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What Is CRM (Customer Relationship Management)?

Learn all about what CRM is, what it does, and how it can improve your customer relationships.

What is AI CRM? An AI-powered system that makes it to manage customer relationships, streamline processes, and improve productivity across your teams.

Getting started with The Beginners Guide to CRM

Just getting started on your CRM journey?

Learn everything you need to know about finding, winning, and keeping customers with The Beginner's Guide to CRM.

Einstein showcasing Forrester's AI-Powered CRM report

Map Your Journey to AI-Powered CRM

Read Forrester's survey of 700+ business leaders to see how they're using AI to serve customers better.

Sales Increases

+ 30 %
sales revenue
+ 30 %
win rate
+ 30 %
faster deal closure

Marketing Increases

+ 32 %
increase in ROI
+ 30 %
customer lifetime value
+ 34 %
B2B lead volume

Customer Service Increases

+ 32 %
customer retention
+ 32 %
customer satisfaction
+ 21 %
faster case resolution

Digital Commerce Increases

+ 28 %
online revenue
+ 29 %
faster time to execute new strategies
+ 19 %
digital conversion rates

IT and Technology Increases

+ 22 %
decrease in IT costs
+ 30 %
faster deployment
+ 30 %
faster automation of business processes
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What is CRM? FAQs

CRM stands for customer relationship management. It's a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. A CRM system helps businesses improve customer service relationships and assist in customer retention and drive sales growth.

CRM systems help businesses of any size — from enterprises to SMBs to startups —  streamline processes, build stronger customer relationships, improve customer satisfaction, and increase sales. By centralizing customer data, companies can better understand their audience, personalize interactions, enhance overall efficiency, and increase your ability to personalize customer interactions.

CRM is crucial for nurturing customer relationships by providing a unified view of customer interactions that can be seen by anyone in any department. This allows businesses to offer personalized experiences, anticipate needs, and resolve issues promptly, fostering loyalty and long-term engagement.

Key CRM features include contact management, lead management, sales forecasting, reporting and analytics, marketing automation, and customer service tools. Integrating AI with your CRM can help you do even more to manage the entire customer lifecycle, increase productivity, and find new opportunities to grow your business.

CRM can significantly improve sales by helping sales teams track leads, manage opportunities, automate tasks, and analyze sales data. This all leads to more efficient sales processes, better conversion rates, and increased revenue.

CRMs help teams enhance customer service by improving efficiency in handling customer inquiries and streamlining communication across multiple channels. This helps them resolve issues faster issue, provides actionable insights, and gives them the ability to scale and adapt to evolving customer needs.

There are 3 main types of CRMs. Operational CRMs streamline direct customer outreach and interactions. Analytical CRMs focus on capturing and analyzing data to understand customer behavior. Collaborative CRM enhances communication among partners, suppliers, and employees, bringing a unified approach to customer service.

There are a number of features and capabilities you should be considering when choosing the right CRM for your company. The right CRM helps all of your teams work together to create the experiences your customers expect, can scale as your grow, has AI capabilities and AI agents that support employees and customers, and acts as a single source of truth with the latest data on your customers.

There are a variety of Salesforce CRM pricing options. You can also view all Salesforce product pricing here.

There are a number steps involved in CRM implementation. They include assessing your business needs, planning and strategy, software customization, data migration, testing, and training your team to use the system effectively.