Leads are the vein of every business. But lead management is not an easy feat. Better customer management can begin with great Customer Relationship Management software.
For instance, businesses need a system that helps them create and update customer profiles with their contact information, preferences, purchase history, and feedback. This way, companies can stock items based on popular demand. At the same time, you use a CRM to track and manage leads, opportunities, and overall sales pipeline from one app overview. Nifty right?
We have seen an example where a non-profit organization benefits from Odoo in the previous article. But does CRM only benefit non-profit organizations and online businesses, or can it be applied to other company sizes?
Before we dive into finding the answer, let’s learn about what CRM is all about.
Definition and the benefits of a CRM
CRM software stands for customer relationship management software. It is a software that helps businesses organize, manage, and access customer data and interactions. CRM software can benefit customers and businesses of any size by improving customer service, sales performance, marketing efficiency, and business growth.
In general, this is how it positively impacts your customer service and company:
- Contact management: Businesses can create and update customer profiles, store documents and contracts, and access customer data from any device through a single system.
- Communication: CRMs can facilitate communication and collaboration among sales, marketing, support, and other teams, as well as with customers via chat, phone, email, and social media.
- Automation: It can automate and streamline processes such as data entry, lead generation, email marketing, invoicing, and other tasks.
- Reporting: The software generates and analyzes reports, forecasts, and dashboards on sales performance, customer behavior, and market trends.
- Integration: CRM software integrates with other systems and tools to create a comprehensive and customized business solution.
Here are some examples of CRM vendors:
- Odoo: Odoo is an open-source ERP and CRM software that covers all your business needs: sales, purchase, accounting, website, project management, and more.
- Salesforce: A cloud-based CRM platform that offers a range of features and applications for sales, marketing, service, and more
- Microsoft: Microsoft offers Dynamics 365, a CRM solution that integrates with other Microsoft products, such as Office 365, Azure, and Power BI4.
- SAP: SAP provides CRM software as part of its SAP Business Suite, which also includes enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), and human capital management (HCM) solutions.
- Oracle: Oracle offers CRM On Demand, a cloud-based CRM system that supports sales, marketing, service, and analytics functions.
- Adobe: Adobe provides CRM capabilities through its Adobe Experience Cloud, a platform that combines data, content, and personalization tools for digital marketing and customer experience.
These CRM providers have their strengths and weaknesses. Unlike its other competitors, Odoo CRM is the only provider of open-source and affordable CRM software. Its CRM software tools offer a wide range of features ranging from data management, communication, automation, and reporting, to integration.
Now, let’s head to the key features of CRM software that make it essential for any business.
1. Customer relationship retention
The right software helps businesses retain customers by providing personalized and consistent service. CRM tools allow businesses to:
- Track customer information by creating and updating customer profiles with their contact information, preferences, purchase history, and feedback
- Segment customers based on their demographics, behavior, and buying patterns.
- Create targeted marketing campaigns using the Email Marketing module
- Measure customer satisfaction by using the rating feature of Odoo CRM software
In the real world, CRM tools help retain customers like this: Lisa owns a medium-sized online clothing store that wants to increase her sales and customer loyalty by using fully integrated Odoo CRM tools. Lisa tracks customer interactions to tailor her products, services, and communication to each customer’s needs and expectations. She then segments her customers to create customer segments and use them to send personalized emails to each segment.
Lisa also sends targeted marketing campaigns to create and send professional-looking emails to her customers and promote her products, discounts, and events. Lastly, she measures customer satisfaction so she can collect and analyze customer feedback and create a marketing strategy to keep her loyal customers by rewarding them and other satisfied customers by offering them incentives and discounts. Genius!
For medium-sized businesses looking for the perfect implementation, check out our webpage on a tailored implementation for SMEs.
We've had over 164 unique new opportunities created in the past 7 days & 232 different quotes made. Without a system like Odoo, we would not have been able to process this many leads & quotes efficiently. So overall, just thank you guys & Portcities for the ongoing support.
