What is Collaborative CRM?

Customer relationship management (CRM) comes in different forms, and collaborative CRM specifically focuses on improving communication. That is, communication within an organisation, between employees as well as between employees and employer, and communication between the organisation and its customers.

The overall goal of CRM in general is to establish a strong relationship between a business and its customers, and in doing so, improve customer satisfaction, customer retention and customer service. Thus, collaborative CRM in particular works to achieve these goals focusing specifically on improving communication.

Essentially, collaborative CRM provides an opportunity to automate back-office operations, customer interactions and business management in an effort to create transparency among different departments and teams within the business.

Primary Components of Collaborative CRM

Sharing information, communicating effectively and collaborating on business operations helps maximise profitability and increase customer loyalty. Generally speaking, there are two main components involved in collaborative CRM – interaction management and channel management.

• Interaction Management: The process of interaction management is all about having employees from various parts of the company keeping track of any and all interactions with customers, including how the interactions take place and what the customers prefer, whether it’s contact via email or phone call, for instance. Ensuring that everyone within the company is on the same page allows for better and more consistent communication with customers.

• Channel Management: Once everybody across all departments is in the loop in terms of the appropriate medium and forms of interaction, employees can start working towards enhancing these mediums and channels of communication. The idea is to ensure that the channels are managed as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Getting these two aspects of collaborative CRM right will make it easier to maintain strong communication with customers in an effective and consistent way.

What Are the Main Elements of Effective Collaborative CRM? 

There are several elements of collaborative CRM that make it efficient, and in order for communication to be as effective as possible, all these different features need to be considered.

Communication Tools

Collaborative CRM is all about improving communication, so it follows that this requires the integration of strong communication channels, including methods for chats, emails, messaging and more, all of which can be done in real-time.

A Centralised Database

Easily one of the most important aspects of collaborative CRM is having a centralised database. It provides a place for all customer data to be kept and organised in a central location, meaning that info can be updated universally so there’s never any miscommunication. This reduces the chances of errors being made.

Document and File Sharing

Communication in regard to collaborative CRM also has a lot to do with facilitating document and file sharing. This includes the sharing of documents, notes and files that relate to sales, marketing and more. Making file-sharing collaborative enhances communication and it helps avoid communication and file-sharing silos.

Workflow Automation

The automation of workflow encourages communication, although indirectly, by allowing employees to avoid having to tedious, time-consuming tasks. Automating these types of tasks also introduces more consistency, meaning that everybody, across all channels, is providing the same services in this regard.

Task and Activity Management

A good CRM platform will allow employees to allocate tasks and activities to employees virtually, which acts as an efficient means of communication. It increases efficiency in terms of work management, allowing employees to keep track of who’s doing what, as well as what their progress is.

Role-Based Access Control

An issue that often comes up in the world of collaboration is the supposed risk of privacy and security issues. Thus, good collaborative CRM systems take this into account, and the best way to do that is to implement role-based access control. This means that the system encourages and allows for communication across departments but it doesn’t just give everyone indiscriminate access to everything.

Mobile Accessibility

Depending on the industry, some businesses may benefit a lot from being able to communicate easily while on the go, and CRM systems that are accessible via mobile devices can enhance the potential for collaboration.

Opportunity for Scalability 

Scalability is always important, and it’s essential that the infrastructure businesses use allow for companies to at least have the potential to scale up when and if necessary. That means that communication and collaboration channels should leave room the company to grow.

Analytics and Reporting

Staff need to be able to see where they’re going right and where they’re going wrong, and the best and most effective way to do this is by means of analytics and reporting. By automating these processes to a certain extent, businesses are given a data-driven way in which to improve operations. Most importantly, the findings of these reports can be easily shared with employees from across the company, allowing for healthy communication and collaboration.

A User-Friendly Interface

A user-friendly CRM system will naturally encourage collaboration and better communication as it’ll be easier and more pleasant to use.

Strong Security

Many users and businesses alike have concerns surrounding security when it comes to increasing collaboration. People fear that more communication and sharing of data, files and documents increases the likelihood of security breaches.

But it doesn’t have to. Good collaborative CRM systems will feature data encryption, user authentication and measures to manage various access control.

Communication, Communication, Communication

The same can be said in many different spheres of life, but it’s also true when it comes to CRM systems – communication is key and collaboration has the potential to improve business operations tenfold.

So, if you’re looking into implementing a CRM system, make sure to check it out from a communication perspective and pick a system that prioritises collaborative methods.