CRM is essential for businesses that want to strengthen customer relationships — regardless of their niche or size. One of the many advantages of this type of software is the unification of its functionalities with those of other technological tools.
Integrating systems with CRM can be the solution your company needs to use technological resources more intelligently and make the most of each one. Read on to understand what systems integration with CRM is and its business benefits. Good reading!
What Is CRM?
First of all, you need to understand what CRM means. Customer Relationship Management is a technological tool that helps companies make decisions to improve each consumer’s experience.
Through detailed monitoring of the customer’s relationship with the company throughout the purchase journey, it is possible to understand their needs better to offer a closer and more personalized service.
CRM software is an excellent ally for organizations’ service, sales, and marketing teams, as it optimizes the management of customers, partners, and leads.
What Is Systems Integration?
Today, a company will likely need multiple systems to meet its technology needs. However, this significant amount tends to make processes confusing, slow, bureaucratic, and inefficient — exactly everything we want to avoid when acquiring these tools.
This is where systems integration comes in: it happens when two or more are connected to interact in an automated way. Thus, they communicate and ask each other for the information they need to carry out their routines.
The objective is to unify the functionalities of the tools to make the routine more agile and productive. Instead of having an extensive set of technological resources to carry out its activities, the company integrates the systems, simplifies the work of the professionals involved, and improves its performance.
After all, it’s no use just acquiring a million pieces of software. The company must always look for ways to use available resources better to absorb the advantages technology offers to the business world.
To function correctly, in most cases, the integration process requires customizations, information architecture, data intelligence, and other resources, being done directly, when the systems allow (via API), or indirectly when the connection needs to be done through integration hubs.
Why Integrate CRM With Other Systems?
Now that you know what CRM is and how systems integration works, it’s easier to understand why so many companies use this solution. Customer and purchase process data concentrated in CRM is automatically transferred to other systems, eliminating operational steps and allowing professionals more time to focus on other activities.
There are several reasons to perform CRM integration with other systems. The process helps companies in several areas, such as:
- exchange of information between sectors;
- reduction of human errors;
- time optimization;
- reduction of reworks;
- increased efficiency in service;
- improved customer retention.
When integrating CRM with an ERP, the company will have more agility and control of strategic data for its success. Want to see an example of how this dynamic works? Customer and product records are synchronized between the two systems, and calls and sales proposals are sent directly through the CRM.
If the sale is completed, the ERP functionalities continue the flow, releasing the separation order to the stock and carrying out the distribution, shipping, and financial control processes.
What Are The Advantages?
Throughout this article, we have already talked about some of the benefits of performing systems integration with CRM. So that there are no doubts about the relevance of this solution, we have separated the main advantages. Check out!
Cost Reduction
Time is money. Making better use of employees’ time and making them work using technology as an ally is an excellent way to reduce costs. In addition, having more control over data and a unified view of what happens in the sectors makes it easier for professionals to identify waste.
Increased Productivity
Accessing data quickly and reliably is very important for increasing team efficiency. CRM integration allows the process to be closely monitored and helps define what actions need to be taken to deliver to customers what they need.
Not to mention the reduction of reworks by automatically allowing information to be transferred from one system to another. In this way, professionals spend less time on manual and repetitive tasks and focus on strategic activities for the business’s success.
Also Read: How To Identify If My Company Needs To Hire A CRM?