Are you looking for CRM software? Wondering what companies use CRM? It’s important to know the top industries that depend on this type of service. A few examples are healthcare, education, retail, and hospitality. This blog post will help answer some of your questions about how these different industries benefit from using CRM. 

CRMs allow businesses to capture customer data in one place which is then used to develop strategies based on customers’ needs and wants. Some other benefits include increased sales, improved marketing efforts, and more satisfied employees who can better serve their clients with up-to-date information about them. 

Advantages of Using CRM for Sales Teams

How do sales teams use CRM? Contact relationship management software brings an array of benefits to those that choose to introduce it into their business. 

Reporting and Analytics

Sales CRM software empowers sales teams with seamless report creation, duplication, sharing, and editing capabilities. It offers templates to simplify complex scenarios and features robust analytics platforms for advanced data analysis and visualization. Additionally, it facilitates cloud-based sharing of insights with project collaborators.

Lead Generation

Generating leads is easy with a CRM. It offers guided processes of identifying sales and marketing targets, analyzing online customer activities, data import, and managing milestones and project steps.

Higher Productivity

Using CRM makes the entire sales process more productive. It helps to make forecasts for sales more accurate and allows comparison between old and new sales to make changes to the future product. It also facilitates the production of quotes. In addition, communication is more efficient with mobile tracking and data sharing.

Shorter Sales Cycle

CRM for salespeople allows shortening the sales cycle and simplifying it by segmenting the leads and sorting functionality.

Increased Revenue

How do you increase revenue with CRM? Performance is improved via boosting sales conversion rates, creating long-term relationships with customers, introducing suggestion selling, and expanding your customer base through referrals.

Does Your Company Need CRM?

Manufacturer

A CRM system offers a variety of valuable functions to power manufacturing success. Large OEMs, for example, will be focused on renewal and upsell and will have multi-phase contracts to keep track of. Here the CRM will function as a collaboration tool between sales, marketing, engineering, and support. 

Manufacturers also need to form relationships with dealers and distribution networks. As a result, manufacturers require robust CRM systems to streamline the quote-to-order process and effectively organize their data as their dealer network grows.

CRM proves incredibly beneficial to manufacturers when it is integrated with other systems. One standard integration is between CRM and ERP (enterprise resource planning). 

This will give you better coordination between the various departments and stages involved in the sales process. An integrated system can also transform your organization into a lean enterprise. For example, manufacturers can leverage CRM data to develop a pull-production system that aligns production and inventory with demand to slash inventory waste. 

Professional Services Firm

At a professional services firm, nothing proves more valuable than relationships with clients and industry colleagues. Long-standing relationships drive new sales opportunities. 

In addition, your loyal clients build your company’s reputation by providing business referrals and writing positive reviews. With these relationships forming the core of your business, a CRM instance serves as a vital asset for success, but it must support your unique needs.

Let’s say your organization, a specialized financial services firm, for example, has no titled sales or account managers. Your relationships are longstanding, and there is no classic sales focus. A CRM system will be applied differently than it would be at a place with dedicated account executives. 

Here the focus would be on collecting and organizing your customer’s data. You will be able to keep track of emails, contact lists, upcoming events, past attendance, and planning documents. Reports will include information on customers and prospects and activity summaries by segment. 

Additionally, the most advanced CRM platforms’ sophisticated analytics, forecasting, and AI features will empower users to personalize client experiences to encourage loyalty.

B2B Company

Business-to-business (B2B) companies often undergo complex sales cycles. Their clients, after all, are businesses that have their own complex needs and processes and are seeking products or services that tend to be expensive and customized. This results in longer sales cycles, greater attention to customer service, and interactions with multiple decision-makers.

CRM will simplify B2B transactions, utilizing advanced data management tools to track leads and clients. Increasingly advanced predictive analytics and AI features enable sales teams to determine the next best steps in their sales cycles and optimal methods to approach each client. 

Additionally, CRM automates sales processes to expedite transactions without sacrificing data quality. CRM software empowers B2B companies to maintain accurate data and stay on top of their sales funnels to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace.

Businesses That Use CRM

Any business with a sales team – as customer relationship management can help salespeople identify various trends in their customer’s behavior, it can assist them when selling products, up-selling, or cross-selling. Additionally, CRM software enables sales teams to keep up-to-date notes on prospects to increase the likelihood of closing deals.

Any businesses that use any form of marketing – when using a good CRM solution, companies can use sales information from customers’ records to finely tune their marketing campaigns. Statistics have shown that targeted marketing is much more profitable than flooding as many contacts as possible with marketing campaigns. Doing this not only wastes money, but it is also ineffective and inefficient.

