What Is a CRM System?

A customer relationship management (CRM) system is a set of tools that helps you manage interactions with potential, current, and past customers. You can build durable relationships and fill the sales funnel, leading to profit. A CRM creates a central hub for data about contacts and companies, tracking interactions with them, automating communication, and managing your sales pipeline.

Let’s dive in a little deeper.

What Does a CRM Do?

A CRM system organizes information, automates interactions, and synchronizes engagement with contacts. The system gives various parts of your organization visibility into what is happening—and what has happened—with prospects, current customers, and former customers. Typical users are sales and marketing, customer service, product development, strategy leaders, and upper management. The idea is that no opportunity falls through the cracks, and no problem gets overlooked.

CRM Features

Some key features of a CRM system include the following:

1. Content management. Capture and store contact information that powers the other functions. Names, titles, contact information, preferences, communication history, and more are typical data points collected.
2. Sales pipeline management. Map out the steps decision-makers take in the purchase process. Assign prospects by step, as well as a likelihood they will move through to a transaction. Predict performance and analyze ways to improve conversions.
3. Activity and task tracking. Make sure your people are making connections, answering questions, dealing with issues, following up, and pushing relationships through the purchase process.
4. Marketing automation. Many of the tasks of keeping in touch can be automated and scheduled. Segmenting customers, targeting by stage in the purchase process, and running campaigns, including email sequences, are typical functions.
5. Customer support tools. The system can log service requests and manage tickets, track customer issues, and report on resolutions.
6. Reporting and analytics. Provide reports on campaigns, customer behavior, and sales performance for insights that can guide decision-making.
7. Integration capabilities. A key function is linking your CRM system to other systems and tools, including calendars, ERP systems, and communications tools such as email, social media, and ad campaign platforms.
8. Mobile access. The system is most useful in the real world when users can access and use information on the spot and in context. Mobile access provides on-the-go utility.

CRM Benefits

When you optimize your CRM, you can bring a wide array of benefits to individuals on your team and to your organization at large.

1. Stronger relationships. Centralizing data and connecting it to functions, you can engage with contacts in a personalized and consistent way to build loyalty and trust.
2. Improved customer retention. When you make sure to resolve issues and drive satisfaction, you increase loyalty, reduce churn, and increase referrals and recommendations.
3. Increased sales efficiency. Automating repetitive tasks like calendaring, lead tracking, and strategic opportunity prioritization can focus resources on closing the most lucrative deals faster.
4. Better organization and accessibility. No more digging through spreadsheets or emails. CRM systems store all customer info in one searchable, shareable place.
5. Smarter decisions. Gather insights into sales trends, customer behavior, and campaign performance to guide your strategies.
6. Enhanced team collaboration. Give teams across functions access to a “single version of the truth” on customers, communication, and coordinated activities.
7. Automation and personalization. Target the right people at the right time with messages and activities that are customized to get results.
8. Scalability. As your business grows, the CRM system supports expansion in adding users, integrating with new tools, and tracking more and more customer interactions.
9. Time savings. By automating tasks and calendars, you eliminate time-consuming manual work—along with the errors and omissions that come with it.
10. Better customer support. Tracking support requests, complaints, and improvement suggestions leads to loyal, satisfied customers who come back for more and recommend you to others.

Launch your career with a Bachelor of Science in Business from Excelsior University.

What Are the Types of CRM Systems?

There are several different types of customer relationship management systems. The right CRM for your business depends on your goals and use cases.

Operational

Streamline processes, automate repetitive tasks, and drive follow-up with a calendar and processes to drive efficiency and satisfaction.

Analytical

When you collect and organize data, you can analyze it for behaviors, trends, and opportunities.

Collaborative

Encourage different functions and departments to share and use information for a consistent and unified customer experience.

Strategic

This approach considers CRM as a philosophy, not just a functional tool. The CRM system becomes a way to align everything in a company around the customer.

Industry-Specific

Your implementation is faster and more effective using a tool that is prebuilt for an industry, such as real estate, health care, financial services, e-commerce, and more.

How to Gain the Foundational Knowledge You Need to Operate a CRM

The idea of a CRM is powerful, but implementing it isn’t easy. It takes a comprehensive skill set to create and effectively operate a CRM system.

You can develop those skills in Excelsior University’s Bachelor of Science in Business program. Accredited by the International Accreditation Council for Business Education (IACBE), the program features a hands-on, career-focused curriculum that covers key business skills, from finance to data analysis to marketing to leadership, with six concentrations to choose from: Management of Human Resources, Marketing, Logistics Management, Finance, General Accounting, and General Business. And Excelsior’s flexible online courses and personalized support from start to finish make the BS in Business program ideal for working adults.

For all their myriad benefits, CRM systems are ubiquitous throughout the business world. And with the skills you’ll gain in Excelsior’s BS in Business program, you’ll be able to successfully wield this powerful set of tools to further your business and your career.