CRM with project management

Managing customers and projects is hard work. And juggling both effectively can sometimes seem impossible. Indeed, the Project Management Institute found that around 11 per cent of all resources are wasted due to lacking project management processes.

But fear not. Consolidating your business processes can help you stay agile and streamline your workflows to boost efficiency. Combining the right systems is crucial to success and makes life easier for everyone—customers and employees alike.

And that’s where CRM with project management comes in. Because integrating your CRM and project management systems saves time, simplifies processes, and improves collaboration. Let’s delve deeper into this winning combination.

Before we can answer that, let’s first cover the basics. CRM stands for customer relationship management and CRM software is all about streamlining communication with customers and making it easy to manage customer information. Project management, on the other hand, is exactly what it sounds like—an organised approach to managing projects of all shapes and sizes, from planning and tracking progress, to scheduling tasks and organising resources.

Project management and CRM systems might sound like two peas in a confusing pod, but they share many common goals, including improving the customer experience and executing plans efficiently. In many ways, they’re actually two sides of the same coin. After all, good project management relies on organised customer data and communication, whilst good customer relationships depend on well-executed projects and meeting agreed deadlines.

Maintaining great customer relationships and effective project management therefore go hand in hand. And that’s why integrating your CRM with project management is the perfect way to bring these two parts of your business together.

Before we can answer that, let’s first cover the basics. CRM stands for customer relationship management and CRM software is all about streamlining communication with customers and making it easy to manage customer information. Project management, on the other hand, is exactly what it sounds like—an organised approach to managing projects of all shapes and sizes, from planning and tracking progress, to scheduling tasks and organising resources.

Project management and CRM systems might sound like two peas in a confusing pod, but they share many common goals, including improving the customer experience and executing plans efficiently. In many ways, they’re actually two sides of the same coin. After all, good project management relies on organised customer data and communication, whilst good customer relationships depend on well-executed projects and meeting agreed deadlines.

Maintaining great customer relationships and effective project management therefore go hand in hand. And that’s why integrating your CRM with project management is the perfect way to bring these two parts of your business together.

Zendesk’s CX Trends 2022 Report revealed that 69 per cent of companies have plans to consolidate their existing systems. And for good reason—merging these two areas can bring significant benefits. Let’s cover four big ones.

Improved customer experience

Integrating your project management and CRM systems ensures your team has easy access to all the information it needs to manage complex projects. It also allows them to resolve customer problems even faster and is the perfect basis for a customer-centric approach.

What’s more, customer profiles embedded in project management make it easy to tailor your products/services. Putting customers at the centre of everything you do is vital to both customer satisfaction and business success. After all, happy customers are loyal customers.

Improved efficiency

SuperOffice reports that 74 per cent of businesses say CRM software has improved their access to customer data. But integrating your CRM with project management takes this a step further. Better access to all your customer and project data ultimately means less time wasted switching between applications—which of course improves productivity.

But CRM systems can do far more than simply track customer data. They’re also great at automating processes, e.g. assigning project tasks, or sending out notifications, which can free up your agents to focus on other things. What’s more, everything on a single platform means less training, smoother onboarding, and fewer licences—lower costs.

Improved decisions

Adding project management to your CRM allows you to easily monitor project progress in real-time and assess where extra resources may be needed. It also helps you make data-driven decisions and gives your team a much clearer picture of what tasks to prioritise.

Integrating your project management and CRM systems ultimately removes the guesswork from what makes a project successful. Your CRM can help you manage your projects by providing real-time insights into customer feedback—not to mention detailed analytics.

Improved communication

Communication between departments can sometimes feel like a telephone game. But CRM with project management can help ensure that everyone stays on the same page by consolidating your systems and breaking down those dreaded data silos.

When you combine your CRM system with project management, your teams no longer need to re-enter information or do any manual paperwork. Everything is organised and safely stored in one easy-to-access platform. This saves time and helps prevent any errors or miscommunication. Say hello to smooth-running projects.

CRM with project management is a match made in heaven. But not all solutions are created equal, so it’s a good idea to make sure your chosen platform has everything you need—from usability and flexibility to features and integration options.

Enter Zendesk. Intuitive, flexible, and powerful, our CRM system helps you centralise your data, streamline your processes, and take control of your customer support. What’s more, you can also use it to manage your projects. Here’s how.

Customisation

You customise Zendesk to suit your needs—including project management. This means you have the flexibility you need to build better strategies, workflows, and processes to manage your projects.

Integration

You can integrate third-party solutions to add new features and capabilities—including project management. Check out the Zendesk Marketplace for a huge range of apps to help you manage projects, improve your productivity, and increase sales.

Let’s see how two customers used these techniques to fulfil their CRM and project management needs with Zendesk.

DPG Media

As Belgium’s largest media company, DPG Media connects millions of people across multiple countries. But after realising that coloured-coded emails were holding back its customer service, the company decided to look for a more efficient solution.

The team knew that Zendesk would help it deliver a smooth customer experience for both employees and consumers—not to mention scale easily and personalise their interactions. Zendesk solutions now help the company keep its employees and audiences happy.

Although DPG Media uses its own project management tool, the team had it integrated with Zendesk in no time. This allowed them to create a smart workflow with various automations, e.g. tasks are now automatically assigned, time-tracked, and updated.

“The biggest advantage we saw right away was that the Zendesk platform can be very easily adjusted to our needs. There is no need to hire expensive consultants that need weeks to get the system working the way you want to. Furthermore, we see new functionality and apps are regularly being added to the platform. This enables us to continuously optimise our customer service operation.” - Stijn Van den Acker, Team Leader of Facility at DPG Media

Read the full customer story

Galls

Galls supplies uniforms and essential gear to the American police, military, security, fire, and emergency services. The company has a personalised web portal to make it quick and easy for these agencies and departments to order exactly what they need.

The team decided to switch to Zendesk Sell on account of its efficient workflows and detailed reporting features—not to mention quick implementation. Employees now spend just 20 per cent of their time on admin tasks (down from 50 per cent).

But there’s more because Galls also took the opportunity to customise the solution for their onboarding process, without needing to buy any additional project management software. The team now uses the platform to manage all its onboarding projects.

“It’s really been terrific for us. We use it like the pipeline in that we can tell at any point in time the status of a particular onboarding project. In fact, we have managed to reduce the time of the onboarding process from 100 days to 80 days which translates to a 20 per cent improvement in speed to revenue.” - Dan Martin, Senior Director of Sales Administration and Customer Experience at Galls

Read the full customer story