What is CRM
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What is CRM? Customer Relationship Management explained

Posted at h in CRM Administration by
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What is CRM
Put simply it is perhaps one of the most important tools any business can own.

In the early days of running a business one person would keep an address book, and everyone knew who to talk to, later that address book may have progressed to an excel spreadsheet on the office network.

One of the first CRM systems in the World was ACT! short for “Advanced Contact Tracking” this product went on the set the standards many systems still try to aspire to today.

Over the past 30 years many systems have tried to reinvent the wheel and to complicate the basics. A good CRM system should help with the basics any business requires.

1. Sales
2. Marketing
3. Support
4. Technical Support

Within any department or team of people there will be requirements that are specific to your own needs, perhaps it’s profiling the Customer so you know what they want from you and then detailing the services you supply so that anyone can quickly see how best to engage with the customer.

Cloud CRM is a term generally used when the application you use is accessed using a browser such as Google Chrome or Internet Explorer, Firefox etc. There is usually nothing installed locally to go wrong and inexpensive hardware can be used.

There are various types of CRM system available
Cloud Hosted CRM systems – for more details see Cloud Hosted CRM
Generally speaking a Hosted CRM system will cost less than most CRM solutions as the vendor bears a lot of the costs. You receive the benefit of the software at a low cost for a modest subscription usually paid quarterly in advance. You get to manage and adapt as much or as little as you want with the vendor being at the end of the phone to discuss alterations, support and training for your team with you.

Self Hosted Cloud CRM Systems – for more details see Self Hosted CRM
In these cases you will need to have IT skills in house who are able to manage servers and understand technologies that will be involved with your application. If your server goes wrong or any aspect of your internal network lets you down then your costs start to escalate in addition to the cost of any down time (loss of effective staff time).

Locally installed CRM applications are generally costly to maintain and are hardly ever used these days as the costs are excessive in the event of a fault requiring an engineer visit.

If you want to discuss CRM in detail we are always happy to spend time with you to help you make the right decision, to speak with us in the UK call 020 8099 3032 or email support at wiredcontact.co.uk or contact us about UK based CRM

WiredContact can be operated as Self Hosted Cloud CRM system or Cloud Hosted CRM system

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