Having a functioning CRM is imperative to maintaining business relationships. A CRM or Customer Relationship Management system is a computer software that makes organizing customer information easier and efficient. Last summer I had the opportunity to intern for a wealth management and retirement consulting team in Pittsburgh, PA. For most of the summer most of my projects occurred in the realm of relationship management which is entirely focused on maintaining customer relationships. The CRM that we used was Salesforce. After the internship I realized the tremendous amount of importance Salesforce had on the success of the business. Salesforce had 3 large benefits to the success of the team. The first is streamlined access to client information that allowed for universal knowledge of clients. The second benefit is prospecting power with new clients. Lastly, salesforce connected each department on the team in order to facilitate the most efficient flow of business.
Utilizing the CRM allows each team member to contribute data points on each client which allows every member of the team to have universal knowledge of each client. Like we have been talking about in class part of making sales less transactional is understanding your client. CRM’s have become more adept and advanced in allowing companies to track an abundance of the clients information. Knowing more about your client allows you to tailor conversations and the sales process more to their needs.
The second benefit of utilizing a CRM is the ease of prospecting. Salesforce provided for a new way to prospect across different lines of business. Due to the company-wide use of the CRM different lines of business were able to access new lines of business. This directly plays into the third large benefit which made the flow of business much more efficient. In the retirement industry getting more business is primarily accessed at the corporate level with the institution of a company 401k. Where most of the prospecting occurs is in the individual wealth space. Managing rollovers becomes much easier when the CRM organizes individual data. Instead of having to cross multiple people, a CRM makes transferring business over from retirement to wealth becomes much easier.
Overall, utilizing the company CRM is imperative to maintaining relationships as well as accessing new opportunities.
BoweryJE22
That’s super smart! Having a quality CRM can really help with organizing your current customers and creating possibilities for finding new ones. It also allows team members to work more individually instead of needing to collaborate all the time. Good post!