Any businesses that create quotes and invoices – having a built-in invoicing tool in CRM software programs that are used daily can speed up the quality and invoicing process. In addition, using just one software program to do everything in a business can increase productivity dramatically. No more switching between applications to complete tasks – your entire business can be managed from a single location.

Any businesses that want to show their customers that they are a priority – customers like to feel as though they are wanted, and using CRM can do this. 

For example, even if a customer telephones a business and gets through to the wrong department, the person they speak to can use their CRM to find that customer’s details and transfer them through to the correct department in seconds. 

This increases customer satisfaction by helping them resolve issues faster and more completely. 

It might seem like something small to a business, but when it happens in reality to the customer, it will stick with them and give them a better customer experience.

Any business that wants to increase efficiency – using just one CRM solution saves a great deal of time each day. CRM software helps you be more efficient in multiple areas, whether with click-to-call functionality, integrated project management, detailed customer and prospect notes, integrated marketing automation, and lead scoring. CRM helps businesses of all sizes to cut down on costs and maximize their lead database.

Biggest companies that use CRM systems

Wells Fargo

When an organization is responsible for tracking assets worth about $ 1.9 trillion and around 70 million customers, it’s essential to keep the organization going. It’s all about Wells Fargo, the seventh most profitable company in the United States.

To function effectively, large companies should adapt to communication and technology. For example, considered one of the largest CRM companies, Wells Fargo utilizes the CRM platform to keep all of its services in sync, including banking, investments, and credit cards.

The business impact of its technology investments, from software that helps the company with customer relationship management to tools that enable departments to run smoothly, is monumental:

• Greater focus on high-value work because the bank can save time on customer service
• Increased end-user productivity
• More attention to essential projects because automated workflows, optimised platforms, and reliable platforms save time and energy

The CRM system helps the bank save hundreds of hours of work and IT inefficiently, reduces technical debt, and creates systems that drive innovation and business growth.

As Bespoke’s customer base grew, managing customer data became a real challenge. By embracing CRM solutions, company leaders could offer their customers the kind of personal attention that had defined their organization from the beginning. Company president – Partner Paul Leary said: 

“Whoever purchases with us, they automatically get a personalized email at 10 am the next day… By emphasizing relationship-based sales instead of transaction-based, we’re able to increase customer retention and satisfaction, referrals, and order value.”

Bespoke succeeded in identifying the right CRM tools to make this customer connection happen.

Activision

Activision is known to gamers worldwide as the brand behind some of the most popular video games out there and one of the biggest CRM companies. Founded in 1979, Activision currently has offices in 15 countries. Activision’s most notable product is Modern Warfare 3, which brought in over $400 million within the first 24 hours of release in 2011. 

This was considered one of the most successful entertainment launches at the time.

The company prides itself on providing a continually fantastic experience to its gamers so they can remain satisfied and enthralled long after they’ve made their purchase. 

As a result, Activision is not only one of the biggest CRM companies, but it also knows how to use Marketing Cloud efficiently. Service Cloud is the reason why Activision can follow up on those conversations. 

And, given that social media customer service is less expensive than conventional methods, Activision found that it could decrease its annual customer service operating expenses by 25%.

Xtreme Lashes

When it comes to the biggest CRM companies, it is impossible not to mention Xtreme Lashes. The company’s mission is simple: Xtreme Lashes is dedicated to “enriching and empowering lives by delivering on our promise to provide revolutionary beauty products, unparalleled client support, and comprehensive education.” 

The company started with a simple yet popular product but quickly expanded to training programs and has become a significant player in the beauty industry.

With growth, growing difficulties, and COO Ali Moshfeghian said, “We need a single cloud-based platform that can store all of our data, run the application for every part and provide value to our customers.” According to Moshfeghian, its investment in a CRM platform enabled them to create ways to help its stylists and their customers quickly.

Apple CRM

Customer Relationship Management plays a crucial role in Apple’s growth strategy.

You may need to register the device with an Apple ID when using an Apple device such as the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, iMessage, FaceTime, etc.

These unique IDs sync across devices, save music and movie preferences and provide different recommendations based on what you like. It is very convenient for the user and is a tool that provides detailed information about what customers want, thereby reaching the target quickly.

Coca-Cola CRM

Coca-Cola uses CRM to promote cooperation and solve customer problems quickly and effectively.

CRM software enables every member of the Coca-Cola team to identify problems, track customer behavior, and social media to drive incentives.

Moreover, team members can use mobile apps to access customer history anytime and anywhere, create and update work orders, and send out field technicians in real-time.

Amazon CRM

Over the past few years, Amazon has become the key online platform for online shopping, and the CRM system is one of the main reasons for this. Amazon has one of the complete CRM infrastructures globally that harness customer data during purchases to instantly customize users’ online experience.

