A New Era of CRM Software: Why It's Time to Modernize
The concept of customer relationship management (CRM) is not a new phenomenon, but with today’s cutting-edge software companies continually raising the bar, it represents an increasingly critical tool for businesses.
CRM is a calculated strategy designed to help businesses improve their sales and marketing capabilities and better understand customers by linking data and tracking customer trends. Through this philosophy, companies aim to foster better business practices that encourage the exchange of information within an organization to support its efforts to nurture existing relationships and promote new ones.
The software side of CRM offers a lucrative path to achieving those goals by enabling businesses to organize and coordinate their sales efforts with the help of user-friendly tools. There are a number of programs available that can help today’s businesses to efficiently foster relationships with their clients, and Sage and NetSuite are two global industry-leaders that offer such invaluable CRM software solutions.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CRM
When implemented properly, CRM software satisfies the need of businesses that rely on efficient systems used to manage their processes effectively.
“Five percent of marketing and sales activities is inspiration, while 95 percent is perspiration. This means that, in order to effectively run a marketing or sales team, 95 percent of the work is spent in managing processes effectively. Having CRM software helps companies to track leads and opportunities, and to minimize the steps that will need to be executed in order to achieve their goals,” says Mike Lorge, Managing Director of Sage Business Solutions in Australia.
In order for companies to be able to make good business decisions, people within the organization need a system that allows the ability to access accurate and up-to-date customer information readily available at their fingertips. “Sage believes that a CRM system in the back office, when properly integrated with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, allows a salesperson near limitless access to the tools of the trade, from checking the availability of inventory to placing an order,” Lorge asserts.
According to Chris Schafer, NetSuite’s Managing Director for APAC, “In order for a company to have the ability to move, adapt and retain its existing customers, it needs to establish a system of clean, precise and multiple touch-points with its place.”
Redmap uses its CRM software to the fullest extent in marketing to its customers, tracking consumer trends and more. “The CRM module gives Redmap greater insights into its customer interactions. We are doing more communications with our customers. Because NetSuite is “cradle-to-grave,” we can use it to do all of our campaigning and prospecting through to closure, orders, support desk — everything. Once we set up a prospect and give them a number, the system tracks it through the full life of the client,” explains Kurt Carlsen, Redmap Sales Director.
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