Quinn Miller - Managing Director of Tenzing Pacific Insurance Services
2. Fulfill business needs for better customer management
Better customer management starts with managing your customer data and information in a centralized and secure way. Benefit from CRM includes centralized information that allows your company to:
- Keep track of the status and details of each deal by storing documents and contracts related to each customer in one place
- Stay connected and informed by accessing customer information from any device
- Manage leads by seeing the visual representation of the sales pipeline and identifying bottlenecks
Here is an example from a large company that uses a CRM strategy to better customer management. John is a sales manager at a large manufacturing company that sells industrial equipment to various clients. He uses Odoo CRM software to manage his sales team and his customer relationships.
With Odoo CRM software, John can store proposals, invoices, and delivery notes, to product warranties to keep track of the status and details of each deal and to avoid losing or misplacing any important documents. John also uses Odoo because he can use his laptop, tablet, or smartphone to stay connected and informed about his customers - even when he is away from his office for an on-site job. Not to mention, Odoo 17 CRM provides him with a visual representation of his sales pipeline, so he can prioritize and focus on high-value opportunities and assign them to one of his sales representatives.
Odoo also allows multi-country and multi-currency for his global sales teams, so John can manage their performances in one place. Our sales manager also made good use of integrating his Odoo CRM with the Sales module to keep track of quotations and invoices. However, large enterprises typically require more than a CRM to regulate their business. Read what other implementations can be done for a large enterprise that might help big businesses thrive in the global economy.
3. Smart decision-making with CRM tools
With Customer Relationship Management software solutions, any business can make smart decisions based on data and insights and increase their revenue and growth. The simple answer is through thorough reporting and great system integration. For instance, CRM systems like Odoo 17 offer:
- Robust reporting and analytics capabilities that allow businesses to generate various reports and analyze key metrics such as sales performance, customer acquisition, and customer retention.
- Monitor your campaign performance. Use Odoo’s customizable dashboards in the CRM to observe real-time data and key performance indicators. Top it off with the Social Marketing app to check your online reputation and manage your social media accounts to provide an overview of the success of your social media campaign across all boards.
- Integration with other analytics software to get data on a business’ web traffic, social media engagement, and email marketing; and to optimize her marketing channels and tactics
Meet Emma, a marketing manager at a small travel agency that offers customized tours and packages to various destinations. She wants to improve her marketing strategy and increase her conversions and revenue by using Odoo CRM software for small businesses. So she starts customizing her dashboards to display the latest visitor conversion rate, the customer acquisition cost, the customer lifetime value, and the customer satisfaction score.
Data is power. Emma integrates her CRM system with other analytics software, such as Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and Mailchimp, to leverage data and insights from various sources Then, she uses her data to generate and analyze reports on her campaigns. These data show many leads and revenue generated by each campaign and the return on investment (ROI) of each campaign.
Ultimately, the data-driven approach helps our marketing manager identify areas for improvement, optimize sales strategies, and make smart business decisions for her travel agency. Emma and other small business owners can also implement other fundamental modules from Odoo to create seamless business processes tailored to their business needs.
Interested in managing your customer relationships easier with Odoo CRM?
4. Benefit from CRM in promoting transparency and collaboration
Transparency and collaboration in the best CRM Software constantly provide a unified and data-driven platform for managing customer relationships across different functions, processes, and stakeholders. For instance, Odoo 17 provides the following CRM features:
- CRM data helps businesses make forecast reports and track the performance of their sales team by using the Sales app.
- CRM helps you communicate in real-time with your team through the built-in messaging system. Schedule and assign activities such as meetings, calls, and tasks to team members through shared calendars and activities
- Enhance Sales team's collaboration by creating sales teams and assigning salespersons to specific teams to share leads, opportunities, and tasks. They can also track each other's progress and provide support when needed.
Look for a CRM platform that has expertise in establishing teamwork and transparency. For instance, as the Sales Manager of a growing e-commerce company, Lucy understands that transparency and collaboration are crucial for success.
