Accelerate Business Growth with a CRM: Here’s Why You Need One

8 min read - June 29, 2023

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In today’s competitive business landscape, it’s important for businesses to have a strong sales team. But even the best sales team can’t succeed without the right tools and processes. That’s where CRM comes in. According to a survey conducted by the Distribution Strategy Group, CRM usage is on the rise, with only 15% of companies reporting that they have no CRM solution, compared to 32% in 2017. CRMs are robust tools that play a pivotal role in accelerating business growth by streamlining operations, enhancing cross-team collaboration, managing contact records, synchronizing data, automating daily tasks, and businesses are recognizing the benefits.

What is CRM software? 

CRM, or customer relationship management, is software that helps businesses track and manage their interactions with customers. Over time, CRM has evolved and continues to transform, with the latest advancements incorporating AI technology.

The initial goal of CRM was to provide businesses with a centralized system for organizing customer data, managing contacts, and improving customer relationships. However, as technology advances, CRM has taken a significant leap forward. AI-powered CRM systems, like our own, WPCRM, go beyond the traditional functionalities. They leverage intelligent algorithms and machine learning capabilities to analyze vast amounts of customer data, identify patterns, and generate valuable insights. This transformative power of AI enables businesses to uncover hidden opportunities, deliver personalized experiences, and drive revenue growth.

Through the evolution of CRM, it has expanded its scope beyond its original purpose to empower businesses to make data-driven decisions, automate tasks, predict customer behavior, and foster stronger customer relationships. For sales teams, CRM provides a holistic view of customer interactions, enabling them to better understand customer needs, track leads, and close deals more effectively. By integrating your CRM with your ERP, sales reps get more insight into what others in your organization are doing and how they interact with customers and suppliers.

Understanding The Full Potential  

CRM isn’t just for sales teams. It is used by marketing teams, service professionals, managers, and executive leadership. In fact, CRM can be used by any department that interacts with customers. For example, CRM enables marketing teams to own the front of the sales pipeline to ensure your sales teams have a continuous stream of highly qualified opportunities to work with. In WPCRM, our powerful integrated marketing tools make it possible to create effective, targeted marketing campaigns. Marketing campaigns allow you to build segmented lists of complex business data, promote efficiency and help your sales team manage customer expectations.

To effectively compete and deliver an exceptional customer experience, gaining a comprehensive understanding of your customers, their preferences, and their interactions is essential. Moreover, customer-centric companies experience a remarkable 60% increase in profitability2. This is attributed to their ability to anticipate and fulfill customer needs, fostering stronger brand relationships and long-term trust. Today’s top CRM technology places customer centricity at its core, empowering companies with a 360-degree view of each individual buyer.

6 Ways CRM Adds Value to Your Business 

1. Center of Business Growth 

It’s not uncommon for valuable leads to slip through the cracks. However, with a CRM, you can eliminate this friction by harnessing its power as a centralized hub of customer information—the cornerstone of your business growth.

One of the key advantages of WPCRM lies in its ability to provide visibility into your sales pipeline. It offers a comprehensive view of each deal’s progress, enabling you to track sales performance, identify bottlenecks, and make informed decisions to accelerate deal closure. With WPCRM, you gain the crucial insights needed to strategize effectively, allocate resources wisely, and optimize your sales efforts to drive revenue growth.

With increased visibility into your sales pipeline, you can identify promising opportunities, prioritize leads, and nurture relationships with precision. WPCRM provides real-time insights and predictive analytics, allowing you to make data-driven decisions and seize every growth opportunity.

2. Team Alignment  

Achieving cross-team alignment is vital for the success of your business, particularly when it comes to your sales and marketing efforts. This plays a crucial role in streamlining every stage of the buyer’s journey. A good CRM system can foster internal collaboration and ensure the sharing of critical data and customer information, helping teams’ function cohesively. This unified approach leads to a consistent end-to-end customer experience that cultivates customer loyalty to your brand.

WPCRM streamlines the process of coordinating sales and marketing by offering a comprehensive set of integrated tools and features. Additionally, the platform offers integrations to enhance functionality and enable seamless data flow between teams. By leveraging WPCRM, you can foster cross-team alignment, optimize the buyer’s journey, and ensure a cohesive customer experience that drives brand loyalty and business success.

