Skip to main content ↓

Why CRM Is Not Just for Sales

a group of people are sitting at a table with laptops and phones

CRM is not just for sales professionals. From marketing to customer support to team collaboration, your organization can find many important uses for CRM besides sales.

As businesses become more customer-oriented, the need to have all functional areas of your organization connected to its customer intelligence is essential, and that’s exactly what your CRM should do. Rather than viewing your CRM as just a sales enablement tool, see it for what it really is: your customer intelligence tool.

The real value that CRM adds to your business is data. In fact, your CRM should contain just about every piece of customer-related data you have. Whether it’s general correspondence, customer feedback, proposals, support, or sales, your CRM has it all. It’s up to you to use that data to your benefit. Let’s look at a few of the ways CRM can be used beyond sales.

CRM as a marketing tool

As a marketer myself, actively using a CRM has proven to be extremely valuable. I use Nutshell daily to measure the effectiveness of various marketing campaigns. For instance, I can see in Nutshell who signed up for a trial that originated from a Google Adwords ad, from a Facebook ad, from a blog post, etc.

While Google Analytics tells me how many sign ups we’ve had from any given channel, it doesn’t tell me who signed up from where. Knowing this gives me insight into key information such as: Were they searching for something? What were they searching for? How far along are they in the buying process? With that information, we’re able to develop a much more tailored sales approach.

a list of leads including yorkshire biscuits and ripley ice cream

Nutshell also makes it incredibly easy to send out marketing emails. Building a list or audience and sending a Nutshell Campaigns email to everyone on that list doesn’t take more than a few clicks, and more importantly, it allows you to create individualized marketing messages that meet the needs of each customer.

Understanding who your customers are and which ones have the greatest value is another handy bit of information that marketers can get from CRM. Your customers are your most important asset. Understanding them, their needs, their pain points, and the lifetime value of each one puts marketers in a stronger position to deliver solutions that meet the needs of their prospective customers, which will ultimately increase profitability and customer satisfaction.

CRM as a collaboration tool

Today’s businesses revolve around collaboration. Collaborating on sales, support, and marketing all lead to a better customer experience, and it’s all about the customer experience. With a CRM like Nutshell, collaborating is simple. You can bring other users into the conversation, or if another user sees something in their feed, they can hop right in and offer their perspective.

For example, what if a customer interacted with support and said something that created a sales opportunity, possibly for an upsell. While the support person may not have identified this opportunity, a salesperson would be able to see it, follow up with the customer, and nurture the opportunity.

Nutshell has the power to introduce opportunities that may have never existed before, thanks to its real-time feed and other collaborative features.

a screenshot showing Amy's Ice Creamwhich is located in Austin Texas

CRM as a customer support tool

In the words of Voltaire—or Uncle Ben, depending on who you trust more—”with great power comes great responsibility.” Thanks to our integrations with tools like Zendesk and Olark, Nutshell is a powerful addition to our arsenal of support tools. Having all customer information saved in Nutshell provides any support team with the entire history for a given customer, and with that power, comes the responsibility to deliver an amazing experience to customers.

If support is asked a question that requires additional expertise, a simple @-mention in Nutshell can bring that person right into the conversation, making it quick and easy to respond.

a message from jeffrey williams to hannah jones

CRM for managing your team

Nutshell is a great tool for managing and improving performance for your team. Reports in Nutshell are a great way to keep track of your KPIs, and not just sales numbers either. You can create activity quotas and check in on your team to ensure that everyone is doing their due diligence. If sales are down one month, you can dive deeper to determine what the root cause might be so you can correct it.

CRM-managing-your-team-1024x549.png

CRM for growing your business

Nutshell is a great customer intelligence platform that gives you the tools you need to not only sell more, but to increase customer satisfaction, improve the customer experience, and ultimately provide you with the insights you need to grow your business.

Did you know?

Increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits between 25% and 95% – Bain & Company.

Sales increases due to advanced CRM technology have ranged from 10% to more than 30% – Harvard Business Review.

Sign up for a free 14-day trial today and see for yourself how Nutshell can bring your business into the modern era.

NUTSHELL FORMS

Turn website visitors into sales leads

Design and embed simple web forms, track their effectiveness, and quickly reach out to form-fillers, all out of Nutshell.

LEARN MORE

a woman in a green polka dot dress is pointing at a screen
DOWNLOAD

16 Cold Email Templates That Sales Experts Swear By

Learn the email tactics that B2B sales pros use to hook their customers.

READ MORE

a piece of paper with the words 16 b2b cold email templates that sales experts swear by
BACK TO TOP
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Join 30,000+ other sales and marketing professionals. Subscribe to our Sell to Win newsletter!