What is the ultimate aim of customer relationship management (CRM)? It provides tools to manage your workforce while learning more about your customer and your interactions with them. For sales and marketing teams, it offers a practical strategy for identifying customer needs and analyzing their behaviors, with the goal of forming stronger relationships. By enabling more targeted communications, CRM software helps people work more efficiently and effectively, increasing the likelihood of success.

Customer Relations Management and CRM Software

Clients often want to know what is the purpose of CRM and how it can impact their business. The answer is that it allows you to more effectively manage employees while gaining insights into your customers so you can form stronger relationships. This enables you to target your goals towards increasing customer retention and sales conversion rates while identifying new leads for outreach efforts.

At the most basic level, Tech Target states that customer relations management can increase efficiency and maximize productivity for businesses of all sizes and in all industries. Through the set of tools CRM typically offers, you can accomplish the following for your organization:

  • Consolidate customer information: CRM gives you the ability to consolidate customer information and documents into a single database which can be easily accessed and used by all members of your organization.
  • Obtain better lead management: Having one convenient place for your sales teams to input, analyze and track leads allow for more effective management of this data.
  • Automate tasks: By automating tasks associated with marketing, sales and call centers, you can streamline these efforts and better prioritize your agent’s time.
  • Manage your workforce: Through enhanced tracking of employee information such as job performance stats and reviews, you can better manage and optimize the efforts of your sales and marketing teams.

CRM is not a new concept. However, technological advances have changed the way it is implemented and the potential impact it can have on your organization. As leading cloud provider, 8x8 gives you access to the latest in customer engagement solutions. By creating one integrated, unified network, we support you in using CRM software to maximize productivity, to identify and reach larger numbers of prospects, and to increase the overall volume of your business.

Get the Targeted Market Communications Your Business Needs

What is CRM software? Back in the early days of customer relationship management, CRM software was premises-based. Requiring a heavy investment in terms of setup and maintenance, the Harvard Business Review advised that as opposed to using it to manage all aspects of day to day operations, it was better suited for targeting strategic projects and goals.

Today, CRM software programs are available through network servers, commonly referred to as "the cloud." Instead of a large front-end investment, cloud computing lets you pay as you go. This allows you to pick only the services you need, while providers perform maintenance and updates. Through the cloud, you can choose from a broad range of CRM applications to improve all aspects of sales, marketing and management based on your business’ size, industry and goals. The downside is that compatibility between these apps can be a problem.

At 8x8, our team of innovators developed a better way. As a leading cloud provider, we offer a unified, integrated system that acts as a bridge between leading on-demand CRM services such as Salesforce.com, NetSuite, hosted Microsoft Dynamics, and Zendesk. This allows you to access the specific apps you need to reach your goals:

  • Maximize productivity.
  • Manage sales and marketing efforts.
  • Streamline processes.
  • Monetize each customer interaction.
  • Optimize opportunity efficiency.

Get the Most From Customer Relationship Management Tools

Customer relationship management provides the tools you need to make the most of every interaction you have with your customers while increasing the efficiency of your sales and marketing teams. By automating tasks, consolidating customer information and maximizing leads, lead management CRM software lets you optimize your workforce.

As an innovator in the industry and a leader in cloud communications, 8x8 provides one integrated solution for implementing various CRM software apps to suit your specific business’ needs. With over 140 patents and counting, we power more than one million users worldwide. Let us show you a better way.

Your cloud provider and available features set directly affects your relationships with your clients, which directly affect your business' bottom line. Choose a superior cloud system and ensure that this effect is for the better. Fill out our online form today or call us at 1-866-879-8647 to request a no-obligation quote from an 8x8 Product Specialist.

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