CRM tool were pioneered during the 90s and have witnessed widespread adoption in the past ten years with the main aim to lower the gap between different enterprises and their clients apart from offering high sales and marketing values to the company. In fact, as per reports and statistics, CRM implementation has grown by 70% in the last ten years.
It is believed that this tool has witnessed maximum adoption among the financial institutions with retail sector coming close second. The various loyalty programs offered in the retail industry are solely driven by the CRM solutions. It is surprising to note that there are still many industry verticals which have not adopted CRM solutions in their routine affairs. One such sector is telecom industry which needs to understand the full potential of CRM tool and the usage needs to go up in a major way.
Moreover, the adoption of CRM solution in India still needs to be pushed in a big way as it offers various opportunities to bring improvement in client experience. There are many companies that are required to view CRM tool with the right frame of mind so that steps and initiatives can be taken.
Now, let us take a closer look why there is lack of effective usage of CRM tools in India among the smaller players or SMEs-
- Insufficient understanding of altering business processes into a more convenient and usable system.
- Costing of CRM solutions offered by market leaders.
- Usage of CRM tool just as an address book.
- Tracking of leads in spreadsheets.
- Inability to devise effective follow up mechanisms to boost relationship with present clients and potential customers both.
- High expenditure on marketing initiatives
Analysts feel that a good CRM solution has the potential to save approximately 15% of the overall sales and marketing costs, boost sales figure by 5%, client loyalty by 30% and also help in the retention of customers by about 15%. If these figures are achievable by using CRM solution, then profitability of any company will automatically go up.