Outlook is No Longer Enough. Why You Need a CRM

It may seem easy enough to communicate with customers via email, it’s what we’re all used to. However, what happens when they send you a text, an iMessage, or give you a call? So many of our customer conversations get lost when using multiple forms of communication, which can leave you trawling through different platforms and messages for hours trying to find the piece of information, such as the vital quote you gave to a customer. Using a CRM can keep all this communication in one place helping you to save time and resources.

What is a CRM?

A CRM is a Customer Relationship Management software that allows you to keep all customer communications in one place. In a CRM, you can manage your contacts, send and receive emails, create a sales pipeline, and assign tasks and activities. CRMs make it easier to view the conversation between someone working in your company with any customer, presenting all the company-client interactions in a clear automated timeline.

Why Should You Ditch Outlook?

Siloed Information

While email providers such as Outlook, Gmail, or whichever else you use are great for keeping in contact with people, communicating with customers via email often leads to several long and confusing threads and lost information. Maybe you remember adding a service or product to a customer’s quote. You know you had that conversation, but when you start searching your messages you cannot for the life of you remember when or where it was. Switching away from email services to a CRM ensures that all the information is kept in one place, making it easier to track and find again.

Duplication of Work

No matter how many times you tell a customer how much a service costs, what’s included in the quote, or another vital piece of information, they are likely to ask the question again. Maybe you forget what you’ve told them or simply find it easier to repeat the information in a new message so it’s clear to them. This is a common practice in email communication and can waste time and resources. Using a CRM means that this information is always close to hand and that you can use templates or pre-written snippets to save time.

Time Spent Coordinating Work

Perhaps you’ve asked someone else in your company to communicate with a customer and provide feedback on their needs. Now the multitude of emails and messages between the company and customer span across several people. Now it’s your partner or employee that can’t remember which message some vital information was in and you have no access to it. Using a CRM allows you to coordinate this communication, tracking all company contact with each customer in one place.

Bad Customer Experience

If you’re experiencing all these challenges in communication, it’s likely that your customer is dealing with the same issues. They’re looking through email threads or messages to find the quote or important piece of information and are getting lost. They are sure you told them one thing and you’re certain you said another, but finding that conversation isn’t simple. Switching to a CRM can help you change this, as conversations, quotes, invoices and other vital contact information are easy to track.

What’s the Solution?

One of the best CRMs out there is HubSpot. Known for its forever-free package for companies just testing the waters, as well as its wide variety of paid packages, from Starter, to Professional to full-blown Enterprise, it offers something for everyone.

HubSpot provides many of the standard CRM services listed above, allowing you to keep company-customer communication clear and hassle-free. It creates automated timelines so you can track what’s been said to the customer, any requests they’ve made, and vital information such as quotes and invoices. However, it also offers bonus features to scale up your communications such as setting up a shared inbox, creating a chat bot, making custom meeting links that sync to your calendar, and much more.

If you’re fed up with wasting time on tracking emails and messages to find important information between your company and customers, schedule a free consultation today, and we can discuss whether HubSpot or another CRM will meet your needs.