22nd June 2022 back to blog

When it comes to a strong CRM strategy having a CRM database is an essential part. CRM databases provide many benefits across different departments within a business from sales and marketing to customer service and management teams.

Our blog post will include what a CRM database is, examples of what can be included in the CRM database and the most important part: how it can help your business go from strength to strength to fulfil your growth plans and help retain your customers, with no potential sales opportunity slipping through the net again.

What is a CRM database?

A CRM database is part of your CRM software and CRM solution which provides you and your team with one central location, allowing you to view important information for each stage along the customer journey and sales pipeline.

The CRM database collates data from various sources that are relevant to your business so it can support all the relevant functions. No more need for manual data entry or having to dig into different systems to find out basic information about a customer.

For your business to benefit the most from a CRM database it is important first of all to look at your business goals and plans for the future. This will help to identify the most important data for each department and strategy to decide what to include when designing the bespoke CRM database software.

Your CRM database will be as good as what you put in – the below will help to give some examples and clarity on useful information to include when collating customer information and CRM data for the customer relationship management system.

Examples of CRM databases

If this is the first time considering a CRM database or revisiting what would be useful to include to benefit your business. Below are some examples of what we would recommend for your business to include.

Contact details: Include essential and relevant personal details to each lead or customer including first and last name, address, email and phone number. No need for this to be re-entered by different departments, once data is collected it is easy for all teams to use.

Personal unique information: In addition to above, any unique details are important to include which will give a personal touch when talking to a customer again. For example kids or pet names and ages, favourite hobbies and weekend plans. So they don’t feel like a number. A personalised birthday wish goes a long way with customer retention.

Previous orders: Storing data on existing customers which will be useful to report on to improve cross-sell or up-sell opportunities. For example, last time they made a purchase, their average purchase value and if a particular product range. Alternatively if your business is based on repeat bookings e.g. dentist or a car garage then tracking when a customer last had their service or appointment will help with automation reminders and sales forecasting.

Customer interactions: when you have multiple members in the team it is useful to keep data on each interaction with a lead or customer. This can be across different touch points from phone calls when you last spoke to them and notes from the call, their interactions on social media to information on their recent website visit.

Lead management: sales teams can include data entry on the source of each lead and every lead can be given a score. A useful function for companies dealing with a high volume of leads. A lead score allows for sales reps to easily know the leads to priortise with the highest score and opportunity for the business.

How will a CRM database benefit your business?

Now we have reviewed all the data which could be included in your CRM database. Time to go into detail about how this will help your business, from basic functionality to complex reporting. Any growing companies whether a small business or a large business can benefit from a CRM database. Ultimately it will increase sales. Let’s look at how it can do that.

Personalised customer service

In today’s business world customers expect quick responses and a personalised service, otherwise they will be quick to vote with their feet and go to a competitor. A CRM database stores information that make it simpler and easier to manage relationships, whilst to the customer the service has improved and includes even more personalised touches.

The customer database will enable customer service agents to quickly solve problems. For example in one central dashboard on the CRM database they can easily see full details on the customers order, even if they have never spoken to the customer before. This includes any past call notes from other members of the team.

Also common database queries can be automated. This includes updating customers on their order or return, saving time for your customer service team to focus on more important tasks by using automated messaging, rather than having to do manually one by one.

Other automation includes sharing customer invoices and payment. It also allows for further customer management through project scheduling and simple tracking of the sales funnel. So every step of the customer journey is a positive and personal one.

Improved processes and sales

One reason many CRM databases are proven to improve customer service levels and maximise lead generation and potential customers converting to loyal and returning customers. Is the impact having a single source of information for all customer data has on the internal departments. It drastically improves their workflow processes and helps achieve their objectives.

With a CRM database organising data systematically and being easy to use for any employee to quickly check on the status of a customer or to look at any of their relevant data. It results in freeing up valuable time and improved efficiencies for delivering excellent customer service.

Whether it is the customer service team, sales team, marketing teams or senior management. A CRM database can be used by the vast majority of departments.

In particular for your sales marketing team, the CRM solutions from building a CRM database means they can integrate analytics and lead generation to convert sales effectively. For example, they could segment loyal repeat customers to offer a special offer or loyalty scheme to increase their customer value. Or target leads who frequently visit your website, but haven’t yet converted with a special limited time offer to get that sale over the line.

Business Insights

A good CRM database can allow for running detailed and customised reporting to support management and departments with monitoring their KPI’s and business objectives. This includes analysing both leads and existing customers data across a wide variety of methods.

Examples include demographics, location, behaviours and interactions. All which will demonstrate important trends to see common reasons and behaviours that have lead to sales converting or not converting – to take learnings from.

These business insights can help with training staff in the future with the best sales methods that have proven to work for your business. As well as identifying key opportunities within the data to improve customer relations further. This may include the sales manager and sales reps personalising their customer interaction with relevant cross-selling or up-selling of products their customer would be interested in.

The detailed reporting a CRM database can provide also means delivering impactful marketing campaigns and marketing automation. Using the customer segmentation like explained above, the sales and marketing teams can identify the top customers they want to focus on for their email marketing campaigns at the different stages along the sales funnel.

The customer data from the CRM systems give the team the reassurance and confidence that they are speaking with customers at the right time with the strongest offer to deliver the highest conversion possible into sales.

How can we help?

We hope you have found this blog post useful to explain what a CRM database is and the many ways a CRM database can benefit your business. From delivering high customer service levels, to improving customer retention and value to increase sales for your business.

We are experienced creating bespoke CRM databases and we would be more than happy to speak with you to discuss further how a CRM database could help your business. Get in touch to speak with one of the team. We would be happy to answer any of your questions.