Businesses are adjusting like never before to the scourge that the novel coronavirus pandemic has unleashed on the planet. Be it shifting to a work-from-home regime, or reimagining marketing strategies, changes can be witnessed in every aspect of a business.

However, some things do not change: a business still needs customers to thrive. As different departments – sales, marketing, and customer relations – in business continue to work remotely, it is more important than ever to synergise their efforts for an effective approach to generate leads, convert them to customers, and ultimately magnify revenues. And that’s where CRMs play a critical role.

Conversely, while large businesses have had the system in place from even before the pandemic, small businesses did not. In fact, according to statistics, one in five small business owners are not even aware of what a CRM is!

And that does not bode well when we are talking about a situation with no end in sight.

4 ways in which CRMs can save your business amid the Covid-19 crisis

Here we will talk about the paramount nature of CRMs and how it can be the most effective tool during this global crisis. Let’s take a look at these four factors –

Organisation

Perhaps the most critical contribution of CRMs in a business is that it facilitates organisation and cohesion of an array of processes across different departments, especially when personnel are working remotely.

Sans a CRM in place, leads will fall through the cracks imminently because of cross-departmental confusion. There are numerous permutations and combinations of what could go wrong if there’s not a singular system binding these operations at one place.

An efficient system like Zoho CRM will bring customer services, marketing, and sales under one roof so that these departments can exchange information about customer leads, follow-ups, and conversion seamlessly, saving time, effort, and the confusion.

Better customer retention

In these times of crises, losing on customers is not an option, especially not for SMEs which rely on repeat customers for a regular stream of income. Good CRMs, like Hubspot solutions in Dubai, facilitate superior customer retention by providing insights into customer preferences sourced from various websites. Using those insights, your marketing team can concoct more personalised strategies and campaigns, which will provide for enhanced customer satisfaction and ultimately, retention.

However, despite these efforts, customers can sometimes move on. Even then, a CRM can provide analytics on what went sideways through meticulous customer database and their lead sources. If you see customers from a specific lead source moving on, you can act on that pronto to ensure no more leaks by introducing customised campaigns for them.

Improved lead qualification

One of the most challenging tasks when working remotely is to qualify leads based on their potential to turn into customers. A CRM system like Zoho solutions does this for you by qualifying leads to ensure better conversion rates.

These systems use approaches like scoring leads, which clears the air for your marketing and sales team to formulate strategies more efficiently.

Automation of business processes

It is not possible to manage or even micro-manage each department for cohesive functioning during these work-from-home times in the wake of Covid-19. So, how great would it be if inter-departmental activities were to be automated?

A CRM does just that, allowing your company to run just as efficiently as before by unifying the multiple departmental systems. With CRM automating processes, chances of missing out on important factors can be minimised, making way for greater co-operation and smoother flow of operations.

Covid-19 is forcing businesses to adapt to newer styles of operation, opening up alternative routes, and who knows, as companies continue to adapt to this situation, something more efficient than ever might emerge!

Think and enact.