CRM is built upon the foundation of a solid CRM or contact management system. A CRM or contact management solution can help a company keep track of customers at any stage of the sales process. Whether a customer contacts a company via email, fax, phone, letter or in person, a CRM strategy can help manage and track the relationship. For example, you can send different marketing campaigns to its leads and current customers, then track responses. You can look up the history of communications with those contacts – the information is pulled from a central database, rather than lost when your former sales manager leaves. CRM systems can also help you remember past interactions with contacts – a few clicks reveal the log of past promises, communications, sales profiles, and more.
The marketplace is full of CRM solutions. Small- and mid-sized firms tend to turn to off-the-shelf solutions, like Microsoft CRM, Maximizer, ACT, QuickBooks Customer Manager, and Goldmine.
I thought it would be helpful to mention a CRM software product we recently reviewed for our clients. It was an independent review and we are not tied to any technology company, but at Equiteq (http://www.equiteq.co.uk) we help other consulting companies to grow and are always on the lookout for good automation tools. This particular piece of sofware is called InfusionCRM (http://www.infusioncrm.com) and it was originally built with relationship development in mind, rather than the transactional focus of most CRM systems. It’s well worth a look.