How CRM and Business Intelligence Are Transforming Customer Service in the MCA Industry?

The modern business environment is characterized by fierce competition. We live in a world, where dozens of competing companies offer their services. Thus, the ability to run a business correctly and effectively determines success in the niche and profitability.

Nowadays, diverse digital functionalities exist, which serve as reliable assistants for business running. CRM comes as the most effective tool for workflow optimization. It’s specialized software that allows for improving business efficiency, enhancing analytics, and simplifying decision-making. Thus, the integration of CRM software into workflow is an important step for business intelligence. In the article, we’re going to discuss the relationship between CRM and business intelligence and clarify the key features of both terms.

What is CRM?

CRM is a set of digital tools and features, which allows for simplifying business running and developing stable interaction with a target audience. By integrating such systems into your workflow, you can manage customer interactions, automate sales, and improve marketing campaigns and services.

Due to the wide set of features gathered in this software, business owners and employees can access comprehensible systems for workflow management. Automation allows for entrusting routine and monotonously repeated tasks to such platforms, while freeing up employees for more significant duties that require human enrollment. Here is what functions CRM helps cope with:

1. Managing contacts and customer interactions. The software is proficient in all customer-related aspects. Systems allow for gathering information about clients, analyzing and segmenting data, and providing analytical research. Thus, CRM is a huge database of a company, where information about customers is stored and can be quickly processed. Cloud technologies are widely implemented to ensure equal real-time access to data. The software provides all the needed functionalities and tools for processing such information. For instance, it gives centralized access to data to all access-permitted employees, and updates information in real-time.
2. Automating sales processes. Users can set up the system to make automated newsletters, answer customers if they need help, explain how to make an order, etc. By entrusting such routine tasks to automated algorithms, employees free up time for other duties, while customers get prompt reactions to their queries, which inevitably raises their loyalty and satisfaction. Sales process automation helps increase the rate of lead conversion, which affects the company’s revenues.
3. Managing marketing campaigns. CRM also helps marketers improve their sales campaigns and make offers that will be welcomed by potential clients. By analyzing sales metrics and customer feedback, CRM software defines the weaknesses of marketing programs. Such systems can analyze customer behavior at every stage of the sales funnel and find shortcomings. Thus, marketers know where to focus their efforts and how to correct campaigns to increase lead attraction.
4. Supporting and servicing customers. Customer support is an important part of building fruitful relations with clients. Moreover, prompt reaction to client requests is a key to successful interaction with a target audience. The attraction of automated CRM tools allows for ensuring rapid reaction to clients’ queries, i.e., they won’t have to wait long until a human manager processes their request. Prompt reaction leads to higher customer satisfaction and increased loyalty. 

Thus, CRM helps companies build long-term relationships with customers, enhancing the sales and customer service process. It performs a wide list of tasks and embraces different aspects of business running, which allows for improving an entire workflow and increasing productivity.

What is Business Intelligence?

Before we get down to the interconnection between CRM and BI, let’s clarify what the latter term means. Business intelligence (BI) is a set of tools and features used for market research and analysis. BI helps businesses better understand the market and customers through data. It consists of tools and technologies that help collect, analyze, and visualize data for decision-making. Quality BI should include three main perspectives, namely, reports, dashboards, and forecasting. The main functions of BI include:

1. Data collection and processing. In order to develop a prosperous business with long-term success, it’s important to keep collecting data and analyzing it constantly. The availability of updated data and metrics allows for making timely adjustments and staying competitive on the ever-evolving market. Thus, this aspect allows for the development of a competitive business that is ready to satisfy the current demands of customers.
2. Report creation and data visualization. Reporting is an indispensable part of running the business. Employees frequently report to managers to keep track of the workflow and monitor productivity. Data visualization helps make information more perceivable in this case. BI tools help make updated, relevant reports and provide information clearly and vividly.
3. Forecasting and analytics. Based on the obtained analytics and metrics, it’s possible to make more probable forecasts and predict future market movements. This feature means that businesses are ready to meet any market fluctuations and can easily adjust to them with minimum risks.
4. Supporting decision-making based on data. Making business decisions is easy if you rely on figures and facts. Thus, the implementation of BI tools helps make informative and grounded decisions, which affects business success and profitability.

Thus, BI is mainly targeted at market analysis to feel more comfortable and be ready to react to any changes promptly.

BI vs. CRM: Main Differences

Now, let’s discuss the connection between business intelligence and customer relationship management and outline the key difference between both notions. The main differences between both options are:

1. CRM is used for managing customer relationships, while BI is used for data analysis and decision support.
2. CRM helps organize sales and marketing processes, while BI provides businesses with information for strategic planning.
3. BI focuses on processing data from various sources, whereas CRM works with customer data.

However, note that it’s impossible to conclude that one option is better than another, since both solutions are not interchangeable. Both systems complement each other, and their integration allows businesses to gain a complete picture of customer management and manage their operations more efficiently.

How do CRM and BI work together?

Finally, let’s discuss how the integration of CRM in business intelligence systems works. The main essence of this collaboration implies that CRM provides the data, while BI analyzes it. Key stages of implementation include:

1. Data collection and preparation.
2. Setting up the integration of CRM and BI systems.
3. Training employees to work with new tools.
4. System testing and launch.

This strategy allows for improving business performance and workflow efficiency. However, before it is implemented, users are likely to face certain challenges, such as data synchronization from different systems. 

To tackle this problem and ensure smooth integration, it’s necessary to pick high-quality software. SugarAnt’s software combines CRM and BI functionality, providing a comprehensive solution for managing customer relationships and data analysis. The system enables automation of sales and marketing processes and offers powerful tools for creating reports and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs).

To draw the line, note that BI in CRM is an important part of the work. Both concepts help enterprises thrive and enjoy higher revenues. Thus, the integration of CRM in BI is essential in the modern world and helps develop competitive businesses on the market. If you want to achieve strategic goals and increase business success, the integration of CRM software is an essential step. After all, all modern companies use such platforms in their workflows to be competitive and improve their position in the market niche.