Customer Relationship Management

A customer relationship Management system will eliminate frustration of  having a customer phone your business and not knowing what they are talking about.

Perhaps they spoke to your sales department yesterday. Maybe somebody promised to call them back. Now they are on the phone again, and the person answering has no idea what happened.

If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. It is one of the problems that comes with running a growing business.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is about keeping customer information in one place, so your staff can find what they need without asking three other people.

At VirtualNumber, we look at how a business telephone system and CRM can work together. When you also connect compatible accounting software, you can bring several important parts of the business closer together.

Your customers shouldn’t have to repeat themselves

Think about a normal working day. Your sales team is busy with quotations. Accounts is dealing with payments, and somebody else is answering incoming calls.

Everyone has a job to do, but they don’t always have the same information.

A customer might have discussed a quotation with one employee and then phone back while that person is out. Without proper records, the next employee has to start asking questions.

A CRM helps prevent that situation. Customer details, enquiries and recorded activities can be kept together. Staff with the right access can then refer to the available information.

It sounds like a small thing. However, when you deal with customers all day, having those details readily available can save a surprising amount of time.

Connecting your telephone system to Customer Relationship Management software.

The telephone is still an important part of doing business. Customers call to ask questions, place orders, check progress or simply find out whether someone has received their email.

Yet the telephone system and customer records are often completely separate.

Ecirrus CRM can integrate with compatible telephone systems. Depending on the setup, this can help employees connect calls with customer records and access relevant information.

Consider a business with five employees answering calls. A customer who spoke to one employee in the morning might speak to someone else that afternoon.

With the appropriate integration and up-to-date records, the second employee has a better chance of picking up where the previous conversation ended.

That is particularly useful when your business handles a high number of enquiries. It also means the customer does not always have to wait for one particular person to become available.

The available features depend on the telephone system and integration. Check which functions your setup supports before deciding what you need.

What about your accounting package?

This is where things get interesting for businesses that use separate accounting software.

Your sales department may know exactly what a customer ordered. Accounts, on the other hand, needs to know whether an invoice has been issued or a payment received.

When these systems don’t communicate, somebody usually ends up making a phone call or sending an email to get the answer.

Ecirrus includes sales and finance functions and supports connections with external systems. Integration with a compatible accounting package can help reduce the need to enter the same information in different places.

The important detail is what the integration actually supports. Some setups may exchange customer details, while others may support additional financial information.

For example, if sales needs to follow up on an order, access to the relevant information can make the conversation with the customer much easier.

Before choosing a solution, find out which accounting packages are supported and precisely what information can be shared.

One team, rather than separate departments

As a business owner, you want your employees to get on with their work. You don’t want them spending half the morning trying to find out who spoke to a customer.

A shared CRM can help bring everyone onto the same page.

Sales can keep track of enquiries and quotations. Accounts can deal with its responsibilities, while customer service can refer to the information available on the customer record.

Of course, software won’t solve everything. Someone still needs to update the records, and employees need to use the system properly.

But having one place to look is a lot easier than relying on messages, spreadsheets and somebody’s memory.

It becomes particularly useful when employees are working from different locations or when your business grows beyond a handful of people.

Is Ecirrus Customer Relationship Management worth considering?

That really depends on how your business operates.

If you have a small team and only a few customer enquiries, your current arrangements may be perfectly adequate.

However, if customer details are scattered across different systems, or employees regularly have to ask one another for updates, it may be time to look at CRM.

Ecirrus brings customer management together with other business functions. Combined with a suitable telephone system and accounting integration, it offers a way to connect more of your daily operations.

You don’t have to start by changing everything. Look at the problems your staff deal with most often and identify which information they need access to.

That is a sensible starting point when considering any CRM system.

Talk to VirtualNumber

At VirtualNumber, we provide business telephone solutions and can discuss how your telephone system could work alongside Ecirrus CRM. Included in our price is a domain and hosting service as well. We will also transfer your domain and all data on your website and emails at no extra charge.

Every business is different. The telephone features, accounting connections and configuration available will depend on the systems you use.

If you are tired of customer information being spread across different departments, let’s discuss your requirements.

Contact VirtualNumber to find out more about Ecirrus CRM and the integration options available for your business.