When customer relationship management (CRM) technologies were first introduced, they seemed to be largely the provenance of the sales team, whose members needed a way to quickly understand what had previously gone on in customer relationships. As a result, for years, CRM technology was essentially a glorified database that remained relatively siloed in the sales department, with some creep in the contact center.
When you boil it down, though, everyone in a company touches the customer relationship; whether directly or indirectly, of course. As a result, CRM should be a companywide initiative, not simply limited to the sales team and the call center.
CRM solutions provider Zoho Corporation recently announced the preview of its Zoho CRM for Everyone product, a new set of capabilities aimed at democratizing CRM to all teams involved in customer operations activities. Zoho CRM for Everyone allows sales teams, the primary custodian of customer relationships, to communicate and coordinate from a single place various customer deliverables across areas like solutions engineering, contract management, sales enablement, customer onboarding, and advocacy. These capabilities stand to improve visibility for every stakeholder in the customer journey, mitigate gaps in coordination, reduce turnaround time, and improve the quality of the customer experience.
Zoho’s new iteration includes a team modules feature that allows business teams to create their own team-level data modules (in addition to organization-level modules) by themselves while being governed by IT teams. Team Modules can have their own fields, permissions, workflow automation, and other customization that is specific to each team. These modules are housed within a dedicated space for each team. Together, this helps unite all customer-facing processes onto a single platform enriched with complete customer context.
"Traditionally, the CRM system has been built by IT and built for sales workflows," said Mani Vembu, Zoho's Chief Operating Officer. "Over the years, it has accumulated a wealth of customer context, but access to the CRM is strictly rationed, and teams are forced to operate on their own islands with limited context. This is fundamentally antithetical to a great customer experience. Zoho CRM for Everyone breaks down those silos for the first time, enabling different teams in a sales process to contribute productively by reducing CRM complexity and encouraging participation."
Edited by
Alex Passett
