What is CRM?
Our guide to CRM software
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and the purpose of a CRM system is to help you improve your customer relationships and grow your business over time. Not sure which CRM system might be right for you?
Do a small assessment to figure out which CRM system might be best for you, or book a demo with one of our salespeople!
More than 1 million users
What does CRM mean?
CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is an important part of businesses that want to improve their interactions and relations with their customers. A CRM system gives businesses full control over their customer relationships, supports customer prospecting, sales and marketing strategies, and creates flexible solutions for customer support and analysis.
In other words, a CRM system helps centralize customer data and streamline all customer interactions to enhance your customer relationships and help drive the growth of your business.
Contact &
Customer Data Management
A CRM system gives you a central database for storing and managing detailed customer information in a structured way.
With a CRM system it becomes easy to keep track of all your contact details, the communication history, and their preferences.
Sales Pipeline &
Opportunity Management
A CRM helps your sales teams track and manage all their leads and opportunities. You gain insight into the sales process with the help of forecasts, statistics and reports.
With the help of dashboards and the knowledge gained, you can act faster on issues as they arise and prioritize your sales efforts where they matter the most.
Customer Support &
Service Tools
Get all the features you need for tracking your customer inquiries, issues and support request. With the right CRM tool, you can automate and streamline several customer-oriented processes.
Less wasted time doing manual task means it’s easier to focus on what really matters: your customers.
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The importance of a CRM strategy
Building longer lasting customer relationships is a cost-effective and crucial part of business success. CRM software enables you to create engaging customer journeys that helps build up long-term and profitable relationships with your customers.
Creating these kinds of personalized customer journeys enhances your customers satisfaction and increases the likelihood of them continuing being your customers. With a well-implemented CRM software and strategy, it becomes easy to create customer journeys that can increase retention and upselling, laying the foundation for further success and increased sales for your business.
A great CRM system enables your business to go beyond the normal supplier-customer relationship.
By taking advantage of everything a CRM system has to offer, you position yourself as more than just a supplier; you become a valued partner. This helps to encourage loyalty and trust from your customers, as more and more of them will appreciate the personalized attention and seamless interactions a CRM program helps to achieve.
At the heart of a successful CRM strategy lies the ability to enhance customer service and marketing efforts.
By using customer data and insights you can tailor your services to meet individual needs, creating a more personalized and satisfying customer experience. But not only that, marketing efforts can become more targeted and effective, allowing you to craft campaigns based on real-time customer behavior and preferences.
Do you know all the details about what was said to a customer? Are you feeling confident the customer relationship won’t be jeopardized if the responsible salesperson quits? Implementing a CRM system ensures that all your customer information is centralized and owned by the company, rather than being tied to individual employees.
With a CRM system in place, you gain control over all customer interactions and can safeguard vital information. A CRM system equips your team with the right tools needed for a complete overview of everything from conversations to agreements. It makes sure that everyone in the company has real-time access to the data, providing details on when, where, and by whom each interaction happened. This reduces the risk of any critical customer details being lost during employee transitions and helps improve your internal communication.
CRM for all your teams
For customer-facing roles, a CRM system becomes the central point for all customer interactions. It provides them with access to all the information needed to be able to provide excellent customer care. In addition to a 360-degree view of the customer, a CRM program can also streamline processes in other departments. Here are some examples:
Sales
- Lead & Pipeline Management
- Quotation Management
- Reporting & KPI
Marketing
- E-mail Marketing & Segmentation
- Marketing Automation
- Surveys & NPS
Support
- Ticket Management
- Field Service & Work Order
- Self-service & FAQ
Improved Customer Relationships
A CRM system helps you build and maintain stronger relationships with your customers. By centralizing customer data, you can better understand your customers’ preferences, purchase history, and interactions with your company. This knowledge allows you to create more personalized interactions, targeted marketing, and better customer support, ultimately enhancing your customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Streamline Sales and Marketing
A CRM system provide tools for your sales and marketing team to manage leads, track customer interactions, and automate various aspects of the sales and marketing process. This streamlining leads to more efficient lead nurturing, shorter sales cycles, and increased conversion rates. It also helps you to identify the most promising leads, which can significantly impact your bottom line.
Full ownership of the value chain
We provide a full-service solution and do everything ourselves, from the development of our software to implementation and support. We’re with you all the way, making sure that you get the most out of your CRM software and help you improve your customer processes as they change over time.
Technology and user behavior combined
Most companies underestimate the importance of user behavior when implementing a new software, resulting in it never being used. This is why we provide services for change management through Lime Intenz. With help from our consultants, you can gain the foundation needed to succeed with your company’s software adoption.
We are experts in our field
Sales processes, ticketing workflows, marketing automation and more, there’s a lot to keep track of when building a successful customer journey. We help you avoid pitfalls and create successful solutions based on our decades of experience and industry expertise.
Don’t know which CRM to choose?
What solution is the perfect fit for you? Answer our short assessment and you’ll get an idea!
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Customer Relationship Management (CRM)?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) means working actively and structured with customer interactions to improve customer journeys and create long-term customer relationships.
CRM, as part of a business strategy, means to focus on understanding and fulfilling customer needs to enhance their satisfaction and foster long-term loyalty. CRM, as a software tool, centralizes customer data, streamline business processes, and enable personalized interactions across sales, marketing, and customer service functions.
