The success of a business goes beyond acquiring new customers. It’s also about how well you retain them, keep them engaged, and reach them where they want you to be. Do you know that companies experiencing rapid growth drive around 40% of their revenue by personalizing customer experiences? And that 76% of customers say they get disappointed when companies fail to do that!
If you want to retain your customers by driving engagement, robust and agile Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a must. This SaaS (Service as a Service) tool has the most potential to ensure a seamless customer experience while optimizing resources and increasing revenues. This article covers everything you need to know about CRM in digital transformation—what it is, its role, and why businesses need it.
Let’s dive in.
What is CRM?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is SaaS-based software that manages your business’s interactions and customer relationships. Users usually describe CRM as a platform that helps companies fine-tune their relationships with customers and boost revenue and profitability, among other things.
CRM aims to improve your business relationship with individual people, like customers, suppliers or vendors, service users, etc., throughout the lifecycle with them. The process also includes finding new prospects, converting them, and providing service support.
Today, CRM enjoys a whopping $71 billion global market share. Research says it will grow at a CAGR of 12% by 2030. Sales and marketing across industries rely on CRM solutions to track and follow customer engagement journeys, enhance their experience, and improve response at every customer touchpoint.
Features of CRM
Accessibility
CRM helps you access any location and get a holistic view of customer experience across geographical boundaries. It is essential for contemporary remote businesses with decentralized processes and settings.
Security and Data Backup
CRM offers deep security measures and robust data backups to ensure customer data is free of all breaches and threats but remains accessible for mission-critical tasks.
Scalability
CRM supports businesses of any size. As your customers increase, a CRM will help consolidate and arrange increasing customer data and act as a single source of truth without requiring additional resource investment.
The Role of CRM in Digital Transformation
Customers no longer rely on just one channel when exploring services or products. They can search for their requirements online and then visit a store to buy them. They can find something while scrolling their social media feed and then visit your website to explore more. Your newsletters about your new product launch might interest them, and they might end up clicking on your call-to-action and adding the product to their cart.
In any of these cases, businesses must ensure they are available on every channel and personalize their experiences. But this is possible only when you have every piece of information about your customers up your sleeve. A robust CRM tool can help you tap into your customers and ensure a frictionless customer experience. Here’s how CRM is becoming the most crucial part of a business’s digital transformation journey.
Streamline Customer Processes
CRM streamlines sales and marketing, allowing you to focus on converting customers rather than performing manual administrative tasks. It automates processes like lead generation, grading, and boosting engagement across channels, generates accurate forecasts and reports, and provides actionable insights to drive sales cycles.
High-quality Customer Services
CRM significantly improves the quality of your customer service by giving you a comprehensive overview of customer interactions across touchpoints and channels. Centralizing data under one umbrella allows you to quickly respond to customer queries, alleviating innumerable spreadsheets and individual ERPs.
Data-driven Decisions
CRM is a single source of truth, giving you all possible customer data for informed decision-making. It organizes and analyzes data effectively, identifies changes in trends and patterns, automates data collection, and offers instant access to critical customer information. This allows you to hyper-personalize customer interactions and market your products more smartly and subtly.
Enhanced Internal Collaborations
CRM stores every piece of customer information in one place, paving the way for team collaborations. You can share customer data across departments and ensure all teams work towards the same objectives and targets.
For instance, using the data stored in the CRM, the sales team can work on lead generation and nurturing, the marketing team can use it to improve customer messaging and find innovative ways of engagement across channels, and the customer service team can draw insights from customer queries and feedback.
Why Do Businesses Need CRM In Digital Transformation?
Did you know CRM can increase conversions by 300%? CRM has helped businesses boost sales by 87% and customer satisfaction by 74%!
CRM and digital transformation go hand in hand. CRM gives you a clear panoramic view of your customers through a customized dashboard. You have all customer data, from their purchase and interaction history to after-sales issues, responses to your campaigns, and more. Here’s why businesses need to implement CRM thoughtfully in their digital transformation strategy.
Streamlining Services
When you know what your customers want, you can streamline services and product development, enhance product quality, and update your services based on the customer feedback saved on your CRM. You can also align your product features and ensure they meet customer needs.
Efficient Onboarding
CRM helps you handle customer onboarding easily. You can create customized product guide materials and personalize customers’ journeys. You can also track their interactions with your resources, ensuring user satisfaction and lower churn rates.
Customer Retention
CRM allows you to identify prospects that could turn into potential customers and engage with your products and services. It also allows you to upsell and cross-sell complementary products as add-ons, boosting revenue.
The Bottom Line
CRM and digital transformation are redefining businesses like never before. They go beyond being mere enablers of customer engagement. Instead, CRM is a strategic approach that helps you leverage customer insights to create meaningful customer journeys and increase conversions. With the business landscape, customer preferences, and data involved, the role of CRM in digital transformation will continue to be a cornerstone of success.
About the Author
Arun Gupta is a seasoned solutions architect with extensive experience in the IT industry, specializing in Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM and Power Apps. Holding a Master of Science in Information Technology degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Arun has developed a robust portfolio in leading enterprise-level solutions and strategic technology implementations. His expertise encompasses a deep understanding of Dynamics CRM, customization, configuration, and the Power Platform, including Power Apps, Power BI, and Power Automate. Arun’s career is marked by successful tenures at prominent companies where he led teams and orchestrated the integration and upgrading of complex CRM systems. For more information on Arun Gupta, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/arungupta86/
Disclaimer: The author is completely responsible for the content obuttonf this article. The opinions expressed are their own and do not represent IEEE’s position nor that of the Computer Society nor its Leadership.
