CRM tools: software for customer care

In various in­dus­tries, the re­la­tion­ship between a company and its customers should be long-term and one of the most important success factors. Customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment (CRM) is therefore one of the most important tasks that a company needs to take care of. These measures cover a wide range of de­part­ments, beginning with research and de­vel­op­ment through to marketing and sales, and classic customer service.

In order to maintain customer re­la­tion­ships, many companies collect data from their customers in extensive databases. Detailed analyses can then be carried out with all the in­form­a­tion that has been collected. These analyses should provide in­form­a­tion on which customers are par­tic­u­larly important for a company, as well as whether they can con­trib­ute to the de­vel­op­ment of cus­tom­ised campaigns for customer care, since it is assumed to be more cost-effective to keep existing customers than to acquire new ones. In order to cope with the flood of customer data, there are special CRM tools that help you structure the in­form­a­tion and even record it auto­mat­ic­ally.

CRM tools (often referred to as CRM systems) are database ap­plic­a­tions that are spe­cific­ally tailored to the needs of customer care. As such, they enable a par­tic­u­larly struc­tured and, at best, automated col­lec­tion of all relevant customer data. This is also crucial for in­dus­tries where a CRM solution has been developed, since different in­dus­tries sometimes require different in­form­a­tion and functions: thus, the range of stored in­form­a­tion extends from simple user account data through to records of user behaviour to very con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion, such as in­form­a­tion on credit and addresses. A good CRM tool, however, is not only limited to col­lect­ing and archiving customer in­form­a­tion, but ideally also provides an easily un­der­stand­able graphical interface.

Most of the available CRM software for SMBs (small and medium-sized busi­nesses) are pro­pri­et­ary ap­plic­a­tions even though there are free open source systems that can deliver good results. In principle, it is important to dis­tin­guish between in­stall­able pro­grammes and software-as-a-service (web-based CRM software). The former must be operated on a separate server, whereas the required hardware resources in the latter variant are the provider’s re­spons­ib­il­ity. Via in­ter­faces, CRM systems can be combined with other ap­plic­a­tions, such as data ware­houses, e-mail marketing tools, or en­ter­prise resource planning pro­grammes (ERP).

There’s no doubt that a good re­la­tion­ship between business partners and customers is important for a company’s success. The different phases, chal­lenges, and benefits of customer care are already mentioned in another one of our articles on this topic. But what are the reasons for using CRM tools in order to collect data and to optimise the customer re­la­tion­ship? In par­tic­u­lar, smaller company- or web shop owners use their own solutions for cost reasons or con­veni­ence, but they are often not as effective as CRM tools that are available on the market.

On the one hand, there is CRM software that is free, as well as other systems that are specially designed for smaller companies and are char­ac­ter­ised by their par­tic­u­larly simple operation. This means that the critical customer data is not only stored in a very short time, but can also be retrieved without any problems. The effort is sig­ni­fic­antly reduced and is com­ple­men­ted by powerful analysis mech­an­isms, which enable con­clu­sions to be drawn about how satisfied the customer is, as well as what their behaviour is like.

In addition, a single tool can improve col­lab­or­a­tion between de­part­ments: the marketing de­part­ment can later use the analysis data for per­son­al­ised campaigns. Customer support can access customer data directly in the tool and get hold of the in­form­a­tion stored. Ex­chan­ging in­form­a­tion is therefore faster so that the time saved can be invested in the actual goal – binding important and prof­it­able customers.

Companies differ in size, structure, and philo­sophy – and the available CRM tools also differ in terms of the features offered. While some ap­plic­a­tions focus on storing customer data, other pro­grammes focus on marketing features. Some systems are dis­tin­guished by the fact that they have a re­l­at­ively large range of functions. The most suitable CRM solution for your business doesn’t, in principle, have to be the software with the greatest range: such universal CRM systems are usually very complex and therefore not suitable if you are just starting out in customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment. Moreover, solutions like these are usually quite expensive.

What’s just as important is avail­ab­il­ity. Web-based CRM software, for example, can be accessed at anytime, and from anywhere as long as there’s an existing internet con­nec­tion. This isn’t possible with a tool that is installed on a local system and does not have a web interface.

In order to fa­cil­it­ate your search for a suitable CRM tool, we will explain in the following para­graphs what you should pay par­tic­u­lar attention to when selecting CRM software.

In principle, CRM software should bring structure when col­lect­ing, archiving, and pro­cessing customer data in order to fa­cil­it­ate customer care and save valuable time. In this way, you can focus on de­vel­op­ing strategies to improve the re­la­tion­ship with your customers. From CRM tools in the upper price segment, you should expect trans­ac­tion and service processes to be partially automated based on the acquired data. For example, the response time for com­plaints can be sig­ni­fic­antly reduced by direct database access. Some pro­grammes have the ability to send reminders and offers to customers auto­mat­ic­ally.

A solution that saves you a lot of time does not ne­ces­sar­ily have to be expensive. What is most important is how well you or your employees can work with the software. If a programme does have auto­ma­tion features, but takes a while to get used to, the ad­di­tion­al effort quickly outweighs the time saved. The same is true for linking the CRM ap­plic­a­tion to other software, as well as for updating and expanding. It is very important that you choose a tool that supports the pro­grammes you use, or allows you to implement them with little effort.