The goal of Customer Relationship Management is to create a complete overview of each customer, improve communication and drive business growth through strengthened customer relationships.
What is a CRM system?
A CRM system, also known as a CRM tool or CRM program, is an important IT solution for businesses that provides them with full control over their customer relationships by consolidating all communication into a centralized platform. This allows businesses to gain valuable insights into their customers behavior and history, helping them create better customer experiences.
Most CRM system can also be integrated with other important IT systems, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), to provide an overall picture of each customer interaction.
What is a CRM system used for?
A CRM system is most often used to streamline sales, marketing, and customer service activities. In sales, it simplifies prospecting, helps with follow-ups, and offers a centralized view of the sales pipeline. In marketing, the system manages leads, executes campaigns, and provides real-time data for targeted strategies.
For customer service, it efficiently handles customer tickets and inquiries, taking advantage of its centralized data to enhance customer satisfaction and build longer lasting relationships.
The adaptability of a CRM system makes it an important part of businesses to optimizing their sales, marketing, and customer service efforts.
How do I choose the right CRM system?
Choosing the right CRM system is a complex process that benefits from a collaborative approach with your colleagues. It’s important that you clearly define the purpose behind the investment. What specific organizational goals do you intend to achieve through the implementation of a CRM system? Think about the end-users within your teams, identify key individuals that will use the tool and understand their unique needs and preferences.
Examine the functions that would significantly impact your team’s efficiency. By aligning these features with your budget, it becomes easier to see what features meets your specific requirements and needs.
Using this kind of collaborative approach to the CRM selection process not only minimizes the risk of getting sidetracked but also enhances the likelihood of identifying the perfect supplier who can fulfill your organization’s unique needs and goals.
Can the CRM be tailored to suit my specific needs and requirements?
To maximize the benefits you get from a CRM system, it’s important that the system can be adapted to seamlessly integrate with your unique processes. To get the most out of a CRM system, it needs to support its daily users the right way.
That’s why Lime CRM is designed to be flexible, allowing a modular approach to implementation. Why buy a feature if you never use it? We empower you to customize your CRM system exactly to your needs.
Can a CRM system be integrated with other software?
One of the most important parts of IT infrastructure is that each system can communicate with each other, enabling seamless data flow. Integrating your CRM system with other essential IT tools opens the door to creating a unified information hub, eliminating the need to navigate through different systems for data.
Make sure it can connect effortlessly to other tools that’s part of your operations, such as an ERP system, Business Intelligence (BI) tools or digital signature. Most CRM systems offers this kind of integration, but not always. Make sure the CRM system you choose provides the right connectivity to your other systems.
Can CRM systems satisfy the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well?
Investing in a CRM system might initially seem like a big commitment, often accompanied with the idea that it’s only beneficial for larger companies. However, it’s just as important for smaller to medium-sized enterprises to have a tool that can cultivate customer relationships and unlock new business opportunities, especially during their growth phase.
In fact, the significance of implementing a CRM system extends beyond the scale of a business. Having the ability to efficiently manage customer interactions, streamline processes and grow faster, is just as impactful for smaller enterprises as for larger entities.
The value of CRM is in the strategic advantage it offers during critical growth stages. Investing time and money into a CRM system is a profitable undertaking, even for smaller companies. It empowers you to compete more effectively, enhancing customer relationships and capitalizing on emerging opportunities, creating sustainable growth in your competitive business landscape.
That’s why Lime CRM is the perfect fit for middle to large-sized businesses that needs to connect multiple departments and systems into one solution. Lime CRM is a flexible solution that can be tailored to your specific needs and processes. For startups and small to medium-sized businesses, Lime Go is our plug’n’play solution with a focus on sales and simple integrations.
How much does a CRM system cost?
Without doubt, cost is important to think about when investing in a new CRM tool. Some platforms offer free services while others require a financial investment. However, it’s crucial not to overlook other critical factors when deciding to buy CRM software.
Think about the long-term value and benefits that each platform can provide to your business. Is the CRM system you’re thinking of buying scalable? Can it evolve and grow with the expansion of your business? Evaluate these kinds of aspects in a holistic way, to make sure you have a complete understanding of the true value proposition that a CRM system can bring to your organization.
Can I test a CRM system for free before I buy?
Just like many others, you might want to test a CRM system before deciding if it’s worth a purchase or not. That’s why we offer free testing environments of our CRM tools before you decide.
Lime Go is our user-friendly sales and exploration tool designed for smaller companies, offering a slightly simpler yet powerful solution. On the other hand, Lime CRM stands as our most comprehensive CRM solution, tailored to accommodate the needs of your business. Take advantage of our free trials and gain a sense of what it’s like to navigate and work within these tools, or book a demo to get a tailored experience of what we at Lime can do for your business.
Exploring our CRM offerings for free allows you to not only assess the user interface but also to understand the practicality and efficiency these tools can bring to your daily operations. Take your time, take if for a test run, and make sure which one of our solutions is best for you before making any commitment. And if you feel like you need more guidance, we’re more than willing to set up a personal demo that can show you all the benefits of our CRM!
6 tips when comparing CRM systems
A CRM system saves companies both time and money, but how do compare the different CRM systems you’re looking at? Let us show you everything you want to know!
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