We’ve all heard of Hubspot, the world’s leading CRM platform, and the wonders it can do for customer relationship management. In an era where uber-personalization is king, customers can dictate your company’s fortunes more than ever before. A robust CRM strategy is pivotal to the success of businesses around the world.
The importance of CRM is reinforced by Gartner’s prediction that it will be the “single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software” by the end of 2021. The reality is that without CRM, your business will be missing out on potential growth, revenue, and a loyal customer base.
And, yet, even the best CRM platforms can not do it all alone.
It is critical to ensure that whatever CRM platform you use is fully integrated into your business operations and plugged into multiple systems. In doing so, you would be optimizing your CRM technology and taking it to a new level. This post will look into what CRM integration is and how you can make the most of it.
What is CRM Integration?
Hubspot defines CRM integration as:
“A CRM integration is the seamless connectivity between your customer relationship management (CRM) software and third-party applications. Integrations result in automated actions that expand the functionality of your software, eliminating the need to toggle back and forth between systems.”
The purpose of CRM integration is to maintain an efficient flow of data and processes between your CRM software and other third-party applications. We will go into more detail later, but a typical example is integrating CRM, sales management, and delivery systems. In e-commerce, this would form the backbone of the business.
As Hubspot indicates, CRM software can only do so much on its own. When it’s part of a fully integrated system, its effectiveness is turbocharged. How can you achieve this? Let’s take a look.
Examples of CRM Integration
Pitching and Proposals
If your business requires pitching or client proposals, then integrating your CRM with software such as Propisfy would take your pitch to the next level. It would arm you with more information about your potential client, understand their requirements, and deliver a highly personalized pitch.
The flow of information between the two platforms would also make it easier to close deals and sign contracts, with client details ready to go.
Communication Tools
Fast and efficient communication with your customers and other key stakeholders is essential for a successful business. For some time, it’s been possible to have your customer’s details to hand on your screen when they call. This level of immediate access to purchasing history, delivery status, and other information is invaluable, enabling every communication to be highly personalized.
By integrating your CRM into such technology, you can optimize this process even further. It can support, for instance, internal communications where teams can quickly fulfill orders and resolve any issues with quick access to customer information.
E-commerce
This is a broad category, but if you have an e-commerce business, then a CRM tool will be at the heart of everything you do. Not only can it help with communications and customer service as outlined above, but CRM can also support marketing and sales teams by boosting their customer behavior analytics.
Armed with the extra information, your company would be able to more accurately predict purchasing trends and carry out a more targeted marketing strategy.
And there’s even more.
As an e-commerce business, you will likely operate several third-party applications for specific purposes. For example, you might be using Stripe for payment processing or DiCentral’s EDI software for your supply chain solutions. By integrating your CRM tool with external programs, your business operations will run like a well-oiled machine.
Challenges of CRM Integration
The challenges of integrating your CRM platform into the wider business systems are similar to any integration project. Bringing together the flows of data from multiple sources can be a complex task, with different data formats and duplicates.
For example, Salesforce may retain a lot of the same customer information as your CRM platform, but organized in a different way. Integrating the two data sets manually, or without the right tools, can prove to be a herculean task.
It is essential to have a strategy in place to manage the CRM integration process and ensure that you have the right tools to carry it out with maximum efficiency.
Put Your CRM Tool at the Heart of the Business - With Universal Adapter
By now, you will have a good idea of how a fully integrated CRM can deliver a boost to your business. It can speed up communications, deliver products quicker, and shape your sales strategy. The key is to find a solution that can not only support the setup of this integration but also help to maintain its high performance over the long term.
With Universal Adapter’s advanced API management platform, you will be able to take control of all API integrations and manage them from one dashboard. By managing the APIs, including that of your CRM and other third-party applications, you will be able to integrate multiple platforms with ease.
APIs are at the heart of the digital economy. Universal Adapter ensures those APIs are running smoothly, like a well-oiled engine within your business.