In addition, you should ensure than you have the necessary resources for setup and main­ten­ance (whether in terms of time, personnel, or finances), otherwise you will not achieve any sig­ni­fic­ant im­prove­ments with any CRM tool, whether open source or pro­pri­et­ary.

Usability is an important eval­u­ation factor, but even the most user-friendly software is never 100% immune against programme errors and other problems (errors during the update process, other mal­func­tion­ing software, faulty file import/export, etc.). It is therefore all the more important for the provider to offer good support. For minor problems, help is often available in the form of documents, tutorials, blog posts, and FAQs, However, if there aren’t any helpful aids at hand, a competent, personal customer service is required, in line with customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment. In any case, it makes sense to check whether what’s on offer meets your ex­pect­a­tions. You should answer the following questions:

• Does the provider offer the desired contact form (telephone, e-mail, live chat, etc.?)

• Does the support have to be paid for?

• Is the support available at the desired times (time of day, weekdays vs. weekends/bank holidays?

• Are certain service packages dependent on the selected CRM package?

• How quickly does the provider respond to a support request?

External pro­grammes are usually in­teg­rated for one of the following two reasons: on the one hand, these ap­plic­a­tions can contain features that the selected CRM solution doesn’t provide. A good example of this are e-mail marketing features, which some systems already offer from the start, but in most cases, can only be used via third-party services. On the other hand, external tools are often useful when importing or exporting data. Links with the used e-mail account and calendar system are also typical. Re­gard­less of the purpose of the re­spect­ive third-party software, two CRM im­ple­ment­a­tion options are available in theory for CRM tools:

• Native in­teg­ra­tion: the simple way to integrate external software is called native in­teg­ra­tion. In this case, pre-built modules already exist for the CRM system from third-parties, which you only need to select or download and activate. The more common a CRM tool is, the higher the like­li­hood that such native modules exist.

• In­teg­ra­tion via API: if there are no native modules for in­teg­rat­ing a third ap­plic­a­tion, the in­teg­ra­tion only works if both sides (the ap­plic­a­tion and the CRM system) support an open API (Applic­a­tion Pro­gram­ming Interface). Using these in­ter­faces, which are usually based on REST (Represent­a­tion­al State Transfer), you or your IT team or other users can integrate the desired third-party software yourself. This method provides more flex­ib­il­ity, since the customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment ap­plic­a­tion can be linked to almost any other programme. On the other hand, it is often as­so­ci­ated with a lot of time and money.

There are numerous platforms and channels that customers can use to get into contact with you: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have been popular for many years, not only in the private sector. Social networks have also become more important for companies and are now not only important marketing channels, but also in­dis­pens­able tools for customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment. A close con­nec­tion to social media is therefore a decisive criterion for eval­u­at­ing a CRM tool – even if your activity on the social platforms is still limited.

Even if e-mail in­ter­ac­tion has lost some of its im­port­ance, most busi­nesses continue to fre­quently use e-mails as their main form of contact. For customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment, e-mails are usually even more important than posts or tweets, since they reveal more about the customers. The CRM system should therefore offer the option for in­teg­rat­ing e-mail clients and accounts and, in the best case, provide features for auto­mat­ic­ally col­lect­ing messages and assigning them to in­di­vidu­al customer profiles. In addition to e-mails and social media activ­it­ies, some CRM ap­plic­a­tions can also assign telephone calls and chat histories and include them in customer history.

Customer care and marketing are closely linked: if you know your customers well, you’re more likely to reach them with your marketing campaigns. The same applies to leads i.e. users who are to become customers or buyers. However, the more customers there are to care for, the more difficult is it to tailor marketing campaigns to in­di­vidu­al customer groups. Therefore, many CRM tools have features that can automate various steps of marketing. The following auto­mat­isms are some examples:

• The CRM tool auto­mat­ic­ally reminds you to perform a specific marketing action after a specified period of time.

• After a certain time, the ap­plic­a­tion predicts the prob­ab­il­ity of a potential customer becoming a customer.

• After a defined period of time, the programme auto­mat­ic­ally starts an action and sends the buyer a voucher for their next purchase.

• The CRM system auto­mat­ic­ally includes external software, such as e-mail marketing pro­grammes.

• The tool generates detailed analyses that represent important key data such as return on in­vest­ment (RoI) and are presented visually.

It’s also useful when the CRM system includes a campaign manager that allows you to track and manage all marketing campaigns right from the start.

Customer data is very con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion. With the customers’ consent, you can collect their in­form­a­tion and use it for marketing purposes, but you need to be aware of data pro­tec­tion. The choice of the software and the hosting or in­stall­a­tion en­vir­on­ment is crucial. For example, if you choose a web-based CRM software, your data and that of your customers is usually stored in a Cloud managed by your provider. With a desktop version that you install on your own system, you can make sure you adhere to data pro­tec­tion.

On one hand, you guarantee the general security of the data through ap­pro­pri­ate measures (firewall, anti-virus software, etc.) within your network. On the other hand, the CRM tool itself should also provide certain mech­an­isms to protect the database against un­au­thor­ised access. These include, for example, a password pro­tec­tion or an option for defining specific access rights. You should also make sure that the selected system protocol runs on all accesses and changes.