CRM Software as a Service

CRM software as a service continues to gain popularity, even during a recession. Why? Perhaps more companies are getting back to basics and focusing what is at the heart of the businesses: The customer. The key to success of any business is winning and retaining customers. But that's no mean feat given the customer demands that companies face, as well as the difficulty of implementing and enforcing company-wide processes to effectively support all interaction with prospects, customers, and partners.

There are may customer relationship management (or CRM) solutions devoted to helping companies manage their critical relationships. Software as a service is a technology model that is now especially popular. CRM software as a service, also known as the cloud computing model, is a cost-effective CRM solution which allows you to look after your customers and manage your budget at the same time.

To steer your company through these turbulent times, it's more vital than ever to be on top of every lead, every opportunity, and every customer interaction, without a big, up-front investment in software which is costly to install and maintain. This is where CRM software as a service proves its worth.

With CRM software as a service from salesforce.com, you can get going in as little as 30 days. With our pay-as-you-go model, the price of success is a fraction of what it had been until software as a service became a reality. Gone are the days of unnecessary complexity: Salesforce.com takes responsibility for the maintenance and upgrades for you. No wonder CRM software as a service is as popular as it is.

CRM Solutions for Better Customer Relationships

CRM solutions help companies do what they need to succeed: making customer relationships a priority. In fact, business CRM software as a service helps to make that focus laser sharp. In every successful company, the CRM solution is an area subject to continual innovation and appraisal. Your CRM processes and technologies must keep pace with changes in your marketplace and your customer base. The flexibility, lower costs, and faster implementations of cloud computing CRM solutions, also known as CRM software as a service, are now the de facto standard for organisations of all sizes in all industries and geographies.

Organisations can enjoy incomparable productivity, revenue growth, and market intelligence with Salesforce CRM software as a service:

Sales. CRM software-as-a-service solutions provide companies with the means to drive sales productivity, increase visibility, and expand revenues.
Customer Service and Support. CRM solutions get companies up and running in a matter of weeks with a much-loved call center application and an application for customer self-service usage which works to generate new levels of customer loyalty.
Partner Relationship Management. CRM software as a service makes it easy for all relevant people, including those at partner companies, to access leads, collaborate on deals, and locate all the data they need to be successful. Organisations get the benefits of having a single view into the sales pipeline for both direct and indirect channels.
Marketing. CRM software as a service enables closed-loop marketing to enable the execution, control, and analysis of multichannel marketing campaigns. Marketing executives can use CRM software as a service to measure the ROI of their budgets, and report on revenue associated with specific marketing programs in order for them to be able to make adjustments in real time.
Content. CRM software as a service brings Web 2.0 usability to your business content so you can share content more effectively and improve collaboration. Empower employees to locate the particular documents they need, directly from the CRM software as a service application which is in use every day.
Ideas. Salesforce.com's CRM solutions make it easy to unleash the potential power of community thinking and to create a dynamic, active dialogue with your customers, partners, and employees. In your online community, members make contact with each other and can post, discuss and vote on ideas. The best ideas bubbles up to the surface, helping you prioritise and manage feedback across your products and services.
Analytics. CRM software as a service empowers business CRM users at all levels to obtain important insight and analysis. With real-time reporting, calculations, and dashboards, businesses will discover new ways to optimise performance, decision making, and resource allocation.
Custom Applications. Once companies get a taste of what cloud computing services can do for CRM, they usually want to branch out beyond CRM software as a service into other areas of the organisation. The Force.com platform allows you to build and deliver CRM software as a service plus all your company's business applications within a single environment using one data model, one sharing model, and one user interface.
Industry Applications. Meet all of your industry-specific needs with salesforce.com's award-winning CRM software as a service, applications from the AppExchange, which cover a range of needs and topics, along with the Force.com platform. Industry CRM solutions have benefited from the successes of hundreds of companies and are fully and easily customisable.

Business CRM

For business, CRM can make the difference between a company thriving and going under. That is because the quality of the customer experience defines business success. Companies are challenged to integrate and manage the whole customer lifecycle to win and maintain those highly desirable, most- profitable customers. For many companies, the core, proven formula for success involves using business CRM software as a service across all areas that have any input into managing the customer relationship.

Too often, sales, operations, marketing, customer service, help desk support, professional services, and other client-facing units use unrelated management systems because there is no business CRM system in place for the whole company to use. As a result, nobody has a complete picture of the customer. CRM software as a service, in contrast, unifies customer information across all departments so that every customer facing employee has a 360-degree view of the customer and can provide a quicker, better service:

Leads go directly to the right sales team or individual rep (this routing is done automatically by the CRM software as a service solution), are well qualified, and the correct information is included.
Marketing departments can use CRM software as a service to get real-time visibility into the status of every lead, see which lead sources drive the most revenue, and plan appropriate marketing campaigns.
Service and support organisations gain visibility into which products and services the customer is using and assess any pending sales opportunities, and can notify the sales team to potential cross-sell and up-sell openings, all via a single business CRM application.
Back to the sales team, a quick check of the CRM software as a service application gives reps intelligence on any customer service issues that haven't been resolved so there are no unpleasant surprises when they make sales calls.

With a shared CRM software as a service solution, each department can be more dynamic and productive in their customer interaction, and each employee can provide enhanced, consistent service.

Meanwhile, businesses must "mind their metrics" to stay competitive. With traditional enterprise software, getting bespoke reports usually requires IT input and days or weeks of waiting. With CRM software as a service, business intelligence is democratised. Executives and managers finally have on the spot visibility into all aspects of the business�everything from a top level overview to micro-level details. Reports can be run and real-time dashboards can be set up in just a few clicks with CRM software as a service. It puts an end to consolidating disparate spreadsheets or working with data which is days or weeks old. Executives in every department can use business CRM solutions to get all the customer information they need to build a stronger, more profitable business:

CRM software as a service provides sales managers and executives with a better overview of customer information and sales activities. Business CRM also provides instant access to accurate pipeline information and forecasting.
Marketing executives can use CRM solutions to quantify the effectiveness of their campaigns and tie revenue back to separate marketing activities. Finally, marketing ROI is measurable, thanks to business CRM software as a service.
Customer service executives use CRM software as a service to access to up-to-the-minute information about global service operations-such as staff performance and service quality-so they can do fine-tuning which will have a positive impact, promptly

Even small investments in dashboards and reporting for all your customer-facing teams using CRM software as a service can have an acute impact on business performance.

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