The integration with the Sales app allows Lucy to easily track detailed insights into each salesperson’s sales activities, which helps in providing timely feedback to her sales team. A shared calendar and activities are important for a sales team to ensure that everyone is aware of upcoming activities and deadlines, promoting teamwork and preventing any miscommunication. Following up with real-time communication connects Lucy and her team to instantly collaborate and discuss customer-related matters, ensuring that they can address any issues or opportunities promptly.
5. Save time and resources using the right CRM strategy
Modern CRM helps save time and resources by centralizing data, automating tasks, and facilitating communication. It also streamlines your CRM processes and improves customer services. Here is how you can save time and resources with CRM software:
- All customer-related information stored in one place by having a centralized database that eliminates manual data entry
- Focus on building relationships with customers and closing deals through the automation of routine tasks
- Streamlines sales process features through automation and interconnectedness with various modules.
- Improve customer service response time by updating each customer record through the Activity Feed in Odoo CRM to allow transparent communication to share information, ask questions, and provide updates on customer interactions.
Smart resources and time management look like this: Imran works for a company that sells office furniture to businesses. Without CRM software in the business, his sales team relied on manual processes and spreadsheets to manage customer data and track sales activities. However, after implementing CRM software, all customer data is stored in a centralized database.
Now, sales representatives can quickly access customer information, such as contact details, purchase history, and preferences, saving time and ensuring data accuracy. The CRM software also automatically assigns leads based on predefined criteria, ensuring a fair distribution of workload. With the visual sales pipeline, Imran’s sales representatives can focus on high-value opportunities and close deals faster. He can also now quickly access a customer’s information, including past purchases and previous interactions when they reach out for support.
6. Promote scalability and integration to grow your business
Integration and scalability can be reached with CRM software by providing integration capabilities with other CRM-supporting software and having an infrastructure that is made to accommodate business growth. Here is how it works:
- Seamless data flow between different systems can be achieved through integration with various tools, core modules, and third-party data management software. Reducing the risk of errors, data will stay consistent across the organization, which will enable your team to work more efficiently.
- For a growing business, scalability becomes important as the customer base expands and the volume of interactions increases. CRM has a scalable Infrastructure that is made possible through its design to handle large volumes of data and accommodate the growth of a business.
Another case study example: Dev is the owner of a small online bookstore that sells books and e-books to customers around the world. As her customer base and product catalog grew, she realized she needed to use CRM software like Odoo to enjoy the benefit of integrating her website with the Live Chat app, which allows her to answer questions from her customers right away in order not to lose leads.
By incorporating sales and marketing activities with Odoo’s CRM app, she can also manage her leads and automate her online bookstore sales workflow. With the integration of Odoo’s invoicing app, Dev can automatically generate and send professional invoices to her customers - all in a day’s work.
Bonus tip: Selecting a scalable CRM software like Odoo allows you to easily add more users, contacts, and storage space as your business expands, without compromising the performance and security of your CRM software. Plus, it allows more room for customization to suit your specific business needs to accommodate the new business size.
Why CRM software is a must-have tool for businesses of any size?
Old school, manual lead management in sales is not a straightforward business. It involves painstaking pursuing, and converting potential customers who have different needs, preferences, and readiness to buy. You also require the grit to balance the quantity and quality of leads, as well as the speed and efficiency of the sales process.
This is why CRM software is a must-have tool for businesses of any size. In tackling these challenges, you still need grit to convert leads into sales. But now, sales teams can use CRM software to help them capture, organize, track, score, qualify, distribute, nurture, and convert leads more effectively. The system also provides valuable insights and analytics to optimize the lead management strategy that improves sales performance.
Most importantly, you can easily manage customer relationships more efficiently while its scaling capacity helps businesses meet the expectations of their customers. All in all, the system leverages the latest technologies and innovations to enhance business performance and competitiveness while delivering exceptional customer experiences.
Curious about how Odoo CRM can turn the statistics from your social media and convert them into leads? Feel free to contact our team of experts to learn more about how the CRM module can elevate your customer relations management in your workplace.
