-premise
CRM over cloud CRM software. But the tables have now turned, as 87% of businesses prefer a cloud CRM tool over an
on-premise solution.

Cloud CRM software is the way to go if you want to have your data accessible at all times, as well as the flexibility
to scale up or down with ease. It's also easier for small businesses to adopt a cloud CRM and be more productive
without straining their budget.

Things to consider when implementing a CRM

There are some key factors to consider before committing to purchasing a customer management software for your
business:

 
   

Usability Customization

More often than not, the thing that stops businesses Every business is unique in their process and needs.
from adopting new technology is the fact that teams An ideal CRM for your business would be one that
are uncomfortable with using it. So it's important to can be easily customized to meet those
ensure that the CRM you use offers a clean interface, requirements. A CRM that can be molded to reflect
a great user experience, and is easy to pick up for your business process by adding additional
everyone who'll be using it. modules, creating custom processes, automating
repetitive tasks with workflows, and more.

 
   

Scalability Mobility

If your business has an ambitious year-on-year We live in a time when mobile internet traffic has
growth target, the CRM must be able to grow with overshadowed desktop traffic. If you have a sales
your teams and business by supporting additional team in the field, it's important to ensure that they
modules and custom processes, and integrating have access to customer data at all times. This allows
with third party applications that you may be using. them to be on the move, close deals more
effectively, and keep everyone in the loop.

 
   

Security Migration

With concerns for data security at an all-time high, a If you have all your data on excel sheets, or if you're
cloud CRM with secure data centers and industry using another CRM, it must be easy to get your data
standard security practices allows you to continue into the new CRM software and have your business
doing business without having to worry about your up and running as soon as possible. This migration
customer data being compromised. process must be quick and easy to execute for the
CRM that you want to implement.

24% of salespeople achieve their annual quota with mobile access to CRM data.

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Benefits of CRM software

   

Boost sales Efficient business process

A CRM can help you identify, nurture, and follow up on Help your team stay productive by defining and building
quality leads. This means that you don't waste time and efficient processes for your business. A CRM can help
resources on a prospect that probably won't become a you ensure that standards are followed while processes
customer. Combined with a reduced sales cycle, you can are executed. Make sure your sales team's time is spent
guide more leads more efficiently and convert them to on closing deals and not wasted on mundane tasks by
happy customers in a considerably shorter time. automating routine activities.

   

Tactical decision-making Data security and compliance

Accurate data from across your organization helps keep You can rest assured that your customer data is safe in
your decision makers informed, so they can react to your vendor's data centers, safeguarded by top-of-the
market trends with better decisions. Detailed reports will line physical and digital security mechanisms. If you're
show how your teams are performing and where there's based in the European Union or do business with
room for improvement. European customers, a CRM that offers GDPR-
compliance features will be one of your greatest assets.

   

Mobile accessibility Customer satisfaction

A CRM with a mobile app ensures that your team has A CRM arms your team with all the historical data of a
access to important CRM data, no matter where they are. customer, as well information regarding similar issues
A sales rep in the field can pull up information about faced by others. A centralized repository of information
nearby customers, drop by for a meeting, and easily helps your team resolve customer inquiries quickly,
update everyone else on any new information by logging ensuring they leave satisfied.
it in the CRM through their mobile app.

47% of polled CRM users said that CRM had a significant impact on customer
retention and an equal amount of users stated that it had an impact on customer
satisfaction as well.

Build an effective sales funnel and pipeline for your

business
Helping your team build and refine your sales process through an effective sales funnel and sales pipeline is one of the core
aspects of a good CRM system. Often likened to be the same thing, your sales funnel and pipeline serve distinct but equally
vital roles in converting the incoming leads to paying customers.

Sales pipeline vs Sales funnel

A sales pipeline aims to consolidate the various steps involved in a sales process, from contact, qualification, meeting, and
proposal to closing the deal. A sales funnel, on the other hand, captures the overall customer experience from start to end.
They each have different benefits and purposes.

   

Sales pipeline
Sales funnel
Shows the quantity, value, and stages of your open
Shows shows conversion rates throughout the sales
deals. Analyzing a sales pipeline helps you
process. You can see which stage your leads are
understand deal activity during the sales process
most likely to drop off at and assign resources to fix
and enables a sales team to make informed
leaks.
decisions about which factors to focus on to achieve
higher conversion rates.

Generally speaking, a sales pipeline is used to visualize the sales process from the perspective of a sales rep whereas a sales
funnel is designed from the perspective of a customer. You need both working in tandem to provide a complete end-to-end
customer experience.

Why choose Zoho CRM

Zoho Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software comes with features from Omnichannel capabilities to pipeline
management and automation, all bundled in one package. You can experience what Zoho CRM can do for you for free,
before you commit to adopting it, across your organization. With 24x5 standard support and 24x7 premium support, a team
of experts are ready to assist you at any time.

Lead and Contact Management

Bring in quality leads, nurture them, and turn them into happy, paying customers. Get a complete view of all
customer data—personal details, all communication you've had with them, and more—all in a single place.

Automation

Instead of having your sales team waste their time doing administrative work, automate all your routine and
mundane tasks with workflows and macros to help your team focus on winning clients and closing deals.

Omnichannel CRM

Reach out, respond, and stay in touch with your customers across email, telephony, social media, and live
chat with a real-time notification system. Build better and long-lasting relationships through meaningful
conversations.

Artificial Intelligence

With Zia, Zoho CRM's AI, you get an interactive link to all your CRM data. Get predictions that help you focus
on the right deals with the highest chance of closure, identify and remove bottlenecks, prioritize your
response based on the sentiment of a customer’s email, and more.

Sales reps saw productivity increase by 24.6% after adding social media channels
and mobile access to their CRM.

Customization within Zoho CRM was flexible and helped

us get a CRM system of our own. We used Zoho CRM for
both B2B and B2C sales processes. Automation helped us
to keep track of everyday happenings and increased our
ROI.
Jon Carder,
Co-Founder, Mogl

   
     

Trusted by great brands

       

       

 
 

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