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What is a CRM platform?

GrowBox Digital

If you still have no idea what a CRM is, need more information or want to deepen what you know, this is for you. Here we explain in an easy and simple way what a CRM is, without so many words and pretensions, to know if it is for you or not and what you should expect in each phase that applies to CRM.

Índice 

1. What is a CRM platform?

2. Long purchase process with CRM software

3.  The famous wheel

4. How does everything relate?

4. 1. Marketing

4. 2. Sales

4. 3. Customer service

5. Benefits of using a CRM software

6. What does the data says?

1. What is a CRM platform?

A CRM is defined as a Customer Relationship Management, for its acronym. It works as a management model and also as a software, with this is intended to put the customer at the center of all interactions that take place in the company. This is especially focused on the areas that have direct contact with the customer, which are marketing, sales and customer service. 

5-1Now, the million dollar question, who is it for? It can be for everyone, large and small companies, the characteristic they all share is that, ideally, they have a long buying process. That is, it is not a purchase that you make sporadically or on the spot, but involves a longer decision making process. 

If you are wondering if this implies that only B2B businesses can use it, the answer is no. Because individuals also have to make these kinds of large purchases, they require a longer decision-making process. Just to give a few examples: buying a house, a car, life insurance, health insurance, in short, those that in the long term will have an important impact on that purchase. 

2. But, how to know if you have a long purchase process?

  • The service or product you are offering requires an important investment. For example, buying a property. 
  • Because of the service itself. Services such as health policies are decisions that imply long term consequences, you can't leave it to chance. 
  • It is a complex service or product. What does that mean? For example, accounting software involves training, implementation and possible system upgrades.

 Now that you know what kind of process you have, the most important thing to understand is how CRM affects your buyer and how it will make both of your lives easier. 

1-1

3. The famous wheel

Source: Hubspot

You know this wheel? Chances are you've seen it in this presentation or any other variation of it. Don't worry about not understanding it now, we'll explain step by step how it works so you can become an expert. 

Let's start from the inside out, what is at the center of the circle is the CRM and makes it all work. Then we have, 'marketing', 'sales' and 'service', all these elements work and coexist within the same CRM, these areas of the sales process have access to information from the beginning of the sale until when customer service has to solve a problem or non-conformity. Now let's move on to the second ring: 'attract', 'engage' and 'delight', these are the stages that a prospect should go through to become a customer, and then become loyal to the brand. Now, in the last ring we are going to find 'strangers', 'prospects', 'customers' and 'promoters', if you notice it aligns perfectly with the process that takes place. 

So, initially the person is unknown to the brand, but thanks to marketing, which attracts the customer and gets him hooked, he moves on to sales where already hooked he is delighted with the easy buying process and the excellent customer service provided. This is how he becomes a promoter that generates more people to know the brand and the wheel keeps on moving, increasing the growth of the company in the process.  

4. Sounds very nice, but how do you get it all to correlate?

As you could see above, there are 3 areas directly involved with CRM, those are marketing, sales and customer service. Let's look at them one by one.

4. 1. Marketing

Whoever is in charge of marketing has the first contact with a customer is marketing. Fine so far, but how first contact? 

  • When you are on social networks and you see an advertisement of a brand you didn't know about.
  • When you are looking for information about a product and you see an advertisement of a brand or you enter the page of that brand.
  • When you see an advertisement in a magazine, television or any other media of a new brand. 

All this is the work of the marketing team. Perfect, now, how do I get information from there? 

Excellent question. Since these are long buying processes that are worked on in CRM, it implies that many times they are looking for information that will help them make the best decision. Let's take one of the most used tactics to collect information:

Here enters the famous "leave your data and we'll send you an ebook with all the secrets of 'xyz theme'". The data may be what the company needs to be able to classify whether it is a good prospect or not. 

Protip: Although people leave their data, it does not imply that everyone is a good prospect. It is up to the marketing team to classify that suitability. 

This information is processed in the CRM, classified and then the sales team is responsible for proceeding with contacting those who meet the necessary conditions. All this information that was asked in exchange for the ebook enters the CRM. 

There are different stages that a prospect goes through before becoming that potential customer, as they are very big decisions, they take time and it is in marketing to nurture that prospect, so that when they are ready to make the decision they do it with you.

Source: HubSpot

3.2. Sales

Let's move on to what we're interested in: sales. Remember, CRM works much better when all departments are aligned. If the prospect falls within the characteristics that 'marketing' and 'sales' agreed upon, better results and positive feedback will be achieved, resulting in a better customer experience.

