In a report prepared by Gartner , research vice president Joanne Correia wrote: “In the coming years, CRM will be an essential part of digital initiatives. «This is an area of technology that will receive funding, as digital business is crucial for companies to remain competitive.»
Correia indicates that a high level of investment in both digital marketing and initiatives in favor of customer experience will be the main growth factors in the CRM market. According to the Gartner report, those who invest the most in CRM include:
- Communication, media and IT companies . These organizations tend to invest in analytics tools and delivering a better, more consistent customer experience.
- Manufacturing, including packaged consumer goods. These industries use CRM systems for product and channel management.
- Banking and securities . Banking and securities companies rely on CRM systems to provide their clients with quality service and sell more and better their products.
But it is not only companies that benefit from these verticalities that take advantage of solutions to manage customer relationships. As large corporations are also opting to provide more personalized customer experiences, a CRM system is more crucial than ever before to the growth of any business.
CRM systems respond to the challenges of modern sales
The rise of social media provides endless opportunities to reach and contact potential customers, but these new touchpoints make things difficult when it comes to effectively tracking and monitoring your company’s interactions with each potential customer. .
CRM solutions have evolved to respond to the challenges organizations face today, integrating with other services and encompassing the multitude of channels through which sales opportunities and customers interact with companies. Additionally, a CRM system allows marketing and sales teams to collaborate effectively and share resources, avoiding duplication of efforts.
A CRM contains the tools necessary to obtain more effective and relevant content for specific sales scenarios, so the sales team will have what it needs to close more deals, faster. Such a level of customization is virtually impossible to achieve (especially in rapidly growing organizations and large corporations) without the organization and workflow management that a CRM system provides.
Growing at full speed brings new challenges
When organizations enter a growth phase, it is extremely easy to leave valuable sales opportunities unattended—not because the marketing department is not doing its job or because the sales team is not closing deals, but because both teams are overloaded with information. Improving sales productivity is crucial to achieving new goals in terms of income generation, but also for the company to grow. According to Docurated’s State of Sales Productivity report , 50 % of sales teams faced growth goals that were at least 20% higher than the previous year.
Without a central, streamlined CRM system, your marketing and sales team spends hours reviewing emails and trying to contact their co-workers to get the latest information on their sales opportunities. This may translate into lost or duplicate appointments or the inability to follow up on vital tasks to care for sales opportunities throughout the sales funnel.
Furthermore, each seller may have a different sales process. In such a scenario, communications with leads will be inconsistent or, in the worst case, prospects may have to repeat the same information every time they contact a representative of your company. Potential customers may be interested in your brand on a social media channel, but since the marketing department is not clear where the sales opportunity originated, your salespeople could provide them with information that is out of date with the needs or demands of each potential customer. .
Modern CRM system solutions work with complex workflows
CRM systems, like HubSpot CRM, solve the many challenges marketing and sales teams face. CRM systems effectively organize contact information, as well as any interactions that occur in different communication channels with the customer, such as your website, email, phone calls, social networks, and more. Nowadays it is really crucial for marketing and sales teams to work as a cohesive unit , and CRM systems are the perfect solution to help rising organizations achieve this goal.
Perhaps most importantly, today’s CRM solutions work even with the complex workflows of rapidly growing sales teams. CRM systems keep your team focused and in sync, allowing for more efficient use of time and eliminating many of the small, time-consuming tasks that add no value (for example, reviewing past emails to locate the most recent communication with a sales opportunity or track who was the marketing representative who last contacted a prospect).
Today’s businesses cannot risk losing valuable sales opportunities in an increasingly competitive world. Your competitors are ready and waiting to capture the sales opportunities that you have missed. When growth is a priority, CRM systems facilitate the processes necessary to facilitate the interpersonal and personalized communication that your potential and current customers expect. A CRM system is not only crucial for long-term growth, but it also provides an advantage over the competition.