How Effective Is CRM Really?

Customer relationship management (CRM) solutions have become important to modern business — but how effective are they? Most companies are still using spreadsheets to manage their customers. Are they really effective? If they are using traditional standalone CRM, are those systems effective? In these ever-changing business dynamics, the corporate world must make a choice.

​Option 1: Using Spreadsheets

A start-up company may find this option cost-effective initially, but as the business grows it is neither scalable nor flexible for expanding business needs. Company will quickly realise they need a more scalable CRM to track customers and transactions to stay competitive.

• Spreadsheets limit customer data to individual computer systems
• Management will never have visibility into sales team activities
• Alerts, reminders and diligent follow-up are missing, resulting in loss of business
• Complicated and time-consuming reporting and analysis methods
• When an employee leaves, their data is permanently gone or hard to comprehend

The answer is simple: this method is not ideal for rapidly growing business needs.

​Option 2: Using Age-Old Standalone CRM Software

Traditionally, companies have used standalone CRM software to capture client information — telephone numbers, addresses, and contact information. However, the fundamental flaw is that it fails to connect with customers at the right time and at the right place.

• Standalone CRM lacks flexibility in adapting according to business needs — it forces companies to change their methods according to the system
• Its major drawback is inability to integrate with other systems like ERP, payment gateway, or 3rd party systems to give a complete 360° customer view
• Lack of deployment flexibility and changing deployment options to meet business requirements
• Every new requirement must be developed at extra cost, with too much reliance on vendor technical support
• CRM is not accessible on mobile devices

Standalone CRM cannot cope with rapidly changing and fast-paced business requirements.

​Option 3: Integrated Cloud CRM

The Integrated Cloud CRM no longer works on a single workstation and can be accessed from any mobile device by authorized team members. The real advantage is its deployment flexibility and a wider array of information — customer history, complete trail of communication, calendars, emails, and the flexibility to adapt modules and fields to business requirements.

• Ease of integration with 3rd party systems through Web APIs
• Centralised client information giving a 360° customer view — capturing past communication, background, past sales and support activities, past orders, alerts, reminders, reports and analytics, and workflows for automatic communication
• CRM on the move — accessible from anywhere on any device as long as internet is available, with customer information at your fingertips
• Granular access control — appropriate team members can be authorized to access specific customer information, pulling it up in seconds

Modern business needs integrated systems that link core management functions to maximize productivity and performance. An integrated, cloud-based system helps companies capture vital information in one place and make use of the data at the right time. Cloud-based CRM is much more flexible, cost-effective, and is the future of customer relationship management.