How do different business functions benefit from using CRM?

[Monirul Islam]

While the importance of CRM has traditionally been as a sales and marketing tool, some of the biggest gains can come in other areas, such as customer service, HR, supply-chain and partner management.

Here's how different business functions benefit from using CRM:

Sales teams can use CRM to understand their sales pipeline better.
Sales managers can access reliable information about the progress of individual team members in achieving their sales targets, for example, and see how well individual sales teams, products and campaigns are performing too.

Sales reps benefit from reduced admin, a deeper understanding of their clients, and the opportunity to spend more time selling and less time inputting data.

Marketing teams can use CRM to make forecasting simpler and more accurate.
They can get clear visibility over every opportunity or lead, and map out the whole customer journey from enquiry through to sale, so giving them a  better understanding of the sales pipeline or prospective work coming in.

It's also possible to include information from customers' public social media activity – their likes and dislikes, and their sentiment about specific brands and businesses.

Customer service teams can effectively track conversations across channels.
A customer might raise an issue in one channel – say, Twitter or Facebook – but then switch to email, phone or live chat to resolve it in private.

Without a common platform for customer interactions, communications can be missed or lost in the flood of information – leading to an unsatisfactory response to a valued customer.

Supply-chain, procurement and partner management teams can manage relationships better.
They can track meetings with suppliers and partners, record requests made, add useful notes, schedule follow-ups and stay on top of expected next steps.

Reporting enables businesses to compare the efficiency of suppliers and so manage their entire supply chain more effectively.

The HR team can use CRM to accelerate the recruitment process and track employee performance.
CRM can help the HR function by speeding up the on-boarding process, automating the process of managing candidates, analysing resourcing needs and identifying skills gaps, and supporting the pursuit of staff retention targets.
Think about how convenient it would be to consolidate all the streams of data coming from sales teams, customer service staff, marketers and social media—and translate them into actionable business information. A CRM platform lets you manage these streams of information across channels without losing track, and gives sales, service, marketing, and beyond an integrated view.

Source: Sales Force