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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
1. How do we measure CRM success beyond sales metrics?
Track customer satisfaction scores, support ticket resolution times, marketing campaign ROI, and cross-department collaboration frequency. Focus on metrics like customer retention rate (5% improvement can boost profits 25-95%), user adoption rates, and time saved on manual tasks across all departments using the CRM.
2. What’s the typical learning curve for non-technical teams using CRM?
Most non-technical teams achieve 95% adoption within 30 days with proper training. Expect a temporary productivity dip for 2-3 weeks as teams adjust. Modern CRMs like Nutshell are designed for ease of use, with role-specific training and ongoing support making the transition smoother than anticipated.
3. Which CRM features are most important for customer support teams?
Essential features include ticketing systems, customer history access, knowledge base integration, and collaboration tools like @-mentions. Support teams also benefit from automated workflows, real-time notifications, and integration with chat tools like Zendesk or Olark for seamless customer communication.
4. Can marketing and sales teams effectively share the same CRM?
Yes, when teams establish clear lead definitions, shared metrics, and regular communication protocols. Success requires defining what constitutes a “good lead,” creating feedback loops between departments, and using the CRM’s collaboration features to share insights about customer pain points and objections.
5. How do we get buy-in from teams who think CRM is only for sales?
Start by demonstrating department-specific benefits: marketers can track campaign ROI, support teams can reduce resolution times, and managers can monitor KPIs. Share success stories, involve skeptics in the implementation process, and provide role-specific training that shows how CRM makes their daily work easier.
