In the constantly changing business world, customer relationships are essential to any business. In order to efficiently handle these connections and drive growth, companies frequently depend on two powerful tools that are also competing: Customer Relationship Management CRM Vs Customer Success Platforms. Both systems have different goals and features, even though they are both intended to enhance customer relationships. In this article, let's delve deeper into the key differences and advantages of each.
Even though both CRMs and Customer Success Platforms enhance the customer experience, they are both different on so many levels and complement each other in different ways at the same time.
CRMs assist businesses in managing sales pipelines, tracking leads, and streamlining customer interactions. They are mostly focused on sales and marketing procedures. They are intended to automate a number of operations, track sales prospects, and collect and manage client information. Statisfy uses this customer data to help you make decisions depending on customer behavior, such as recommending a proactive strategy to prevent churn.
These systems offer a comprehensive picture of the customer experience and are made to increase engagement and customer retention. They make proactive assistance possible, spot possible problems, and predict customer churn.
While both CRM systems and Customer Success Platforms aim to enhance customer relationships, they serve distinct roles within a business. Understanding these differences is crucial to leveraging them effectively and ensuring a seamless customer journey from acquisition to long-term retention.
Most businesses saw their sales revenue increase by 21-30% after implementing a CRM platform. (Freshworks)
While both CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems and Customer Success Platforms serve essential functions in managing customer relationships, they focus on different stages and aspects of the customer lifecycle. They serve unique roles and objectives and even complement each other in the customer journey.
CRMs are primarily designed to support sales teams by organizing and managing customer data to drive sales activities. Their main objectives revolve around acquiring new customers and optimizing the sales process.
After the sale is made, CRMs typically shift focus away from customer retention, as they do not track the ongoing customer journey post-purchase.
Customer Success Platforms are built to ensure customers derive the maximum value from the product or service, aiming to retain them long-term.
The main objectives of these platforms focus on customer satisfaction and engagement after the sale:
Unlike CRMs, customer success platforms are designed to track the customer’s journey post-purchase, focusing on retention and satisfaction, and ensuring customers continue to derive value from the product or service.
Both CRMs and Customer Success Platforms serve different advantages. Let’s have a look:
Another key difference between CRM vs Customer success platforms lies in the level of insights they provide:
CRM systems usually need more insight for customer success, even while they can track basic customer data and sales activities. This implies that:
1. Tracking customer satisfaction or usage patterns often requires manual data input.
2. CRMs don’t typically offer health metrics that can predict churn or customer satisfaction levels.
To monitor crucial customer success metrics like engagement or usage rates, you might have to rely on third-party applications such as Statisfy or spreadsheets.
91% of businesses with over 11 employees now use CRM, compared to 50% of those with 10 employees or less. (Superoffice)
On the contrary, customer success platforms are constructed with analytics and reporting capabilities intended to offer a more comprehensive understanding of customer health. These platforms are able to monitor:
1. How often do customers use the product, and which features do they engage with?
2. Satisfaction levels through surveys, ratings, and customer reviews.
3. Using data points to predict which customers might be at risk of leaving.
These insights enable customer success teams to take proactive steps to enhance engagement, resolve issues, and guarantee customer satisfaction before they become issues.
Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer, underscoring the importance of customer success platforms. (OutboundandEngine)
By understanding the distinct purposes and objectives of CRM vs Customer Success Platforms, businesses can effectively utilize these tools to optimize their customer relationships and drive growth.
Are you curious to know how data-driven insights can transform your customer engagement? Book a demo with Statisfy to discover how actionable analytics from CRM and customer success platforms help you drive better results.
Both CRMs and Customer Success Platforms offer automation features, but the scope of automation differs significantly.
CRM systems provide automation capabilities to optimize sales processes. These may consist of:
However, CRMs generally don’t offer much automation for customer success activities such as:
On the other hand, Customer Success Platforms excel in automation related to customer health. For example, they can:
This allows Customer success teams to act quickly and efficiently, ensuring no customer feels neglected or unsupported.
Another area of CRM vs Customer Success Platforms differ in their approach to customer relationships.
Although a CRM offers a detailed overview of every interaction with a customer, this perspective is usually centered on the sales cycle, from lead generation to deal closure. It assists sales teams in understanding:
However, this perspective is limited to the sales process and offers no continuous understanding of customer engagement beyond the purchase.
Customer Success Platforms are designed to create a holistic customer view that encompasses every touchpoint a customer has with your business. These platforms gather data from:
This allows Customer Success teams to manage the entire customer lifecycle, from onboarding to renewal, with a focus on ensuring long-term customer satisfaction and success.
Although CRMs and customer success platforms serve different purposes, when combined, they can work well together. Here's how:
By increasing retention by as little as 5%, profits can be boosted by as much as 95%. (OutboundEngine)
Although they have different purposes, CRM and customer success platforms are essential to customer relationship management. Client success platforms are important for guaranteeing customer success, retention, and satisfaction, while Customer Relationship Management Systems are critical for tracking customer information and managing the sales process.
It's strongly advised to connect both platforms Customer Relationship Management Systems and Customer Success Platforms, in order to give your customers the greatest experience possible and drive business growth. By doing this, you can match customer success strategies with your sales efforts, guaranteeing that you not only attract new customers but also maintain their satisfaction and engagement over time.
Interested in knowing how CRM vs. Customer Success Platforms can boost customer retention and customer loyalty? Book a demo with Statisfy to explore how our platform can transform your customer success strategies and improve business performance.
You can manage customer interactions more effectively and holistically by combining Customer Relationship Management and customer success platforms, which will eventually increase customer loyalty, retention, and business results.
