The way businesses all over the world interact with their customers and potential customers is rapidly changing as the emergence of the digital era has greatly influenced how customers shop and interact with businesses. In this article, we will be discussing why you need to have a CRM system that works for your business: we’ll be outlining what a CRM is, who should use it and why you, as a Nigerian business owner, need to have a trusted CRM system.

WHAT IS CRM?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system or technology that is used by companies and organizations to manage all relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. By using this system, you improve business relationships which, ultimately, grow your business.

A CRM system is used to manage all customer relationships across boards, from marketing to sales, customer service/ experience, operations, etc. A trusted CRM system helps you strengthen your relationships with customers, potential customers, service providers, and users, as well as business colleagues. For a CRM to be termed trusted, it should be easy to use and have a quick implementation time.

WHO SHOULD USE A CRM?

Generally, a CRM system is used by the sales, marketing, customer support, business development, service team, and other external teams of a company. This is so because a good CRM system should let you store your customers’ and prospective customers’ information, identify new sales opportunities, detect ineffective marketing tactics, and keep customers’ issues for resolution. All of these should be available in one single location, making them accessible to everyone who needs them.

WHY A NIGERIAN BUSINESS NEEDS A CRM

While more and more businesses are embracing digital to get more productive, you don’t want to be left behind and not grow your business with the right software available for use.
• Without a CRM, your business will not manage customers’ information well and not offer the needed help to the customers. Also, without solving these customers’ issues and having repeat customers, your business will lose money.
• When you use a CRM, you are able to identify leads and categorize them accordingly. Your business focuses resources on pursuing the right leads. Therefore, you expand and find new customers in Nigeria.
• You can provide better customer support to your customers and potential customers with the right CRM system.
• You can get valuable insights on how to improve the quality of your products and services.

FEATURES TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING A CRM

In searching for an effective CRM system, it is important to be aware of what some features of a CRM should be. The primary goal of a CRM system is to improve relationships with customers and generate more revenue for your business. Therefore, in choosing the CRM that would work best for your business, the following should be considered:

• Sales force automation. The right CRM system should provide an automated workflow that creates a streamlined sales process that will manage leads, sales prediction, and your team.
• Process Management. All the business processes, from identifying the prospective customers to closing a deal, should be captured accurately.
• Analytics capturing. A good CRM system should be able to generate insights from sales data and metrics, which can then enable your business to make the right data decisions.
• Customization. Be able to make changes that best suit your business process and integrate other applications you use on a day-to-day basis.
• Team collaboration. The right CRM system strengthens your team’s communications and project management anywhere they are.

For most businesses, having access to the right CRM software can be quite challenging. That is why, as a Zoho partner in Nigeria, we recommend the Zoho CRM software for your business.

With Zoho CRM, there are no hidden charges; it is easy to use and helps businesses of all sizes build excellent customer relationships, with features like an inbuilt AI sales assistant, sales pipeline management, marketing automation, analytics, and more.