CRM in English

As defined on ABBREVIATIONFINDER.ORG, CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and the purpose of a CRM system is as it sounds – to manage customer relationships. Today, customer relationships are the key to any business and industry. Creating good customer relationships by managing them properly will result in customers coming to you and not the other way around. In the system you can register prospectuses, business opportunities / leads and agreements. By gathering all the information from your customer journeys, you can create compilations that help you in the approach to meeting your customers’ needs in the future.

CRM systems are built so that you can easily generate statistics on customers’ business behavior, which gives you the opportunity to improve your customer service which in turn benefits your future business.

Why should I work in a CRM system?

With the help of a CRM system, you can naturally build better customer relationships by entering information from prospect to business opportunity / lead to completed business. In addition, if you make all information linked to a customer accessible to everyone in the business, you can adapt your business methods in different departments to the customer’s unique needs and way of thinking. The customer feels seen and you show that you know what you are talking about. Also, information need not be lost when an employee quits and cases do not need to be paused if an employee is absent.

Don’t forget to do everything customer-related via the system – create customer conversations via the system, submit work reports on contact by phone or visit, etc. Did you lose a business opportunity even though the probability of winning it was high? Go through the process and all customer contact to track if it may have been due to your management.

In addition, if you have structured all information from prospect to customer business, statistics are created that you can review and plan based on when you decide on future work methods and customer management.

• Better customer service
• Order & find out
• streamlining
• Stronger customer relationships
• Better business
• New business opportunities
• Stronger marketing

CRM system with customer focus

A good CRM system puts the customer in focus because satisfied customers are one of the most important assets in many successful companies. CRM helps you understanding your customers and giving you the opportunity to strengthen the quality of sales, purchasing process and customer service which are, in addition to quality of products and services, important factors that create loyal customers.

In most companies, customer experience is a high priority. Think about how highly prioritized the customer experience is in your company, then define what you consider to be a valuable customer experience and let the CRM solution realize it.

CRM collects customer information

Regardless of the department, all customer information is collected in one place. Thus, with a CRM system you can avoid mail and other communication with customer data which slows down your daily work and creates unnecessary storage of personal data. CRM collects telephone numbers, e-mails, addresses, ongoing cases, past interactions, agreements and other important information. You can also record all types of communication, date of next follow-up and status of open cases.

Feedback and customer service get faster thanks to the CRM system’s structure, which contributes to an improved customer experience which in turn can strengthen customer loyalty.

Automated customer-oriented business processes

The strategy in a CRM system is primarily to improve customer-oriented processes, such as sales, marketing and customer service, so that they are better in line with customer needs.

Sales can include managing and developing customer relationships, managing leads and pipelines, identifying business opportunities, etc. In terms of marketing , include customer segmentation, campaign design, project management and event management. For customer service , it may be important, for example, case management, case tracking, prioritization, SLA management and customer inquiries.

Succeed with your CRM system – step by step

1. First and foremost, you need to find out what business goals you want to achieve. By concretising the goals and making them measurable in numbers, you can easily follow them up continuously and check if they are measurable in the system.
2. In order to achieve the goals, management must be 100% on the track and everyone else in the business must understand that the introduction is an initiative from the highest place. Internally, the management must therefore hold the baton and also use the system itself, which can be a challenge, but not an impossible one.
3. With a good mix of representatives from different departments you can get to a really good project group. A good mix includes a bunch of collaborative people with different interests, strengths and characteristics. If a representative is missing from the management, you can invite them to guest play on a couple of occasions where you have made a concise summary and present it in 15 minutes.
4. What do your customer / business processes look like? Feel free to sketch out the processes so that everyone in the project team is involved and can see and suggest suggestions for improvements. How does an interested person contact your company? What information is sent? By who?
5. The image of a customer should be the same regardless of which department you work at. This requires that there is a clear overall picture presented in each customer card, accessible to everyone in the business.
6. Remember that you initially choose functionality with low risk and high returns that can be implemented quickly. Then move on to the next step.
7. Do not try to solve all problems at once when you realize what can be done in a CRM system. Work in clear steps and don’t forget what is in step 6.
8. It is important to understand that the project is largely about people and new work routines. Often, change entails fear – in this case, it can be about fear of technology, new routines and changing responsibilities. Be there for any questions and hold an information meeting where you talk about the added value and the time savings your new system entails for the business.
9. Everyone should get the education they need. Introduce the system and train the employees with a focus on your daily work. Also prepare documentation and co-dogs for future new hires.
10. Expect the introduction to take time and let it take time. It is more efficient to do good from the ground up than to quickly get something that you have to piece together in the long run.
11. Focus on the use and acceptance of the system before starting with detailed reports and follow-up.
12. Plan what the communication should look like during the project. It is good if information goes out to the business both before and during and after each step. Encourage inquiry times and invite to Workshops where you can take advantage of showing benefits, time savings and added value in all material.
13. Create a CRM group that ensures future commitment and follows up on your goals, educates new employees, manages and further develops.