You will need to set up an account to purchase an item from Amazon. This allows Amazon to track your browsing and purchase history to develop email and marketing campaigns that are more relevant to you.

In addition, you can configure your account to set up one-click purchases to speed up the checkout process for purchases significantly. This is one of the primary and highly appreciated features of Amazon.

Tesco CRM

Tesco uses the Clubcard to earn points for its most loyal customers. Every pound spent equals one point. These points can be exchanged for a ‘voucher’ of Tesco Clubcard. In addition, many restaurants, hotels, and gas stations are Tesco partners, thus giving users more opportunities to earn points.

There are programs available for all family members: Tesco Kids Club, Tesco Baby, and Toddler Club, Tesco Healthy Living Club, World of Wine Club.

Tesco uses this for targeted marketing actions, and there are over four million variations of its quarterly mailing to ensure that discounts and offers are personalized for each customer.

Types of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Technology

CRM Software

Special CRM software aggregates customer information in one place to give businesses easy access to data, such as contact data, purchase history, and any previous contact with customer service representatives. This data helps employees interact with clients, anticipate customer needs, recognize customer updates, and track performance goals for sales.

CRM software’s primary purpose is to make interactions more efficient and productive. For example, automated procedures within a CRM module include sending sales team marketing materials based on a customer’s selection of a product or service. Programs also assess a customer’s needs to reduce the time it takes to fulfill a request.

CRM Cloud Solutions

Cloud-based systems provide real-time data to sales agents at the office and in the field as long as a computer, smartphone, laptop, or tablet connects to the internet. In addition, such systems boast heightened accessibility to customer information and eliminate the sometimes complicated installation process involved with other CRM products or software.

The convenience of this type of system, however, has a trade-off. For example, if a company goes out of business or faces an acquisition, access to customer information may become compromised. In addition, a business might have compatibility issues when and if it migrates to a different vendor for this software. Also, cloud-based CRM programs typically cost more than in-house programs.

CRM Human Management and Artificial Intelligence

All of the computer software to help with CRM means nothing without proper management and decision-making from humans. 

Plus, the best programs organize data so that humans can interpret readily and use it to their advantage. 

Companies must learn to discern helpful information and superfluous data for successful CRM and weed out any duplicate and incomplete records that may give employees inaccurate information about customers.

Industries That Use CRM the Most

Retail Industry

A retail business involves selling goods and services. Thus its principal objective is to attract an increasing number of consumers by marketing and advertising their goods and services. It then seeks positive feedback from its customers. 

The business involves activities carried out by a meshwork of departments like production, supply, operation, finance, and database management.

Banking

The banking sector in Malaysia greatly relies on using CRM software. 

The solutions in large-scale CRM software that are tailor-made for the banking sector are designed to facilitate personalized handling of the customers based on their identification, backed by their ‘customized’ needs, behaviors, and preferences. 

Therefore, the banking CRM solutions are designed to have a more customer-centric structure based on customer insight.

Hotels

CRM is widely used in the hospitality sector, mainly in hotels. 

With the help of effective CRM solutions, hotels can maintain databases of their guests and potential guests in an organized and accessible way. 

In addition, these solutions can have effective marketing automation tools embedded, which help in activities like auto-emailing, marketing automation, and various modules that help design marketing strategies for more effective marketing for hotels.

Financial Services

Companies that offer financial services are particularly privileged by the use of an effective CRM solution. The new technology helps these businesses create targeted offers and identify high-value customers. It also helps these businesses to win customer trust through automated vital tasks and processes. 

The solutions also help reduce the total cost to ownership (TCO) and extend the value of their investment through intuitive tools of customization and holistic integration of existing embedded sub-systems within organizations.

Insurance

The CRM solutions that are tailor-made for the insurance sector play the role of customer engagement domain or platform or a hub that collates customer interactions across various channels with the help of data extracted from multiple systems of core insurance. In addition, these solutions also help in comprehensive analytics and machine learning. All these collectively help in creating a comprehensive information file with a complete database for every client.

Consulting

The success of a consulting firm depends on the process and its operational aspects, other than the advisors’ skills. By choosing the right CRM, firms can manage their daily work and focus on their clients.

Manufacturing, professional services, and B2B companies are three of the many businesses that have experienced improved customer relationships and higher profits after implementing CRM. But you can’t just use any old CRM platform and plug it into your system. With CRM systems inundating the enterprise software marketplace, finding the product that satisfies your business needs is crucial.

Martin Gessner

Martin Gessner is the Founder of Focus on Force.

He has spent over 10 years working in various Salesforce roles including business analyst, project manager, consultant and solutions architect. Along the way he has earned twelve certifications, published "The Salesforce Career Playbook", and helps Salesforce professionals learn more about Salesforce, develop their career and prepare for certifications.