A Guide To CRM Integration

Customers are the backbone of any successful business, and a well-run CRM system is vital to nurturing those relationships and ultimately driving sales. However, understanding that you need a CRM system and knowing how to integrate one into your current operations are two very different things. In this article, we’ll explore a few important considerations that go into successful CRM integration.

What is CRM?

CRM stands for ‘customer relationship management’, and it generally has to do with organising, managing and following-up on sales leads and customer-related processes. By managing relationships with current and prospective customers, you and your team will be better able to drive sales, increase revenue and keep your customers happy in the process.

Integrating CRM

For many small businesses, the problem with their CRM is that it’s not very well organised, nor is it intentionally integrated into as many of the business’ systems as possible. But before we get into that, let’s take a moment to consider a few ways that CRM integration is already happening in your business model – even if you do not realise it:

• Your e-mail application allows you to bundle all correspondence with a specific client, with the ability to search for and categorise messages.
• Contacts sync across multiple platforms
• A Rolodex card contains note and other info based on previous client interactions

The latter is interesting because it’s not even a form of modern technology, despite the fact that it could be considered CRM integration – albeit not a very powerful one. With that in mind, one of your primary goals in this department is ensuring that your CRM is more than a glorified Rolodex.

Putting It All Together

Well-integrated CRM can provide efficiency across your business and its various functions and initiatives. It’s absolutely essential that you begin with a plan – or, that is, a vision of how you would like the CRM to function within the framework of your business. What are the advantages you hope to receive through its implementation?

Taking the time to determine precisely what rewards you would like the company to enjoy will help you determine two things:

• Which specific CRM software is best-suited for your company?
• How you will set up or modify current operations to integrate with it?

You see, the variety of CRM systems currently available is staggering. It’s important that you know precisely what you hope to accomplish by integrating one, so that you can more effectively choose the program that is best going to serve your company.

In your search for the best CRM system, you’ll find that most of them fall into three overlapping categories:

• Contact-focused: data is organised around the contact, with other information linked in (previous correspondence, past purchases, etc.)
• Lead-focused: data organises around lead data, logging interactions and steps that ultimately lead to the finalised sale.
• Conversation-focused: tracks and organises conversations with customers across multiple touch points and brings all together in one interface.

Once you’ve determined which type of interface works best for you, it’s only a matter of browsing the available options and getting started.