CRM is the buzzword that has revolutionized the way we now do business and leave a digital footprint online. CRM or customer relationship management is the technology that helps in making use of the vast plethora of opportunities available online. CRM integrations have followed close in the heels of this technology’s initial origins. The integrations have come right on time so as to enable you to optimize your business with all the resources and systems under one neat umbrella.
Before we understand how to integrate your CRM with your business, we need to understand what CRM really is and what it actually does. CRM is the system or the process that helps you organize your business before all else. When you integrate your CRM with your business and its other tools, you have a foolproof system on your hands – one that will free up your bandwidth for more core tasks and help you reach your goals in a targeted fashion that also calls upon all the right information from the right places, at the right time! CRM integrations are necessary for your business for many reasons and we will understand this whole gamut in this article.
The first thing we need to understand is what is a CRM integration? When we automate the backend of our functions to organize information and to draw it out for certain functions within the sales and marketing pipeline, we are essentially setting the stage for some meaningful CRM integration.
A CRM integration is a series of activities backed by the relevant information and contained in a hub so that your business can function in a seamless manner. This is why it is important to integrate your CRM with your business in an efficient way. The main idea is to create a hub where all your activities and information can converge so that your team can efficiently function without having to bother about extra communication, chaos or mundane activities and tasks. This would help your business gain an edge and extra bandwidth that can be utilized towards securing more revenue in lesser time. A win, win for all!
Let us find out the various ways in which you can integrate your CRM into your business:
1. Email: This has to be one of the most important tools that we all use in order to reach our customers. When you integrate your CRM with your email, there are many benefits that you get. One of the most important benefits would have to be the fact that your contacts and their information is synced in one place so that your functions can be automatically linked to emails which would be sent to the right prospect or customer at the right time, at the completion of a certain function or interaction. This also helps in seamless lead conversion and even lead qualification since emails are known to create the highest number of conversions.
2. Documents and Contracts: This is another important aspect since every business deals with a number of documents and contracts as well as other files and paperwork that would be related to many interactions and deals between the customer and the company. Therefore, it is important to integrate your CRM with the documents so that this information can also be pulled up at the right time during or after an interaction. This is especially helpful for real estate companies, agencies dealing with legal and immigration work, among many others. You would have to create CRM integrations that can also help you collaborate with other vendors and parties in order to create contracts and additional documents.
3. Schedule: The calendar integration would have to be one of the most important CRM integrations for any and every business since the scheduling can take place with the convenience of all parties. This schedule can also be shared with reminders. The team members can also be promoted automatically to complete certain processes or paperwork before the scheduled meeting with a toolbar where the same can be uploaded for easy access during the meeting or the conference. This integration would also provide your business with a more professional front at a fraction of the cost!
4. Forms: The point of any CRM system is to collect and store relevant information for the use of the business when it comes to making crucial conversions and earning revenues in the bargain. Thus, the webforms and other forms would also have to be integrated for your CRM to be well integrated with your business. These forms can capture information from the right parties at the right time so that the same may be used for seamlessly and effortlessly fulfilling a number of functions.
5. Meetings and Conferences: With the pandemic and even before the lock down, many businesses had taken to scalability that spread across the globe. In order to interact with prospects and customers spread across the globe as well as team members who may be working remotely and from various locations, it is imperative for the CRM integrations to also including tools like Zoom or others that can help you conference with the right people at the right time. This should be further integrated with the information contained in the CRM system as well as the schedule and other such tools like email for notifications to reach the right people before and after the meeting.
6. Security and Protection: When you have all your information and data on this system which is a hub for all your activities, you should also have the right protection in place. A security tool or protection plugin would be an important CRM integration that can easily make your CRM system and your business that much more robust and risk averse.
You should ensure that you choose to integrate your CRM into the business with much thought and with the right technical support. Platforms like Engage Bay offer much support when it comes to the seamless execution and development of the framework.