Customer relationship management is a particular approach that companies take towards current and future customers. This approach attempts to analyze data about customers’ history within a company, to improve business relationships with customers, focusing on retention.

An important aspect of the customer relationship management is that it pulls information from various sources, including company website, telephone, email, live chats, and social media. Through CRM, companies can learn more about their target audience and how best to serve their needs. A careful consideration of this approach is that it can lead to favoritism within a particular audience which can defeat the whole purpose.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software covers a broad set of applications to help companies manage customer data, customer interaction, automate sales, provide customer support, and also manage employee, vendor, and corporate partner relationships. ERP:FM CRM componenets work together with all other areas of our system for the perfect fusion which then helps businesses meet their overall goals, and it’s important to note it all scalable and customizable.

Providers of CRM software tailor their offerings primarily for the small business market so it can be integrated with other types of technologies through the use of API’s. These providers, very much like ourselves, understand what small businesses want from their customer relationships.

CRM used to be utilized only by large companies and it was usually very costly, too time consuming, and too difficult to use. However, over the last several years, CRM has been improved with the wider adoption and understanding of web based systems and the cloud.

ERP:FM solutions are now more affordable than ever before, the GUI is at the height of user-friendly, and accessible to the small business market. The availability of CRM software packages for small businesses is growing. According to experts, every business needs some form of CRM software and CRM software is a more productive way to manage, unlike spreadsheets. An effective application provides organization and a comprehensive view of current customers and prospective customers.

We consider that there are three types of CRM …

Operational CRM

The primary goal of a CRM system is to integrate and automate sales, marketing, and customer support. Operational CRM is made of three components: sales force automation, marketing automation, and service automation.

Analytical CRM

The role of this type is to analyze customer data collected through various sources. This is presented to managers, so that they can make strategic decisions.

Collaborative CRM

This aim of CRM systems incorporates suppliers, vendors, and distributors so that it can be shared across organizations.

The main components of CRM use marketing observing relationships as they mature, and managing those relationships through each stage. Businesses will be able to benefit from seeing the relationship of connected transactions. The final component is the importance of CRM though accounting. By looking at customer’s spending habits, a business can put different resources and attention to a certain customer demographic.

The customer relationship management components within ERPFM offers several benefits:

1) Helps to realize which customers produce the most profit so the business as a whole can gain a better understanding of who their best customers are through analyzing buying behaviors. The software is designed to be integrated and help businesses determine which customers have the highest profit margins and which ones bring in the most revenue.

2) Analyzes buying patterns, with that understanding in hand customer buying patterns can become more visible and assist in identifying high-value customers, so that businesses can make the most of sales opportunities.

3) Maximize per-customer profits by utilizing the data gathered from CRM software can help to lower the costs of selling to particular customer and increase profits from customer interactions.

There are certain features that businesses should look for in CRM software:

1) Application Programming Interface (API), this is what allows the CRM application to link with other systems the CRM application to link with other systems that a business may already have.

2) Multiple contact information, users should be able to access customer information through a person’s name or their company name.

Two other features that are important for CRM software to have are dashboards and delegation. It should provide a summarized view of sales opportunities, as well as the ability to delegate tasks to colleagues.

While there are many positive aspects of CRM software, there are a couple of pitfalls. A CRM system can be expensive and it’s only as good as the information that is put into it, if you don’t put it to the front of your business It can be an empty shell without data and ensuring data quality may require time, dedication and experience.