Why You Should Integrate Your CRM and Customer Service
Maintaining consistent communication is what a CRM system helps provide, and having continuous communication is what a customer service system (CSS) will help you offer. Many businesses have two separate systems, but the smarter solution is to have an effective CRM integrated with strong customer service.
SMBs often find themselves in a bind over picking a CRM or a CSS, even though they need both. They are overlooking the fact that having a combined system will help them to offer an improved experience for their customers. Still, 51 percent are using only CSS and 42 percent are using only CRM. Integration, allows for a stronger customer experience and superior features as well.
Here’s why you need to combine your CRM and customer service:
Complete Customer Journey vs Single Communication
With two different systems, you have a communication system that is divided and leaves gaps in your customer data. It will create discrepancies between what the customer reps are saying and what the customer wants.
Research shows that 84 percent of customers get frustrated when the agent does not have the right information on the customer-buying journey. An integrated system ensures that communication is consistent. It allows system users to access all customer information (from the time they were leads to the time they became customers and beyond). Having the full range of data helps reps provide a better customer experience.
Having an integrated CRM system with customer service allows you to have a unified system prevents gaps in the information and your reps’ understanding. Tracking and managing customer information also gets easier when you have a unified system. The data is more robust because a single contact is receiving varied data from various teams (marketing, sales and service) to ensure complete contact information is getting tracked.
Synergy Between Team Communication vs. Detached Communication
Different systems can create communication issues between teams. The whole point of offering an involved customer experience is to have parity between sales, marketing and service. If there is no synergy between teams, then the point of serving to one customer together falls flat. Having an integrated system in this situation comes in handy and also helps the teams to understand the customer better by combining information.
Complete Automation vs. Ticketing Automation
With the help of an integrated system, you can have complete business automation—from email campaigns to lead management to customer service. Having multiple systems means you need to handle different automations on different systems, especially ticketing automation.
Automating ticketing on an independent system isn’t logical because you still have to go back to the CRM to understand the past experience of the customer. An integrated system allows you to handle your ticketing better by converting normal emails into tickets using common email ID, automating canned responses and saving new data easily.
Single Investment vs. Multiple Investment
Multiple systems multiply the investment. An integrated system is a single investment. As an SMB, this is the best option, because there’s no reason to invest in multiple systems when the same work can be done by a single one. Many integrated systems on the market are cost-effective while offering robust features. Agile CRM, for an instance, offers an all-in-one CRM allowing complete business automation (marketing, sales and service).
Get consistent communication from your CRM, continuous communication from your CSS and combine them to provide a consistent continuous communication to your customers. An integrated CRM system with customer service adds value to your customer experience. Having exceptional customer service achieves customer retention and an integrated system is the best way to tackle that.
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