So, let's say this prospect is ready to make the purchase, because they left their contact information on the page and sales decides to approach them. If, for example, you have several products to offer and in the form you can select the one of interest, the CRM tells you this prospect, in which product he selected that he was interested and saves the information to make the service more personalized. 

But, as we know, being long sales processes, it is not going to reach an agreement right there in the first call, it is possible that 3 or 4 meetings are required. In each of these calls or meetings, in each client's unique file, notes are taken of the client's needs and what he/she wants. 

Ventas con CRM

Additionally, within the same company you may have several contacts, you can also add comments relevant to the sale within these contacts and they are stored under the company, so they don't get lost. You no longer have to be looking for handwritten notes or Excel files that become too complicated and inefficient, everything is easy, organized and at hand. 

When the sale is successfully closed, you can also leave in the CRM the terms that were reached in that sale, the conditions of the client and how much it was closed for. In some CRMs, such as HubSpot, you can see what stage of the sale you are in and what the sale is expected to close for. 

Because of all these tools that exist within CRM, it's also easy for section managers to access the progress the sales team is making, see how sales and individual customers are improving. Likewise, if another salesperson comes in to greet the customer, it is easy for them to understand the customer's needs and where they are in the process, without having to start from scratch. 

3.3. Customer service 

Customer service is essential for this kind of process, and in general for all companies, even if the purchase process has been excellent, if there is a bad customer service, it is likely that the customer will not come back. You only have to surf the Internet a little to know that a bad service and a bad review can drive away potential customers. 

As a curious fact and to highlight the importance of a good customer service integrated with all the others: There are publications dedicated every year to the most hated companies, and even if you have an excellent sales team, all that work can be ruined with a bad after-sales service. 

3-1

That is why CRM also contemplates customer service, where you can put a ticket that goes directly to the customer's account and the customer service agents can see the whole journey of the purchase. This is how they can provide the best possible and above all personalized service, because they have right there the information they need to understand the customer, without the customer having to give the same data he/she gave at the beginning. 

But this does not end here, as the feedback works horizontally with this kind of software, the customer service team can tell the marketing team that in the publications they make in their social networks, put a guide of the most common problems so that customers can solve by themselves, without the need to rely on customer service or to talk to sales if there is an issue to clarify with customers before making the sale and not have problems when making implementations.  

5. Benefits of using a CRM

  • Centralize all the information in one place

All the information you need in one place, for all departments that are in constant contact with the customer.

  • Greater personalization for your customers 

Because you have all the information available and can take notes so that each experience is unique for each customer, this translates into more information. 

  • Greater control and organization 

You have greater control of what is happening with the sales team, you can see which customers are at each stage of the buying process and where the team's time is being spent. 

  • Improve customer relationships

Having a record of all the interactions that have been made with the customer helps them feel that what they say does count within the company.

  • Capture more leads

This happens because you understand much more about how customers find the company and what they expect from the service.

  • Help customer segmentation

You can organize them by industry, annual revenue, customer status, customer preferences, etc. It works according to your needs.

  • Automation 

It can automate your marketing process, getting ideal prospects directly into the sales department and contacted as soon as possible.

  • Analyze customer results 

Since everything is connected, you can see both the deals that were successfully closed, and analyze the ones that didn't work, to keep improving and increase the percentage of closed deals. 

6. What does the data says?

  • 24% of marketers use paid advertising to generate a direct impact on sales. (HubSpot, 2020) 
  • 68% of marketing leaders use guided sales tools or technologies. (Salesforce, 2017) 
  • In 2018, direct retail sales reached $35.4 billion in the US. (Statista, 2019) 
  • Consumer products and education are the industries with the highest closing rates for sales opportunities (at 97%). (HubSpot, 2017) 
  • Most marketing agencies generate between 300 and 800 sales opportunities per month. (HubSpot, 2017) 
  • Top-performing sales reps believe they receive better leads from the marketing department. Nearly all (94%) of the top reps surveyed in a LinkedIn study rated the marketing leads they received as "excellent" or "good." (LinkedIn, 2020) 

Source: https://www.hubspot.es/marketing-statistics

Well, how did you feel about CRM software? It's a decision that requires planning, commitment and training, and above all a great deal of adaptability on the part of everyone involved. It's not easy but the return on investment and the satisfaction of your customers is well worth it.  

What did you think? If you have any questions, doubts or comments about how a CRM works you can let us know in the comments box.


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