For Salespeople only? Who in the Company Benefits from CRM
Is CRM Only for Salespeople? The assertion is clear – no! Customer Relationship Management can bring benefits to individuals across various departments and levels within a company. Based on experience, I recommend that access to CRM be extended to all employees in the company. Furthermore, it is advisable for all departments that have direct customer interaction to utilize CRM in their daily operations. Why? In this blog post, I will delve into the use of CRM by stakeholders other than sales department employees.
CRM for the Marketing Department
Collecting customer data is equally crucial for marketing as it is for sales. With this information, marketers can send customers only the materials they are interested in and prepare individualized offers or promotional discounts. Moreover, they can largely automate these activities without worrying about managing marketing consents, which CRM systems allow.
Additionally, improving collaboration between marketing and sales departments is one of the biggest benefits that can be achieved with a well-implemented CRM system. Using a single source of data is the foundation of successful cooperation. For instance, salespeople who have access to data traditionally available only to the marketing department, such as customer website activity or email opens, can engage in conversations more effectively because they know much more about what interests the customer.
CRM for Customer Service
Where should knowledge about the entire customer history in the company be stored: all their reports, such as breakdowns, completed surveys? Where should records of satisfaction-checking conversations be logged, which is necessary for companies selling subscription-based products like software? Yes, CRM can serve these purposes too!
If sales and customer service operate on the same system, customer service knows what the salesperson discussed with the customer. Collaboration is particularly important in a subscription model because the salesperson knows what to address in order to renew the contract. This is a broad topic, so for more practical applications, I invite you to read my article on the integration of sales and customer service in HubSpot.
To be more specific, here are a few concrete areas that a CRM system can handle:
- Invoicing – Advanced CRM systems allow for invoicing and invoice management.
- Assembly – Customer service can also use CRM. Logging and conducting assembly, such as installing a GPS tracker, server, air conditioning, heat pump, etc., can be recorded in the system.
- Transportation – For transportation companies or those offering their own transport, CRM can store data from shipments, waybills, etc.
CRM for the HR Department
While the need for access to a CRM system seems understandable for departments with direct customer contact, we less frequently think about it in the context of HR activities. However, if companies conduct continuous recruitments, CRM can store candidate data for active management. For example, if a suitable position opens up or the company needs a specific skill (common in industries such as IT, software houses), such a user-friendly database is invaluable.
CRM for Mid-Level Management
CRM supports not only customer contact but also internal organization within a company. At the middle management level, it can be useful for verifying specialists' activities. Here are some sample questions that can be answered in the CRM system without having to request additional reports from employees:
- Are salespeople performing the appropriate amount of daily activities?
- Is the current conversation, such as from a marketing campaign, generating a sufficient number of leads?
- Are customer service representatives calling the customer at the right time after a report is submitted?
- How many technical employees and time are required to close a ticket?
CRM for Top-Level Managers, Directors, and Boards
The standard procedure in most companies is to prepare data and reports for top-level management in the form of presentations. However, modern CRM systems can automatically report the relevant data in a clear format and at specified intervals, such as monthly or quarterly, and even inform about significant deviations from the norm.
This way, department directors or the board can quickly find out whether individual departments are achieving their periodic goals and whether strategies are genuinely contributing to the realization of long-term objectives.
CRM – a Plus for the Customer
Finally, it's worth mentioning another group that will benefit from the implementation of a CRM system in the company. That group is, of course, the customers! After all, you introduce CRM to improve their experience, a gain not only for the company but primarily for the service recipients.
By introducing a consistent information flow system, communication between different departments in the company improves, reducing service time and minimizing situations where the customer has to wait for a response or is referred from person to person.
A broader range of information collected by the company and its better organization also allows for a more individualized approach to each customer and better tailoring of offers to their needs, reducing the amount of unwanted communication.
For Whom is CRM?
As you can see, there are many beneficiaries of a CRM system. I hope I have convinced you that using it is not only a matter for the sales department. A good CRM implementation in a company should involve many more people who can benefit from convenient and fast access to valuable data, improving the efficiency of their activities.
Consider a CRM that is focused on collaboration, easy to use, and can serve as a single source of information for all your employees. If you want to learn how to leverage HubSpot in this capacity or are looking for someone to conduct HubSpot CRM onboarding in your company, do not hesitate to contact us!
