CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is an essential tool for any business today. These systems are designed not only to capture customer information but also to streamline customer interactions and business processes, ultimately improving profitability.
There are five key foundational entities in most CRM systems today: Leads, Opportunities, Accounts, Contacts, and Cases.
Leads represent potential customers who have shown interest in your company’s products or services. Leads are usually captured from website inquiries, telephone calls, or when customers walk into your office. Leads can be converted into paying customers, represented in CRM as Accounts or Contacts. Leads can also be converted into Opportunities, which are leads that have a high chance of becoming customers. Opportunities are important for companies that manage a sales pipeline and need their teams to forecast potential revenue.
Accounts in CRM represent companies and organizations that you have a commercial relationship with, while Contacts represent individuals. Businesses that sell directly to consumers may not need to use Accounts unless they need to capture relationships between individuals, such as families, family trusts, affiliations, etc.
Another foundational component of a CRM solution is the representation of the relationship with the customer. Customers engage with your business because they seek a product or service provided by your company. This need can be captured as a Case, Issue, Project, Sales Order, Contract, Course, Lesson, Appointment, or any other type that represents the specifics of your business.
CRM solutions are very flexible in capturing information about your customers’ requests and tracking the fulfillment of such requests, allowing you to monitor how well your business is performing. With this information, business owners can make better decisions to optimize their business operations and sales. For example, they can improve a process to reduce the cost of providing a service or encourage customers to purchase additional, complementary, or related products or services alongside their original purchase – a practice called cross-selling.
For many small businesses, these five entities provide most of the functionality they need and represent a major step forward from maintaining customer data in cumbersome Excel spreadsheets. These entities are available in our Starter Pack. As your business starts growing and your team becomes more familiar with CRM, other entities and functionalities can be added, such as a Knowledge Base, Email Accounts & Templates, Products, Quotes, Sales Orders and Invoices, and advanced Marketing features. Get in touch with us today to find the best solution that fits your business needs.