Customer Relationship Management elaborates business with more clarification and brings more information about customer behaviour, which helps boost sales and retain existing customers. 

CRM software integration challenges explain what you can do with your business processes to make them as efficient and frictionless as possible. Any lag in a CRM application can lead to a disaster for your business, ultimately leading to poor sales revenue.

Whether you are doing any sales low-touch or high-touch or following up with existing clients via phone, a CRM system will provide lots of visibility about how successful you are with convincing clients.

But the question is, what exactly is a CRM application? And why is it necessary to implement CRM integrations? We'll indulge you with all the answers in this blog. 

What do you mean by CRM Integration?

As you are aware of CRM and its functionality, now we will get into what CRM integration means and why we should focus on it. In short, you can conclude that CRM integration means connecting your CRM applications with your business platforms.

To leverage your business daily and to keep every data point connected with CRM software, it is crucial to make your move to CRM integration. 

We have generated some endpoints that will encourage your need to integrate CRM with your applications.

What do you mean by CRM Integration

1. Single Platform of Interaction

Customer data is generated and modified from various applications, such as an e-commerce website, ERP, or social media. So, if you overlook integrating your CRM with these applications, you might have to manage these applications to have a clear vision of leads/customers.

Integrating your CRM will generate a transparent platform for all your customer-specific information. CRM also reduces ambiguities and enhances the confidence of the sales team while interacting with customers.

2. Proper Handling of Customer Operations

Maintaining interaction with your customers through every aspect of an organization means an opportunity to provide a better customer experience. So, organizations need to work in collaboration to achieve the correct data at the right time.

3. Shortened Sales Cycle and Accelerated Sales

If your CRM is integrated with data specifications, a website shortens the sales cycle and accelerates the sales process. The logic is simple: you have all the required info of your leads, such as customer info and order details as to when an order is placed on the website.

The data is synchronized with other customer data, such as all the previous transactions, loyalty campaigns, etc. Your sales team will have more interactive data to work with that enables you to act immediately and close sales deals quickly.

4. Customer Profiling 

If you have more data about your customers, it will help you understand your customers better. The integrated software with CRM lets you fetch details like location, interests, name, search pattern, and the customer's buying pattern. 

It will provoke your sales and marketing team to know every detail to target customers and boost revenues efficiently.

5. Reduce Manual Updation and Errors

Apart from collecting customer-related information, it is also important to manage this data.

If you don’t integrate your CRM system with business processes, then it will engage you in the manual updation of data. 

The risk factor will also be generated in the updation of data, which results in poor customer experience and conversions.

6. Increase in Conversion Rates

By implementing CRM integration, it becomes easy to retarget the customers more efficiently. It is easy to implement customer-specific targeting and sales approaches. This will ultimately improve lead conversion rates. 

Methods to Integrate Your CRM Software

There are three ways by which you can integrate your CRM software:

  • 3rd-party integrations 
  • Custom integrations
  • Native integrations
Methods to integrate your CRM software

1. Native Integrations 

These integrations are built into the CRM software to ensure that you can work with your familiar business tools( like email and scheduling programs) without leaving the CRM. It is one of the easiest ways to use and implement it into your software.

CRM vendors provide this along with the product, and are accessible just a click from the CRM itself. They are available for the most popular business tools: Gmail, Outlook, Mailchimp, Slack, and Intercom.

2. Third-Party Integrations

Third-party integrations connect your CRM with a broader range of business tools. Small sales teams also use many business tools, so a CRM platform can't provide native integration.

In this way, third-party integrations play a vital role for small businesses, but vendors within CRM do not directly provide the integration with CRM.

3. API-Key for CRM Integration 

An application programming interface(API) is a software application that allows programs to connect. The cloud-based or Saas(Software as a Service) applications business tools have a published library of APIs that enable other applications of software to access your CRM without requiring a password.

These APIs also allow your CRM to communicate with any legacy application that you have in your company.

Featured CRM integrations that you should have

Many software applications can be integrated with your CRM to make your business more efficient. We have shortlisted some featured CRM integrations that every interaction with CRM should have.

1. Email Integration

Nowadays, email marketing is most widely used by every business. It is a functionality that is a necessary CRM integration platform. For branding, any product or service companies always prefer email marketing for engaging their customers from a specific email address.

CRMs provide CRM-specific addresses to which employees can forward email correspondence in updating their CRM logs without revealing company identity.

2. Cloud Integration

Most CRM vendors are already SaaS providers. So, the providers offer subscriptions, updates, and services through the cloud, which is also integrated with mobile apps, as most of the vendors provide on-premise CRM installations that can be configurable by third-party integrations. 

Cloud-based integrations are safe and save all your information in the cloud storage, so if any information is deleted, it can be generated again by cloud storage.

3. Mobile Integration

If CRM is available on a mobile device, that will increase the workforce and initiate more customer engagement. Your employees also benefit from updating any information remotely and can access relevant information to understand customers' behaviour.

CRM can also be configured to automatically include mobile calls or text messages to contacts within CRM logs. Base CRM mobile apps can also generate reports, which most CRM mobile apps cannot do.

CRM integrations can streamline workflows and reduce the redundancy of applications by providing good exposure to users.

4. Calendar Integration

CRMs enable you to schedule appointments, tasks, and event management. These all can be done quickly by a CRM integrated calendar. But you can't force users to use CRM-integrated calendars or calendar apps.

So many CRMs integrate popular workspace calendars, like Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, and Apple Calendar.

5. Marketing Automation Integration

Marketing automation is an integrated approach to marketing communications such as advertising, PR, and social media. It is an increasingly common CRM integration of software providers like HubSpot or Market, allowing integration features with CRMs.

6. Social Media Integration

Tools and applications used to track customer engagement by different channels can be applied to a social media channel. Most CRMs are equipped with social CRM tools like Zoho CRM, HubSpot CRM, etc.

Social media integration allows companies to track trends and mentions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others. It provides more detailed customer segmentation and accurate social advertising.

7. Helpdesk Integration

Integrating your helpdesk software with your CRM allows you to sync CRM's customer data and helps in automated workflows. It enables faster service tailored to individual customers.

Integration with social media software enables automatic notifications of customer complaints according to respected criteria, which can help you to resolve problems before they start trending.

Wrapping up

Now that you realize how beneficial CRM integration is, you have to implement it immediately.  There are many CRM software available in the market which provide better implementations. It's your choice to benefit your business through CRM integrations that are a must-have for your business.

It's always good to know about visitors who have visited your website after your email. But all these can be possible by integrating CRM with your business application. So, make your move before it gets too late.

For any further information related to CRM integration, you can reach out to us.

Frequently Asked Questions

CRM integration is important because it allows different software systems to work together, streamlining data and processes. This improves efficiency data accuracy and enables a more comprehensive view of customer interactions.

CRM can be integrated into an organization by:

  • Selecting a CRM system that aligns with business needs.
  • Integrating CRM with existing tools, like email or marketing software.
  • Training employees to use CRM effectively.
  • Customizing CRM to match specific workflows and processes.
  • Regularly updating and maintaining CRM for optimal performance.

The four pillars of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) are:

  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Customer Service
  • Analytics

CRM integration for customer context involves connecting and synchronizing various customer-related data and interactions from multiple sources within an organization. This integration helps create a comprehensive view of the customer, enabling better communication, personalization, and decision-making.