What is CRM?
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a strategy used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. Good customer relationships are at the heart of business success. There are many technological components to CRM, but thinking about CRM in primarily technological terms is a mistake. The more useful way to think about CRM is as a strategic process that will help you better understand your customers' needs and how you can meet those needs and enhance your bottom line at the same time. This strategy depends on bringing together lots of pieces of information about customers and market trends so you can sell and market your products and services more effectively.
What is the Goal of CRM?
The idea of CRM is that it helps businesses use technology and human resources to gain insight into the behavior of customers and the value of those customers. With an effective CRM strategy, a business can increase revenues by:
- Providing services and products that are exactly what your customers want
- Offering better customer service
- Cross selling products more effectively
- Helping sales staff close deals faster
- Retaining existing customers and discovering new ones
Why Use SugarCRM?
Business Benefits
Accessibility - Empower your Sales Team
- 24/7 web based access - Anywhere, Anytime
- Supports Wireless Devices (Palm, Blackberry, etc)
- Offline Synchronization
Sales Force Automation - Increase Sales Productivity
- Account and contact management, team selling, and opportunity management
- Lead processing workflow
- Alerts and notifications / group calendaring will increase operational effectiveness and guarantee widespread adoption
Marketing Automation - Make your Marketing Department Powerful
- Improve the way you create/manage campaigns
- Efficiently track customer interactions
- Create and track metrics for closed loop marketing campaigns
Customer Service - Help your Customers Faster
- Track all customer service requests and share information across all departments
- Asset management
- Advanced case escalation and notification
- Use workflow to automate customer support
Management - Get a Grip over your Sales Cycle
- Eliminate functional silos with ad-hoc reporting and customizable dashboards.
- Give your managers a reliable pipeline that they can trust
IT Benefits
Revolutionary Architecture - Integration Made Easy for IT
- Open Source design gives IT the ability to customize Sugar to support unique business processes
- SOAP API's will make integration into existing systems seamless.
Low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) - Make your CFO Smile
- Lets your business save 50% - 70% in implementation and support costs vs. proprietary CRM products.
Rapid and Flexible Deployment Options - IT Managers have Choice
- With Sugar CRM, you can have a Hosted, Appliance, or On-Premise deployment. Chose the deployment option that best meets your needs
- Operating system neutral solution - Prevent vendor lock in and increase system scalability for the longer term.
References
- Wailgum, Thomas. "ABC: An Introduction to CRM." CIO - IDG. March 6, 2007. November 18, 2007. www.cio.com/article/print/40295.
- "Why Use Sugar CRM." November 16, 2007. Lynch Digital Media. www.lynchdigital.com/sugar/WhyUseSugarCRM.html.
