Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the technology used to manage and track interactions between businesses and customers using software platforms. CRM consolidates all data from sales, leads, and customers into one place, resulting in a unified dataset within the CRM platform.
CRM integration refers to the process of connecting a business's CRM software with third-party systems. This integration of systems results in a seamless flow from, to, and between each software platform. According to Adynamics, the goal of CRM integration is to reduce any human input when collecting data from multiple sources, ensuring that accurate data is generated in almost real-time. The integration is automated, eliminating any need to manually switch between systems to access different forms of data, as all information is in one place."
Using CRM integration is important as it enables companies to improve many aspects of their business, from enhancing productivity, reducing human errors, and improving customer experience, to fostering collaborations and generating faster and more accurate reports.
What are the Benefits?
Efficiency & Productivity
When CRM integration processes are streamlined through automation, employees spend less time collecting, cleaning, and entering data. Data isn’t duplicated, and there's no need for double-handling. This streamlined approach reduces duplication of effort and time spent on mundane tasks, significantly boosting efficiency and productivity. With these time-consuming tasks automated, employees can redirect their time and energy toward other tasks that require human attention and cannot be automated.
“CRM integration is vital for managing customer data with accuracy and the most efficiency possible”.
Data Accuracy
CRM Integration helps to ensure that the data that is collected is accurate and up-to-date, it does this by using automation to sync between the CRM system and the third-party system. Meaning that any data from the CRM system will be automatically synced without any human intervention. This also minimises the risk of human error as there is a reduced need for manual data entry.
Customer Experience
Enhanced customer experiences are also a result of CRM Integration, this is because customer service teams have up-to-date information on customer interactions, enabling them to have access to any relevant information to aid them in delivering more personalised support. They also can resolve issues efficiently and overall improve the customer’s experience.
Collaboration
CRM Integration facilitates collaboration within different departments across a business to have the ability to share and have access to real-time data and insights. It creates a way for employees to share information quickly and easily across the team in a way that everyone can access and understand. This improves team communication and collaboration as individuals from different teams can combine and share information without spending their time uploading, exporting, organising, and downloading relevant data.
How you can Integrate CRM within your business
There are many ways to incorporate CRM Integrations and take full advantage to boost a company’s sales team efforts:
E-Commerce Integration
For businesses that sell products online, integrating an E-commerce tool alongside your CRM is essential for achieving success.
Using an E-commerce platform integration will provide businesses with a much deeper understanding of who their customers are and what their preferences and needs are. According to research, 66% of consumers expect the companies they shop from to understand what their needs and preferences are. To understand customer's needs, businesses should collect and analyse all information they have from their past interactions with the business.
Businesses can then take advantage of this information and use it by targeting and personalising marketing to their customer’s needs and preferences. By creating effective reports from data gathered, and coordinating customer orders, transactions and order statuses, it will improve overall customer experience and service.
E-commerce platforms businesses can integrate with CRM: Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento.
Email Integration
Emails are one of the most important and widely used tools for communication with customers, clients, prospects, and team members, this is why it is an important tool to integrate with CRM software.
By integrating an email system with the chosen CRM software, businesses can capture and organise important customer information and interactions all in one place. This enables a business to gather a more cohesive view of customers’ history to improve efficiency and responsiveness and to offer a more personalised approach.
Email Integration also allows for email campaigns to be tracked with metrics like opens, bounces, clicks and responses, this information can be used to alter campaigns to preferences and to continue what is working.
E-commerce platforms businesses can integrate with CRM: Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, and MailChimp.
Accounting Integration
Accounting tools can provide businesses with valuable insights into their financial performances, and into their customer's interactions when they are integrated with CRM software.
The integration offers a place for data to be centralised and managed, which enables users to access and manage customer information and any financial data all in the same place. This minimises manual data entry and reduces the risk of errors. It also enhances customer experience with streamlined billings, invoicing etc.
Accounting tools businesses can integrate with CRM: QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, and Paycove