CRM System
Customer Relationship Management systems, sometimes known as Sales Force Automation systems, assist the sales force (and increasingly, the marketing function, too), by helping to:
- store the personal details of each prospect or client, including name, address, contact information, company name and location, etc.
- track the results of all interactions between the prospect or client and the sales rep, recording such details as the date and time, the nature of the event (phone call, visit, email, etc.) and the result – such as a promised follow-up from either party, a decision, or a date on which to spark another event
- good CRM systems also automatically schedule such promised follow-ups or event sparks
- allow the sales rep to record and maintain over time the status of the prospect (cold lead, prospect, hot prospect and ready to purchase, etc.) and the value of the sales opportunity (both predicted and actually realized).
- Act as the central repository for the Inbound Marketing Automation System to hand over prospect data to Sales. And then, when you have converted the prospect into a client, for the Inbound Marketing Automation System to extract the actual sales data (that resulted from each prospect), so that you can calculate ROMI.
