Effective businesses rely on CRM systems, and their impact can be maximized through seamless integration with other software solutions. This is possible through the process called CRM integration. This guide will explain CRM integration and its importance to your business.
Understanding CRM Integrations:
What are CRM Integrations?
CRM integration is the process of bridging the gap between your CRM system with other systems you use. It helps organizations manage their data at one single location with real-time insights, removing the requirements for manual data entry.
Example:
Suppose you’re using both a CRM system and an e-commerce platform. By seamlessly connecting the two, you enable automatic data sharing between them. You can access a customer’s complete purchase history within your CRM, regardless of whether the transaction occurred on your e-commerce platform. This integration can help businesses improve their customer service as they will have much wider information about the customer’s journey, which helps them tailor their communications.
CRM integrations can be used to connect a CRM system with a wide variety of other software applications, including:
- Marketing automation software to automate marketing campaigns and track customer engagement
- E-commerce platforms to track customer purchases and order history
- Customer support software to manage customer tickets and interactions
- Project management software to track customer projects and progress
- Accounting software to track customer payments and invoices
Why Are CRM Integrations Important?
- Combine data from different systems into one place. These integrations provide a 360 view of the customer’s journey. Right from the contact us form they filled out to which pages they viewed on the website to what they bought to their customer service inquiries, CRM integration helps to integrate all the information sitting in different systems.
- Automate tasks and sync data across systems. This saves the marketing and sales team time and lets them focus on more important things and less manual data entry tasks.
- Help you deliver personalized and timely customer interactions. Real-time data is a goldmine for businesses to sell and grow. It increases productivity and brings efficiency in communications with customers. This data helps to reach out to the right person at the right time with the right message.
- Make it easy for your team to communicate with each other. Every system user is different and their way to enter data is complex. Whether it’s email communication, social selling, or 1:1 calls, a lot of information sits in different systems. Integrating systems can help you all the activities into one system.
Type of CRM Integrations:
Third-party App Integrations: These integrations are done with the systems that your system does not create. For instance, a CRM system can be integrated into an email marketing tool like ActiveCampaign or a social selling tool like LinkedIn.
Custom Integrations: These integrations are not off the shelf or in other words “simple integrations”. For complex scenarios, custom integrations are the way to solve challenging business problems.
For example, you can connect your CRM system with your in-house stock management system you have created for customers.
API Integrations: Connecting your CRM to other software systems using APIs. APIs are like bridges that allow different software systems to talk to each other and share data. For example, you could use an API to connect your CRM to your e-commerce platform to sync orders between the two systems automatically.
Common CRM Integration Challenges and Solutions
Challenge 1: Data Security Concerns
Businesses may be worried about their data security when integrating CRM systems.
Solution:
- Choose CRM solutions with strong security features.
- Make sure that all integrated applications follow strict security protocols.
Challenge 2: Resistance to Change
Employees may not want to change their workflows to adapt to a new CRM system.
Solution:
- Provide thorough training on the new system.
- Emphasize the system’s benefits, such as streamlined processes and increased efficiency.
Challenge 3: Compatibility Issues
CRM systems may not be compatible with other systems that businesses use.
Solution:
- Carefully assess the compatibility of all systems before integrating them.
- Consider consulting with CRM experts for help with seamless integration.
Best Practices for Successful CRM Integrations:
Define your goals: What are you trying to achieve from this CRM integration? What made you plan about this CRM integration is important. What is the overall goal of the CRM integration and then what are the specific goals for each department you want to achieve? All of this information helps you create your plan.
Choose the right partners: A CRM partner plays a crucial role in CRM integration as you trust them with your systems and data. Choosing a reliable partner like Feasible Feats can help you achieve your CRM integration goals. It is important to make them clearly understand your goals and then only enter into the project.
Up-to-date CRM Systems: Systems are constantly evolving and getting upgraded the latest versions. It is important to make sure the data integration you are planning to start is getting integrated between the latest systems so that information is integrated seamlessly.
Monitor your integrations regularly: Check your integrations regularly for any errors or performance issues. Address any problems promptly to avoid disruptions to your business.
Understand your users better: Discuss with CRM users how they use the CRM and how they wish to use it. What is the information they need to find in different systems, or what things take the majority of their time? Lastly, what are their suggestions to improve the system?
Provide training to your users: Make sure your team knows how to use the CRM and its integrations effectively. Provide ongoing training to help them get the most out of the system.
How can Feasible Feats help you with CRM integration?
Feasible Feats is a CRM consulting and implementation agency, that can help you in selecting the most suitable CRM integrations for your business. They can help you plan the integration as per the system you use, then set up and do configuration. They also provide training for your team to effectively use these integrations.
Feasible Feats can help you with CRM integration in several ways, including:
- CRM assessment: Feasible Feats will start by comprehensively evaluating your business needs and existing software applications. This will help them to identify the right CRM integrations for your business and develop a plan for implementing them.
- CRM integration implementation: Feasible Feats will work with you to implement your CRM integrations and ensure they work correctly. They will also train your team on how to use the integrations.
- CRM integration support: Feasible Feats offers ongoing support for your CRM integrations. Feasible Feats provides support on day-to-day integration issues, data quality checks, and much more.
Contact Feasible Feats today to learn how they can help you with CRM integration.
Conclusion
CRM integrations are essential for businesses to grow and scale. The scalability comes with data integration rather than manual data entry, saving loads of time for the team members. Understanding your business requirements, data issues, and processes and how to map this into an architecture to implement a data integration chart can help businesses grow. Leverage the power of integration, and your CRM will be your central source of information to scale.
