Talking about CPaaS, it will refer to advances in communication technology. So what exactly is CPaaS? Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) is a technological advancement in the form of communication services that can provide convenience by integrating direct communication in real time in one dashboard. Business people are starting to look at CPaaS as a solution in providing services to customers more effectively and efficiently.
Through CPaaS, you can improve your customer relationship management. what is customer relationship management? Customer Relations Management (CRM) has a very wide understanding. In simple terms, CRM is a relationship management activity carried out by business actors to customers with the intention of creating customer loyalty. Business actors will try to build good relationships so that new customers can become regular customers.
So, before getting to know more, you need to know the 3 components contained in CRM, including the following:
- Management
This component consists of the parties who involved in interaction activities with customers. For examples are Call Center, Marketing Team, Sales Team, and so on. Likewise with the strategies used to manage and build good and appropriate relationships with customers.
- Relationship
In establishing a relationship, what needs to be considered is how to provide the best service in order to create a good relationship with customers. Not only that, it’s also necessary to think about how to provide the best solution to solve the problems complained of by customers.
- Customer
Customers are the main reason for the existence of CRM and are needed by business people. These customers are prospective customers and regular customers. In this case, what needs to be considered is how to get new customers while maintaining and increasing the loyalty of existing customers.
This CRM activity is supported by the use of technology to facilitate customer relationship management activities called the CRM system. One way to meet the goals of CRM is to find out as much information as possible about customer needs and behavior so that business actors or companies can improve their services. This information and data is collected through the CRM system. So what is a CRM system?
System of CRM
CRM system is an integrated information system to plan, schedule, and control pre-sales and post-sales activities carried out by business people. This CRM system makes it easier for management to simplify sales activities starting from the presence of prospective customers who will enter until the transaction happen.
In other words, a CRM system is a tool used to help with contact management, sales management, agent productivity, and so on. CRM tools can also be used to manage customer relationships which include marketing, sales, digital commerce, and customer service interactions.
A CRM system will give you a very clear picture of your customers. You can monitor it in one place in the form of a simple customizable dashboard that tells you a lot of things like past customer history, customer order status, customer service issues that have been or have not been addressed, and so on. In addition, businesses can choose to include information from their customer’s social media activities such as what they like, what they say and share about your business or your competitors.
What Can a CRM System Do ?
After knowing the CRM system, are you wondering how the CRM system actually works? How can a tool help you manage customer relationships?
CRM tools pull information and manage data obtained from many sources such as email, voice calls, company website, social media, and other channels to get more customers and retain loyal customers. CRM tools will provide a place to organize your workflows and business processes, so you can get more done. In CRM tools there are many features including:
- Reporting and Dashboard
Users can visualize the latest business trends and business metrics through CRM tools
- Service Management
CRM software can manage service delivery from purchase to pre-contract service. Services, whether preventive or reactive, can be delivered on-site or remotely.
- Sales Managemet
In this feature, users can track the sales process starting from the initial lead stage, then into the opportunity stage, to the final order conversion stage.
- Marketing Campaign
Inside the CRM system there are automated workflows that can help businesses create marketing campaigns.
- Inside Generation
CRM tools will help businesses analyze large amounts of data to facilitate forecasting and create actionable insights.
Types of CRM
Business people need CRM software to manage good relationships with customers and conduct sales interactions. If you think that CRM is only for sales force automation, then you are wrong. CRM is a solution that can help you increase sales, improve customer experience, and increase customer loyalty. CRM has capabilities with various functions such as marketing, sales, customer service, and sales partner management.
From the explanation above, business people or companies can use CRM technology to develop long-term business strategies. However, business people must know the right CRM for their business. Because the needs of a company with other companies are not necessarily the same. Then how to determine it? To help you figure out the right CRM for your business, you should know the following 3 types of CRM:
- Operational CRM
This type of CRM includes marketing, sales, and customer service that helps the company make a profit. Operational CRM will simplify the company’s key business processes and also provide a customer service infrastructure with the aim of retaining customers. Three important components included in this CRM are marketing automation, sales automation, and customer service.
- Collaborative CRM
Making sales is a collaborative process. In this case marketing data and sales data must be able to work together. Collaborative CRM brings together marketing automation, sales force automation, CPQ, and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) data so that they all collaborate to provide a clearer picture of customer needs and expectations.
- Analytical CRM
The primary focus of analytical CRM is data, analysis, and reporting that are interconnected to help businesses understand their customers. CRM is capable of linking customer behavior and intent data, company data, and customer data points. Then business people will have accurate and complete access to connect to customer profiles.
Bussiness Function Who Needs CRM System
- Marketing
The task of marketing is not only creating attractive campaigns, not only thinking about marketing strategies, but marketing also has challenges to reach customers. A marketing-focused CRM can provide many conveniences that are symbiotically coupled with sales. This allows marketing to run campaigns more effectively and helps bring in more leads. For example, a lead capture form on a business person’s website can be integrated into CRM software and forwarded to sales for follow-up.
Also what marketing can do is create marketing campaigns and automate them across channels, then get statistical data on customer email status, click-through rates or other tests to get the best strategy. Since all customer activity is tracked in software, marketers can gain knowledge about customer behavior.
- Sales
The sales team handles the sales process from point A to B, which includes sales leads, sales processes, and sales teams. CRM technology helps sales simplify workflows and manage customer voice, chat, and email contacts on a single platform. In addition, businesses can run sales reports and forecast sales leads to track sales activity and review agent performance.
- Customer Service
For customer service, using CRM software will help store customer preferences and track all customer activities. Customer service can manage and monitor post-sale interactions through CRM software and notify marketing and sales teams of important updates. This allows for a collaborative function to address potential problems and find appropriate solutions.
Who is CRM For?
If the above explanation about CRM has been reviewed, then who can actually use this CRM? CRM systems offer a better way to manage interactions and external relationships with customers for the success of all businesses. Starting from sales, customer service, marketing, or other business lines. CRM tools allow you to store customer contact information, identify sales opportunities, record service issues, manage sales campaigns in one central place and provide information on every customer interaction for anyone within your company or your business team who needs it.
In short, this CRM can be used by all business people ranging from UMKM, Startups, and Enterprises. This will make it easier for business actors to reach their customers and be able to connect to more customers. CRM can help companies of all sizes, whether small, medium, or large, to drive business growth. This can provide benefits for small businesses, where it is often found that small businesses need to find ways to do things in an effective and efficient manner.
Reporting from salesforce.com, CRM is the largest enterprise software category with fast growth, it is estimated that by 2027 CRM spending worldwide will reach USD $ 114.4 billion. This shows that the use of CRM will be increasingly popular in the future. If you want your business to last long, then you need to plan a long-term strategy that is customer-centered and supported by the right technology.
If you want to try to improve your business communication you can use a communication service that can help you manage relationships with your customers better. One example, you can use OCA Interaction initiated by OCA Indonesia. OCA Interaction integrates several frequently used platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp in one dashboard, so you will more easily control and reply to incoming messages from customers. In addition, by using OCA Interaction you can increase the productivity of agent services.
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