3. Sync and Share Data  

By centralizing all data and capturing every interaction between your team and customers, your CRM becomes the ultimate source of truth for your organization. This enables your team to easily share and access accurate records from within the platform, empowering them to create personalized customer experiences.

Imagine this scenario: An executive leader receives a call from a customer. With WPCRM, they can seamlessly jump right into the CRM and access up-to-date customer information at their fingertips. Through integrations, they can instantly view recent meetings, orders, and any relevant interactions with the customer. Armed with this comprehensive knowledge, the executive is well-prepared to engage with the customer, having a clear understanding of their history and expectations.

This level of real-time visibility and accessibility is just one example of how WPCRM revolutionizes the way you handle quotes and inventory. With WPCRM’s integration with real-time quoting and inventory management systems, you can stay up to date with the latest information on product availability, pricing, and promotions. It eliminates the need for lengthy searches or manual updates by providing instant access to the most relevant and recent customer information. Whether it’s a sales representative, a marketer, or an executive leader, the CRM ensures that everyone has the necessary insights to deliver personalized and tailored experiences to customers.

4. Save Time  

In addition to data syncing and sharing, WPCRM automates various other tasks, further enhancing efficiency. These tasks include email automation, lead scoring, pipeline management, reporting, and more. By automating these processes, your team can focus on strategic activities, nurturing customer relationships, and driving business growth.

CRMs automate other day-to-day tasks, speeding up your time-consuming but necessary work. CRM automation may include data entry and contact record updates after every interaction, as mentioned above, as well as:

– Follow-up communication

– Email sequences

– Sales workflows (e.g., un-enrollment trigger workflows, deal workflows, quote workflows)

– Lead-to-rep assignment

– Lead nurturing campaign

– Campaign analytics

5. Enhancing Accountability  

Accountability in sales helps the department maintain a strong performance. It encourages team members to meet goals and perform at a high level. A CRM can play a crucial role in enhancing accountability within your sales team. Here are key features that promote accountability:

– Activity tracking and logging: CRM enables tracking and logging of sales activities, such as calls, meetings, and emails. This ensures that every interaction is recorded and allows for better visibility and analysis of team performance.

– Pipeline management and forecasting: With CRM, you can manage and track the sales pipeline, enabling accurate forecasting of revenue and identifying potential bottlenecks. This promotes accountability and helps sales representatives prioritize their efforts.

– Performance metrics and reporting: CRM provides real-time performance metrics and reports, allowing sales managers to monitor individual and team performance. These insights facilitate accountability discussions and enable data-driven coaching and improvement strategies.

6. CRM that evolves with your Business – Introducing AI-Powered CRM

When looking for a CRM system to implement, you’ll want to ensure the software you select will suit your ever-growing and evolving business needs. Currently, the latest developments in the CRM software space include artificial intelligence (AI). Our AI-powered WPCRM provides teams with invaluable tools to enhance their sales processes and nurture customer relationships. One notable application of AI in WPCRM is Suggested Products, which is the ability to suggest cross-selling and upselling opportunities to existing customers. By analyzing customer data, such as purchase history and interests, WPCRM can identify products or services that align with their preferences, boosting sales and fostering account growth.

Furthermore, AI plays a vital role in analyzing customer data and activity history to generate actionable tasks that drive sales. Plaimaker, the AI-powered sales assistant, utilizes advanced learning algorithms to provide real-time insights and personalized sales strategies. Plaimaker identifies cross-selling and upselling prospects that may have been overlooked by your sales team. Each recommendation, known as a “plai,” offers tailored suggestions for effectively responding to various scenarios.

With AI technology, WPCRM empowers sales teams with the intelligence and guidance needed to optimize sales efforts and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

CRM is a powerful tool that can help businesses of all sizes improve their sales process and customer relationships. By leveraging CRM to its fullest potential, businesses can drive sales team adoption and accountability, leading to improved productivity, customer relationships, and overall revenue growth.

We are committed to helping our customers succeed with WPCRM. If you are looking for a CRM solution that can help you drive sales team adoption and boost your sales team’s success, then WPCRM is the right choice for you. Request a demo or reach out to our sales team for more information.