5 ways to love your CRM again

Customer relationship management systems, or CRM as they are more affectionately known as, are the backbone of most companies. They are a multiverse of customer data, call tracking and email tracking just to name a few.

So with all this information in CRM, how can you ensure it’s not hindering your business? What can you do to improve your CRM in order to make the most out of it?

1. Training

Training might take up time and cost a bit more but well executed training will create confidence in staff to use CRM properly as see it as more of an asset than a chore. Training will clarify why a CRM is more effective when it is full of correct information and how it will work better for staff in that state. It goes without saying that this will increase user adoption and prevents staff from creating their own little databases in their notebooks!

2. Automation

First was the notebooks and filling in contact details to be stored in physical folders which took forever to complete. Then came computers that made this job so much easier, but still quite slow. Now, the process has evolved to include automation tools. Automation tools reduce the amount of time your staff will spend finding and filling in details. Tools such as lead capture and address validation have complex technology behind them to predict, autocomplete and add information using either an email address or a few keystrokes. Staff can therefore spend more time making calls which add value. Using an automation tool also formats data correctly, so addresses will be organised properly and won’t have village names in the city field or road names in the post code. Jazzy.

3. Standardising titles and fields

I love standardisation. Neat little drop down lists to select fields just as department and industry type are just so helpful, time saving and unambiguous. It prevents having various names for the same field. So for example departments, you could have HR manager, HR executive, head of HR but really the department is just HR, so that’s what would be on the drop down list. It’s awesome for quick selection and allows marketing to perform targeted campaigns.

4. Enrichment

Much like people, a full CRM is a happy CRM. Data is like the most delicious cake for a CRM so when it’s bulging with delectable information, you’ll be working with a very cooperative CRM. Like you’d add icing and malteasers and goodies to cake, you can add email addresses, credit ratings and addresses to CRM. So enriching CRM with extra data is a great way to create opportunities for omni-channel communications, whether that be marketing or sales.

5. Duplication rules

Duplication. Duplication. Duplication. Imagine receiving one promotional email which is well designed and everything but not really something you’re interested in, so rather than unsubscribe, you just delete it. Then a few moments later, you get the same email again and again and before you know it, it’s some sort of email groundhog day and you’re trapped in this loop of duplicate emails. Okay so that’s a bit far-fetched BUT it is really annoying when this happens, so don’t do it to your customers. Ensure you have duplication rules in place in your CRM that alerts you to very similar contacts being created and gives you the opportunity to merge them together. Not only will you be saving your reputation, it decreases costs too and creates a more informed view of customers – super for analysis and predictions.

Duplication. Duplication. Duplication. Imagine receiving one promotional email which is well designed and everything but not really something you’re interested in. JUST KIDDING. Just wanted to enforce the point of duplication rules.

So, just a few ways to make your CRM love you and to make your staff love CRM. This advice is much like Q giving James Bond a new gadget, a new asset to play with so go and make the most of it and reap the rewards!