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Using every penny and opportunity to your profit is among the most important goals that eCommerce business owners have. At the end of the day, every investment matters, both financial and temporal, therefore, process optimization is key.

In this post, you can learn more about customer relationship management systems, the reasons why they are advantageous for online retail businesses and find out which software to consider using for your own store.

CRMs: What They Are Needed for in eCommerce

When a business functions like an orchestra in which all professional musicians are in tune, there’s no other way to go but up. A great way to achieve that is by using specially-crafted customer relationship management software that’s designed to help manage and organize workflows. By arranging all the inbound business processes (from data on potential clients to orders and expenses to marketing efforts and beyond), eCommerce CRMs can increase productivity and save invested money.

To explain this point in more detail, some of the things that CRMs are used for are:

• Organizing work processes (for instance, for indicating data accessibility and sharing rules that’ll limit who from the team can see and use specific information),
• Automating lots of the work to replace manual operations,
• Logging all the actions that deal with the ongoing work with a lead or client,
• Communicating with customers more effectively (various notifications and auto-mailers that make sure that no one is left out or forgotten, to name a few ways),
• Keeping all the documentation and client data conveniently stored in one place (unlike having it scattered on multiple computers of employees in different documents that not everyone has access to),
• Establishing the processes for approvals (say, that’ll systemize the way employees are allowed to take time off),
• Enhancing the productivity of all employees, empowering them, and speeding up a lot of the daily work (for example, with the use of pre-designed email templates, it becomes much faster to send replies),
• Having the system “keep in mind” the things that a human can forget about (upcoming customer birthdays, soon-to-end contracts, any information a person can miss can be handled by the system),
• Streamlining task distribution (for example, assigning a lead to the specialist who is most suitable for the job);
• Analyzing the results of the work with the use of simple to create reports (tracking the progress of a single sales specialist or the effectiveness of an entire marketing campaign become much easier).

The mentioned above are just the most prominent things that a CRM can be handy for. But, perhaps, the most important benefits for online retail are that you can have everyone on the same page, collaborating in a timely and productively. Plus you can have clearly lined out sales processes that’ll boost your chances of expanding the business whilst spending less and making customers happier.

Overview of the CRM Software Commonly Used by eCommerce Businesses

Without a doubt, there are many CRM solutions out there that can be suitable for eCommerce businesses. In this section, we bring you the top 5 most popular ones that are often used in the sphere of online retail that you can consider.

1. Salesforce

Among the most well-known CRMs that opens the list isSalesforce. This software’s main strength lies in the fact that it is very customizable and is suitable for large businesses that have very complicated work processes. The ecosystem is cloud-based and noted for being secure. There are numerous opportunities for expansion yet the system generally requires having an admin to run the whole thing properly.

2. Hubspot

Next in our overview is Hubspot, a system that also offers various solutions for sales, service, and marketing teams and processes. The navigation within is very intuitive just as are the present features, thus, there’s practically no learning curve for the users. It’s worth noting that this tool is simply integrated and available free of charge.

3. SendinBlue

Widely known for this brand’s email marketing solutions,SendinBlue also offers a handy CRM. This system is often used by stores that are based on the Shopify platform. It’s good for task assignment and order management.

4. Zoho CRM

The following software is also widespread among eCommerce stores. Zoho CRM can also boast being reliable, scalable, and quite affordable. The system can be tailored to fit the needs of a business and doesn’t require time-consuming onboarding.

5. AgileCRM

Last but not least, we’ll mention AgileCRM. This platform is applicable to businesses of medium and petite sizes. It’s reputed for simply bringing together the efforts of marketing and sales as well as for enhancing work processes. Moreover, it can be integrated with many eCommerce platforms that include Magento, Shopify, and WooCommerce.

Wrapping Up

To conclude all the covered above, CRMs are very useful for running a business efficiently. Such software can save a lot of time on manual work, help keep data on contact management organized, and have all the employees on the same boat. Even the saved time on allocating information alone can be beneficial for an eCommerce store, not to mention what can be gained when the entire staff is working with complete precision!