Difference between Old and New CRM

During more than 25 years CRM business has transformed significantly. Primary software versions were used for call or shared service centers and other large corporations, meanwhile this industry today has grown rapidly and is able to serve small and medium business enterprise companies. According to Gartner study, CRM industry during the last year has grown by 13,3 % From 20,4 USD billion in 2013 to 23,2 USD Billion in 2014.  Even though, the CRM platform haven’t changed totally itself, although functions that modern sales teams utilize the system have developed significantly.

Traditional CRM

Classical model of CRM performs ‘traditional‘ communication tasks between the company and the client: customer data management and other related sales executives actions tracking. Besides the ability to monitor the number of executed calls, emails and meetings CRM also delivers insight history with that particular customer: tracks email or phone calls a sales person has made or marketing campaigns they have interacted with. Also includes customer’s responses to those interactions as well as monitors user experience (UX) within the website.

Detailed sales reports produce clear performance’s results and carry out advisory functions. Therefore, one central system allows managing customer’s data as well as measuring the outreach: such as how many outbound calls your sales executives have made this week, or which campaigns and offers are closing the most deals. Keep it short and clear, it gives your marketing and sales teams objective data in order to improve quality of sales and manage higher quality leads.

Although, traditional CRM has everything for customer’s data management, however the system is not being characterized as user – friendly. The system struggles to deliver effective two – way communication between the client and the company as well as is not able to perform integration with marketing automation system or third party database. Moreover, Customer Relationship Management tool is not mobile as these systems are integrated with computers and its only accessible from workspace.

New generation CRM

Fast. Effective. User – friendly. New generation CRM is extended traditional version. As traditional, social one performs the main customer’s data management functions. Also, social CRM contains not only additional functions dedicated for customer service improvement, but also is characterized as flexible, mobile and user – friendly system. New generation CRM is a cloud – based system which doesn’t limit executive’s location or device he uses. You can only image how much time sales executive could save while adding client‘s data or checking important sales report with his smart phone on the tube while traveling to the meeting.

Media presence. Social media connects people. In business case, social media can help to achieve targeted audience faster without distance or time limits. Social CRM monitors user experience and interaction with particular product through main media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, database forums or reviews platform like Yelp. By establishing media community, CRM tracks user’s reviews and collects existing customer’s responses about the product. Thus allows maintaining two – way communication and following what type of information and where users share their opinion about the particular product. This data allows you to keep a pulse on your product and might lead discover new perspectives of the business. Remember, is all about the client.

Increased sales. Social media is rapidly taking a larger percentage of the sales scale for both: B2C and B2B companies. From the B2C point of view, users are less likely to pay attention to adverts on TV or online shows, users are being more interacted by a product that is dominating on social media. Meanwhile, completed study by Leadspace demonstrates that even 84% of B2B executives search the reviews of particular product on social media before making a final purchase.

So which one do I actually need?

Searching for the most suitable system for business might seem as an overwhelming task: each system has something different to offer. However, every single user acknowledges – savvy, mobile and flexible system is the most recoverable investment. To keep it short: “system managed by consumer, not consumer managed by system”,- probably is the best way to describe new generation CRM model.

Related: All-in-One CRM v.s. Dedicated CRMs