Conversational CRM is the next generation of Customer Relationship Management. Today, brands use messaging or CRM chatbots to create hyper-personal brand experiences. They're collecting (and effectively using) information to move customers through the sales funnel.

To understand how messaging benefits your business, let's take a look at today's CRM tools and where messaging fits in.

The tools for effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM)  

As companies grow, they usually rely on CRM systems to help manage their relationships. A CRM system, like Salesforce or Zoho, serves as a vital nerve centre, managing the many connections that take place over time.

Most companies know that their CRM system is essential for generating revenue and building brand loyalty. Thus, using technology to improve CRM systems makes good business sense.

Customer relationship management is more complex than ever, as new channels create new ways for customer relationships to form. Many companies find that conversational CRM is helping to fill the gaps in their current systems. Let's examine the common challenges of CRM systems and how messaging and CRM chatbots helps.

CRM systems don't always help marketers reach new customers

While CRM data can be useful for reaching current customers, it does not always help businesses reach new customers. By combining messaging and automation, brands effectively reach potential customers and generate leads. By using conversational CRM you gain leads and insights from:

• Your website: Conversational CRM or chatbot CRM helps you collect information about who visits your website and how they interact with your products or services.
• Your social media platforms:  Conversational CRM facilitates purchases and relationships in a social setting. By deploying a chatbot on social media you capture helpful insights where your customers already are.
• Apps: You can establish a presence on messaging apps like WhatsApp, making your business easier than ever to reach. You will be able to follow your WhatsApp sales funnel.
• Your Ad campaigns: Use automation to integrate with ad campaigns and start conversations with customers who engage with your ads.

All of this data can be captured and sent to your CRM system automatically with a CRM chatbot. As a result, you'll have better leads and insights that drive revenue.

CRM data is only as good as what you do with it

Now that you have great information, how do you follow up on it? A common challenge with CRM systems surrounds following up on new leads and putting data to good use. The beginning stages of a new customer relationship are prime for automation. At this point, you might have many leads that won't end up converting.

This is where you can rely on automation to help qualify your leads. Using chatbots, you can start conversations with people at scale. A CRM chatbot knows which specific piece of content a person needs next. Therefore, they're well equipped to move the lead to the next stage in the sales funnel. A well-built chatbot also gathers insights from large amounts of data to help create target profiles.

Poorly designed CRM systems slow down response times

Many CRM systems are not user-friendly. A bad UX design leads to low performance at work. Instead of providing customer support, employees who are stuck with poorly designed CRM systems waste time trying to deal with the system. Since a customer service agent can receive over one hundred tickets per hour, the response time for each request is crucial.

To solve these problems, it is possible to automate elements of customer service with a CRM chatbot. Sometimes CRM chatbots can handle the entire customer conversation, and other times there will be a handoff to a human agent. Even in cases where the conversation is passed off, they can still capture and record basic customer details.

In essence, they do the heavy lifting with data entry and let your customer service agents focus on where they can add real value.

Sealing the deal for Conversational CRM

We've already covered the importance of conversational marketing and how chatbots enhance customer service teams. So to conclude, we'll recap the key areas where messaging specifically benefits your CRM strategy.

• Conversational CRM or CRM chatbots helps generate new ones
• It keeps employees engaged by eliminating time-consuming data entry
• CRM chatbots help create happier customers, as they free up human agents to help with the issues that matter most
• It saves a tremendous amount of time, which decreases operational costs
• Conversational CRM or a CRM chatbot helps fill in the gaps where crucial data is often missing
• It decreases security risks by sending information directly to a cloud-based database
• CRM chatbots help keep data updated, which avoids sending messages to customers that are not relevant