A Beginners Guide To Understanding CRM
Lance Price Jr.
Global Marketing Automation Product Owner & Microsoft Dynamics CRM Expert
Customer Relationship Management platforms, also known as "CRMs," are a main driver for core business management. With the main focus being your customers, a CRM can help businesses truly maximize efforts when it comes to enhancing the experience customers have with that organization. Having a strategy along with the proper CRM platform is a true recipe for success.
The global customer relationship management (CRM) market size was valued at $91.43 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow from $101.41 billion in 2024 to $262.74 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights.
Money talks, and right now CRM is a heavily discussed subject! The outlook on the CRM industry speaks volumes to the rising level of priority within not only enterprises but also small businesses. The funny thing about CRM is that an organization of any level can find value in investing in a CRM platform. However, a common pitfall is not having the talent, understanding, or strategy to maximize CRM efforts. In this guide, we will cover the basics of CRM and why you should have it on your radar.
What is a CRM Platform?
It's safe to assume the first CRMs would arguably have been living and breathing traditional sales and customer service roles. How difficult it must have been to walk around storing and maintaining customer data from handwritten notes or even memory! The idea of "CRM" has been around for the past 50 years, dating back to when companies first began seeking customer input for feedback, which required segmentation using spreadsheets and lists. Believe it or not, political campaigns were some of the first organizations to begin using more comprehensive functionality to track relationships with voters and influencers. This led to more success on the campaign trail due to politicians being "closer" to the people they depended on for votes.
Within any CRM, the customer is always the focus. You may have heard of CRM software such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, or even HubSpot. Even website hosting platforms such as Wix provide their customers with basic CRM functionality to leverage with their websites. The best CRM platforms help you not only better manage your customer data directly but also position you to connect the dots among your other data sources. In a sense, a CRM platform can be a blank canvas, simply waiting for you to create and apply the strategy that makes sense for your business. Often, businesses rely on what's "gotten them by" in the past, such as a heavy reliance on Excel spreadsheets or surviving by searching Outlook for important emails.
Convenience is a beautiful thing until it begins to limit the ceiling for your business.
Yes, it may be easier to store your leads in Excel files, but when it comes to sharing the data with peers, it can be challenging. Yes, you can be really good at remembering interactions you've had with solid contacts, but trying to recall every interaction from all of your contacts will be tough. Yes, you can sell tickets for events and sell out, but how are you going to reach out to those same people next year to ensure they buy tickets again?
Now imagine trying to take all the awesome work you've been doing and make sure you get the recognition for your efforts. What about even telling the story of your success? These are all scenarios where a CRM platform can take great business efforts and scale them up to be exemplary. This can all be done without fancy AI! The only thing missing is the "right" CRM platform and a goal-oriented strategy to drive tangible business processes.
Why Does CRM Matter?
Does winning matter to you? If it does, then yes, you should be utilizing CRM for your organization! According to research done by SuperOffice , 91% of businesses with more than 11 employees are using CRM. This means that even small businesses can use CRM to make a difference, no different from their Fortune 500 counterparts. So why exactly should CRM matter to you? The right CRM platform should be a tool used to help your organization stay organized, stay on track, and fill in missing gaps. When a CRM is used correctly, it will help you be more efficient, win more with your customers, and provide them with an experience that will set you apart from competitors.
Here are examples of how CRM can be a main driver for your business:
When you choose the right CRM platform and provide it with the right strategy, these things and many more can be possible!
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The thinking that's required to fuel a CRM will force you to reconsider the experience customers are having with your business. CRM helps to address that issue and make those management discussions a priority. Running a CRM without having your customer and their experiences as the focus is a recipe for disaster!
It's important to remember, the larger the organization the more important it will be to stay connected and aligned over CRM efforts.
This can lead to challenges when it comes to working across business functions, especially when unclear business processes are brought into the equation. CRM can help drive alignment and be a force for change when it comes to large-scale CRM adoption. For smaller businesses, things are more streamlined, which will allow them to move faster and recalibrate as they go. It doesn't matter if you run a beauty salon or lead a nationwide sales team—CRM should matter to you!
How Do I Get Started With a CRM Platform?
It would be irresponsible for me to start out by recommending you run out and buy a new CRM. We can save that for another article! The first thing you should be doing is ordering your steps, establishing your goals, capturing your CRM requirements, and thinking about how all of these things should impact your customers. It's not hard to find a CRM system to purchase, but finding the "right" CRM to fit your needs is not always easy. It does require prework to make sure that your investment is the right one for your organization. Without having these core principles in place, you set yourself up to struggle.
Only 40% of businesses claim a 90% CRM adoption rate, while the majority of businesses struggle to encourage system adoption.
Statistics like the one above make complete sense. When you lack the proper vision for your CRM platform, struggle to communicate its value, and don't have the proper business processes in place to support your CRM, you can end up with a CRM horror story. You can avoid this by taking the time to map out your CRM journey and what you want from it.
There are a lot of tools on the internet to help you research different CRM platforms. G2 is a great resource for looking deeper into CRM providers, and they also provide feedback from people who've used those platforms.
With all of the resources at our fingertips, there's no reason why you should walk blindly into a CRM platform. The more you learn about these different platforms, the better you can make an informed decision on where to play. There's constant CRM content being published on Forbes , PCMag , and even Gartner . Now is better than later when it comes to leveraging a CRM platform, so choose to make your move now. Your customers are relying on you!
Interested in talking more about CRM & Marketing Automation? Message Lance on LinkedIn to connect! Thanks for reading.