What Are the Different Types of Customer Relationship Management Tools?

Customer relationship management system refers to the use of software, hardware, and network technologies to establish an information system for enterprises to collect, manage, analyze, and utilize customer information. With the management of customer data as the core, it records various interactions between the company and customers during the marketing and sales process, as well as the status of various related activities, provides various data models, and provides support for later analysis and decision-making. ^[1]

The successful construction of a customer relationship management system within an enterprise must have some prerequisites and foundations to guarantee it.

First, it must have the full support of senior management and leadership. Because the CRM system is an upgrade of the original customer relationship management, the result will inevitably be inconsistent with the original marketing strategy, and at the same time, it will touch the interests of some people and be hindered by all parties. The system is also difficult to maintain;

Second, the role of the team must be valued. The implementation of the CRM system not only requires team members to fully understand the business processes of the enterprise, but also requires the ability to combine issues and processes to select the appropriate technology, which has higher requirements for team members; again, it must be approved by all members. ^[2]

A customer relationship management system that integrates customer relationship management ideas and advanced technological achievements is a powerful assistant for enterprises to achieve customer-centric strategic orientation. A complete and effective CRM system should include the following four subsystems.

(1) Customer cooperation management system

The customer relationship management system should highlight the customer-centric concept. First of all, customers should be able to communicate with the enterprise in various ways, and the customer cooperation management system has this function.

(2) Business operation management system

Every department in the business needs to engage with customers, and

The customer relationship management system is based on advanced management ideas and uses advanced information technology to help enterprises ultimately achieve customer-oriented strategies. Such a system has the following characteristics:

(1) Advancement

Customer relationship management systems involve a wide variety of information technologies, such as data warehouses, networks, multimedia and many other advanced technologies. At the same time, in order to achieve full-scale communication and interaction with customers, organic integration of call centers, sales platforms, remote sales, mobile devices, and Internet-based e-commerce sites is required. These different technologies and different function modules must be combined into A unified customer relationship management system requires different types of resources and specialized technical support. Therefore, the customer relationship management system has high-tech characteristics.

(2) Comprehensive

The customer relationship management system includes four subsystems of customer cooperation management, business operation management, data analysis management, and information technology management. It integrates the optimization and automation requirements of sales, marketing, and customer service behavior of most enterprises, and uses a unified information database. , Carry out effective communication management and execution support, so that transaction processing and process management become a comprehensive business operation method.

(3) Integration

The CRM solution has a powerful workflow engine, which can ensure that the tasks of each department and system can be dynamically coordinated and seamlessly connected. Therefore, the integration of the CRM system with other enterprise information systems can maximize the component functions of each system of the enterprise, realize cross-system business intelligence, comprehensively optimize the internal resources of the enterprise, and improve the overall informationization level of the enterprise.

(4) Intelligent

The maturity of the customer relationship management system can not only automate business processes such as sales, marketing, and customer service, reduce a large amount of human logistics, but also provide enterprise managers with a variety of information and data analysis and integration, providing powerful decision-making Basis. At the same time, the business intelligence of customer relationship management adopts centralized management of business processes and data, which greatly simplifies software deployment, maintenance, and upgrades. The Internet-based customer relationship management system enables users and employees to access the enterprise anytime, anywhere, reducing a large number of transactions. cost. The integration of the customer relationship management system with other enterprise management information systems will enable business intelligence to be more fully utilized, and provide support for companies to find new market opportunities, improve product pricing schemes, increase customer loyalty, and thereby increase market share. ^[1]

1. Maintain old customers and find new ones

Research shows that the cost of developing a new customer is five times that of maintaining an old customer, and enterprises can collect, organize and analyze customer information by establishing a CRM system, and achieve internal resource sharing, which can effectively improve service levels and maintain Relationship with old customers. In addition, the CRM system relies on advanced information platforms and data analysis platforms, which can help companies analyze potential customer groups and forecast market development needs, help companies find target customers, seize business opportunities in time, and occupy more market shares. An important helper for new customers and markets.

2. Avoid customer churn caused by excessively scattered customer resources

The customer resources of many enterprises are scattered and accumulated, which directly leads to incomplete customer information records and low value. At the same time, due to the flow of sales staff, customer resources will continue to drain. The CRM system can help decision makers accurately know the overall promotion status and existing problems of customers, so as to carry out business guidance and strategy adjustments in a timely manner to prevent customers from being lost for no reason.

3.Improve customer loyalty and satisfaction

The CRM system can help enterprises understand customer information in detail, promote communication between enterprises and customers, coordinate customer service resources, and give customers the most timely and high-quality services. At the same time, it can help establish a long-term and stable mutually beneficial relationship with customers, which has a significant effect on improving customer loyalty and satisfaction.

4. Reduce marketing costs

Through the CRM system, enterprises can realize resource sharing internally, optimize cooperation processes, externally increase their understanding of the market, and effectively predict market development trends, which can not only improve enterprise operating efficiency, but also greatly reduce operating costs.

5.Master the working status of sales staff

The mobile CRM system can enable the person in charge to accurately grasp the position and working status of the sales staff, prevent the situation of sneaking, playing tricks and doing private affairs, which is conducive to the performance evaluation of enterprises and improve the work efficiency of sales staff. ^[2]

The basic steps for developing a CRM system should include the following:

Establish a plan

The establishment of a CRM system needs to be combined with the actual situation of the enterprise and supported by various resources. Therefore, before implementation, it is necessary to accurately grasp the application requirements of the enterprise and formulate a high-level business plan combining technical solutions and enterprise resources.

2. Form a dedicated team

To draw a capable representative from each department that intends to use the CRM system to form a team is an important guarantee to ensure the smooth progress of the system. Therefore, after the plan is determined, the team should be formed in time and early concept promotion and training should be conducted.

3. Analyze customer needs and build a system

Because the main purpose of establishing a CRM system is to increase customer satisfaction and increase business efficiency, analyze customer needs, understand the different service requirements of different customer groups, and find the interaction between the company and customers to ensure the economics and practicality of customer files. Sex. Enterprises should establish different customer file contents and establish a preliminary customer information management system according to the characteristics of customers.

4. Clear enterprise application requirements

After understanding the needs of customers, on this basis, analyze, evaluate and restructure the business processes of the enterprise and re-establish new business processes. This process requires extensive consultation of employees to ensure the full participation of grassroots employees and managers to ensure that the system can achieve the various functions required by end-use employees.

5. Determine the appropriate plan, coordinate resources, advance in stages

The advancement of the CRM solution is not achieved overnight. It should be implemented gradually in a gradual manner, so that the enterprise can discover problems at any time and fully understand and solve them, and can also adjust at any time according to business needs. It must be emphasized that new features should be gradually added as needed, which is not only more applicable, but also avoids system confusion caused by one-time additions.

6. Training

In order to ensure the successful application of the CRM system, it is very necessary for the users of the system to grasp the use methods as soon as possible and to carry out timely training. The training objects should mainly include management personnel, sales personnel and service personnel of the enterprise, and the content should include usage methods, precautions and maintenance points.

7. Use, evaluate and improve

By using a CRM system, enterprises must gradually take full advantage of the system. In the process of using, the enterprise should evaluate the validity of the system application with the developer and supplier of the system, so as to continuously find problems, modify different modules, and gradually improve its practicality. ^[2]