February 21, 2024

CX Master

Service Matters – Learn What Works!

Customer relationship management concept man selecting CRM

The Top 3 CRM Software Packages You Need to Consider if You Want to be Successful

For the success of a business, managing the customer relationship is essential. For any company, the client is seen as a potential resource. Therefore, it is essential to stand out from the competition while responding to your client in a timely and effective manner. As a company, we must not forget that the criteria for choosing a client are not always financial, even in times of crisis.

Whether it is to acquire a product or a service, the client also requires account recognition, responsiveness, and listening. With a good customer relationship management system, the company must be able to handle difficult customers and claims, to be responsive and communicative, to be satisfied by meeting their needs.

Here is where the role of CRM comes in! Now if you’re not in the support and operations industry, you might not be familiar with CRMs so perhaps we’ll start with an introduction first.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the set of tools and techniques for capturing, processing, analyzing information on customers and prospects, with the aim of creating loyalty by offering services.

With regard to a computer application, these include software packages that allow you to deal directly with the customer, whether in terms of sales, marketing or service.

Why Use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software?

Customer relationship management software (CRM) is considered to be a modern version of the “client file”. It is a tool that allows the updating and storage of prospects or contact lists as well as associated customers or target companies. It is possible to use an Excel file and a simple database to maintain your customer records, however, modern CRM software goes further. Here are some examples of its features:

Increase the Satisfaction of Your Customers

Be more efficient in business processes (by better managing your after-sales service, being more responsive and intervening at an opportune moment),

Have a closer relationship with the customer by developing a privileged relationship with them (by registering their preferences, birthday for example, etc.),

Develop competitiveness by providing more services and personalized advice.

Increase the Profitability of the Company

Increase sales through targeted actions on defined segments of your customers and prospects (Example: retain your customers through specific offers based on each customer population),

Optimize the profitability of commercial investments, marketing, and customer service thanks to a better calculation of the return on investment,

Have a clear vision of the commercial activity to optimize the processes (report on the sales, the follow-up of the appointments of the salesmen, the advancement of the objectives, etc.),

Save time by automating recurring tasks (automatic results tracking, automatic client recovery).

Improve the Internal Organization

Calendar shared between the collaborators (tasks to do, events),

Centralization and sharing of all customer data (all important customer information is sorted in the same place and easily accessible),

Structuring information and business processes. You have a structured customer file with relevant information that can be used for marketing purposes (Example: paper mailing, e-mailing, phoning, etc.),

Keep the history of your customer data.

Top CRM Solutions Available In the Market

Your relationships with your customers are sometimes complex, but the tools you use to manage them must remain simple. Created with the needs of customers in mind there are many CRM solution software available in the market. Some of them are mentioned below:

Freshdesk

Freshdesk is the only cloud-based support center software that offers you a feature-rich package that’s easy to use and affordable. Freshdesk is a full set of features including social networking capabilities with   Facebook and Twitter support. The list of integrations includes services like Capsule CRM, Google Contacts, Google Analytics, Freshbooks, Harvest, and JIRA.

All this combined with the exceptional support of Freshdesk gives you an unbeatable, reliable and incredibly affordable customer support experience.

1. Advantages:

  • Setting up Freshdesk is easy
  • The support team is available to help you
  • No hidden clauses, no hidden fees
  • Freshdesk is the only support center that allows you to chat with your team directly from the ticket thanks to Team Huddle
  • Customize your workflows to fit your needs

Disadvantages:

  • Limited data transfer
  • Premium Package is expensive

2. Zendesk

Zendesk is one of the best customer service software packages in the market. With its ticketing system, live chat, telephone support and intelligent knowledge base in one solution, providing effective customer service have never been easier.

Advantages:

  • Reduces the total number of views that agents must view
  • Allows you to see the total number of open tickets at a glance
  • Very easy to configure

Disadvantages:

  • Agents need special training to respond to tickets on a brand
  • Difficult interface

3. Salesforce

Salesforce is your sales order center that takes the form of a Customer Relationship Platform (CRM). The solutions work together to help you manage your sales, marketing, and customer service from one central location. It is intuitive, personalized and designed to support your growth.

With Salesforce CRM, treat each of your customers as if they were the only one. By managing your customers’ information and their interactions with your business on a single platform that is accessible anywhere, anytime, you can understand their needs, solve their problems, and identify areas for which they need help.

Advantages:

  • More than 150,000 companies are on the road to success with Salesforce
  • Ensure the satisfaction of all your customers
  • Manage your business from a mobile device

Disadvantages:

  • Salesforce is the most expensive option in our list! You will need to pay consultants to customize the CRM for you, the interface and the applications
  • As Salesforce does everything, it has many – too many – views and its reporting and dashboards are clunky.

Final Verdict – Freshdesk Wins!

Out of the three discussed CRM solutions; Freshdesk is my favorite and useful option available. Freshdesk is SaaS-based customer support software used by more than 100,000 companies worldwide. It is a comprehensive helpdesk that provides excellent customer support thanks to its many features and integrations.

Freshdesk is positioned primarily as a hub that centralizes all customer requests whether they come from the ticketing platform, incoming phone calls, chats, emails or social networks. This hub allows you to be present at each place where your customers are and it also allows assigning the tickets automatically or manually to the agents who will take care of them.

Freshdesk’s Strengths against Salesforce and Zendesk

In view of the exceptional functional coverage of Freshdesk and its ergonomics, the creator offers an ultra-competitive rate.

The tool is also very well connected to social networks. Freshdesk allows you to master all incoming and outgoing channels without leaving the tool.

Finally, Freshdesk offers you the opportunity to purchase one or more phone numbers and manage calls from this online software.

Conclusion

The use of good customer relationship management technique within a company gives you the opportunity to boost the marketing strategy by targeting and segmenting your contacts. These efforts will enable the company to evolve by conducting targeted marketing campaigns, with the sole purpose of raising the awareness of customers according to fairly precise criteria.

About Author

The following two tabs change content below.
I am an ITIL Expert and extremely passionate about customer service, customer experience, best practices and process improvement. I have led support, service, help desk and IT teams as well as quality and call center teams in Canada and the UK. I know how to motivate my teams to ensure that they are putting the customer first.

Latest posts by Hutch Morzaria (see all)