The Complete Guide to CRM Manager Roles

As new businesses emerge every day, investing in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the key to standing out from the competition and closing more deals. More satisfied customers are the key to attracting more loyal ones. Here is where a CRM manager plays an essential role. They focus on customer interaction, implementing and managing the software, and also help to increase sales by cultivating customer loyalty and attracting new ones.

For those of you considering hiring a CRM manager or seeking to be a CRM manager, we have a thorough guide for you. We have outlined everything you need to know about the role of a CRM manager, including their responsibilities, duties, hiring process, and more. Let’s begin.

The Typical Day of a CRM Manager

The daily life of a CRM typically depends on the roles they are assigned to. A generalized day in the life as a CRM manager includes updating accounts and contacts in the CRM software, scheduling meetings as per the availability, optimizing existing workflows and strategies, monitoring customer interactions and interacting with them, and many more. 

They also monitor and analyze the purchasing behavior of the target customers and recommend improvements in the interface to the businesses accordingly. Similarly, suppose there is an existing customer support team. In that case, a CRM manager can supervise the representatives, manage the team, get in touch with the VIP clients or high priority issues of customers. 

Thus, you may consider their role to be slightly beyond just implementing managing software. They carry out everything required to effectively manage teams and interactions to bring more happy customers to the business.

What Duties Does a CRM Manager Have?

While the day-to-day activities of a CRM manager include handling complex situations with customers, helping whenever required, and creating new strategies for teams to deliver excellent customer service, let’s discuss their long-term duties as a CRM manager and how they help develop a successful customer-centric business.

Managing Customers

A strong customer relationship simply doesn’t happen over one business phone call. Multiple processes go behind managing customer relationships. The first responsibility of a CRM manager is to look into the complete team and ensure every customer service executive is on the same page and knows the entire procedure to be followed for handling customers. This ensures that a client receives the same treatment regardless of the executive they speak to. 

Strategy Planning

A CRM manager is also responsible for creating and optimizing long-term strategies for businesses to efficiently manage customer interactions. For example, they create call scripts that the customer service executives should follow. However, a CRM manager also takes care during the instances when the calls do not go as per the script. Such situations can be documented and implemented into the next strategies accordingly. 

Employee Training

Even though creating scripts and circulating them to the customer service executives is also a part of training them, they should also focus on inculcating the core values. They should be able to highlight the sales, promotions, and strategies to lure customers into the ongoing offers and discounts and make the purchase from the business.

They often look at the buyer behavior, previous interactions, and market trends to make the right decisions and push the sales efforts accordingly. 

Handle Customer Queries

Sure, customer service executives will be trained to handle customer queries, but not every query can be simple or straightforward. In the case of complex ones, a CRM manager takes the lead and handles the problems or issues. They closely look into the matter and provide more personalized solutions to the customers.

Manage Customer Information

There are tons of activities and responsibilities of a CRM manager at the back end. One of them is maintaining customer information. Updating the CRM system with the accurate and latest information, adding the information of new customers, and so much more. You may even need to find duplicate data and refine the data storage whenever required to discard the outdated information. There are multiple tasks aligned with managing CRM software by a CRM manager. 

Reporting

While the CRM software will already generate automated reports, a CRM manager will typically develop the process and standards around the reports. They help in presenting the analytics and use it for creating data-driven decisions by understanding the data manually. 

They are also responsible for customer interaction in different channels, including social media. They should ensure that the team is at the right speed as per the standards maintained for the same. 

To sum up, they tackle everything from company policies and procedures, executive training, consumer behavior analysis, managing multichannel interactions, and more. Lastly, they will also review the customer evaluation of the brand sent as feedback by the customers. They will consider the feedback and implement the optimizations to make the endeavor a success and make the customers happy.

Who Makes a Good CRM Manager?

Do you think you really have what it takes to be a good CRM manager? Let’s check out the skills required to be a successful CRM manager to find it out. 

Communication Skills

One of the most inevitable and non-negotiable skills that should be present in a CRM manager is communication skills. Since a CRM manager works directly with customers, they should make a positive impact with their conversations. They may need to interact with the customers through multiple channels, face to face, over the phone, etc. hence, they need to be able to listen to the customers’ issues closely and offer the right resolutions.

Customer Service Skills

The main focus of a CRM manager is to create a happy and memorable experience for customers with the business. This means that their customer service skills should be strategically built to persuade the customers to consider the same business again for the next purchase. They should also focus on gradually improving and making the customer service better every time.

Tech Skills

Even though CRM managers need not be completely tech-savvy, they should be proficient in the required tech skills to operate a CRM system seamlessly. They should be able to input and manage the CRM database of the company. 

Teamwork

Since a CRM manager is meant to collaborate with multiple customer service executives and train them in handling the sales, marketing, and other aspects of a business, they should have good teamwork skills. This ensures that the customer relationship strategy will be acknowledged and implemented well in the organization.

Time Management Skills

A CRM manager will not have the entire day to solve customer queries. Thus, a CRM manager should be able to solve customer queries in the least amount of time possible. They should be able to handle multiple customer queries and manage the time simultaneously. Similarly, they should also instruct the other members to work on their time management skills to quickly provide effective resolutions to customers!

Analytical Mindset

A good CRM manager should have an analytical mindset that focuses on a process-driven approach. Since the issues that arise in a business daily are limitless, they should have an agile and strategic mind that can help develop and nurture customer relationships correctly. Of course, they should also have an exhaustive knowledge about the company’s product and services to sell effectively. 

When to Hire a CRM Manager

Be it a startup or an MNC. If you are already running a business and are wondering when to hire a CRM manager, you need to assess by judging the different stages of the journey. For starters, assess the challenges faced by your company every day. However, suppose you cannot source the potential challenges and issues faced by your customers. In that case, you should invest in CRM software along with a CRM manager that can offer you all the necessary data about it.

Secondly, another aspect you should consider while hiring a CRM manager is the budget. Since a CRM manager can cost you anywhere from $80,000 to $120,000 per month, you may want to check your resources and make the decision accordingly. You should also consider your business objectives when hiring a CRM manager. 

There is never a specific timeline as to when you should hire a CRM manager for your business. If you are willing to build more loyal customers and scale your company further, investing in a CRM manager can be a great investment for your business which brings higher ROI. 

Conclusion

CRM managers carry out a diverse range of duties, generally with no limitations. Since it falls under customer relationships, there are many aspects that a CRM manager has to take care of on a daily basis. The need for CRM managers will increase even further in the next few years, so you can expect a bright career future if you finally pursue your goal of becoming a CRM manager. All you need are exceptional communication skills, collaboration skills, teamwork, technical skills, marketing skills, management skills, and last but not least, listening skills. Alternatively, if you are currently a business owner and are considering investing in a CRM manager for your company, there has never been a better time. With businesses increasing their focus on digital marketing and making them more customer-centric, you must strengthen relationships with your customers.