Wire Media

Effective customer service is vital for many customers. In 2020, about 40% of U.S. consumers stopped doing business with a company because of poor customer service. 

You might wonder how you can improve your customer service, leads, and conversions. The quick answer is that a CRM or CMS might help. 

What are the differences between a CRM vs. CMS system and which is right for you? Read this guide on the differences between the 2 to decide which is best for your business. 

What Is CRM?

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool helps you with the full plan of customer interactions. Once a client or customer buys a product, it’ll still view the relationship afterward. 

Maintain customer interactions through: 

• Chat integration
• Phone and email integration
• Salesforce
• Data
• File syncing
• Call center integration
• Lead management 
• And more

The Benefits of a CRM

A solid CRM will allow you to have a place with all of your leads. It’ll have their email, phone number, and more information. That way, you don’t have to worry about running around trying to find information. 

While a CMS allows you to get in touch with a contact, a CRM offers you various functions to track the relationship over time. You can generate reports, see the last time you called a customer, set up future calls, etc. Some even allow you to see when a customer has opened your email. 

Many call centers use a CRM system since they can decide how many times to follow up with a lead. The goal in sales is to turn a cold lead into a warm lead and then a customer. 

Call centers will decide the number of times they’ll reach out to a customer. That could include emails, phone calls, etc. Once they go over a certain amount, they can decide to remove that lead from the system. You could also reach out to current customers after seeing their buyer persona. 

What Is CMS?

CMS stands for a Content Management System. You can run your website through an easy-to-use interface. Learn more information here about automating your marketing to make things even smoother for your business. 

Without a CMS, you’d need to interact with your web server. That’d mean every time you made changes to your website you’d have to create a new HTML file. 

It handles the backend of your site (CDA, short for content delivery application). On the front end, it allows you to manage, upload, and display content. It also offers you content management.

Some examples include: 

• Weebly
• WordPress
• Squarespace

CMS helps with: 

• Site editing
• A content library
• Web hosting
• Custom domain names
• Skipping hiring an expensive developer
• And more

The Benefits of a CMS

There’s a low learning curve, a CMS is easy to figure out. You can assign responsibilities with user access. 

Templates make it easy to change the look of a website. Understand user intent and tailor your marketing toward that. 

Boost website functionality by using widgets and plug-ins. Use SEO (search engine optimization) to increase organic traffic (free traffic). 

A CMS gives you secure and quick web hosting. Quick web hosting is vital to ensure that customers don’t leave your site waiting for it to load. 

CMS allows you to customize your website overall. This includes the meta description, alt tags, URL, and image names. Use SEO tags to help your site be found in search engines. 

Understanding the Differences

A CRM helps you follow up on leads and project sales. Whereas, a CMS helps you create a website.

The CMS allows you to manage all of the content that you publish. A CRM is there to help your sales and marketing team manage customers and leads. 

Which To Choose?

In the beginning, small businesses might only use a CMS until they scale up and become more comfortable with the sales process. Once this occurs, then they might consider having a CRM platform. 

While Salesforce is one of the most popular CRMs out there, there are other options too. Try out the different platforms to see which works best for your company. Some will offer you free or limited trials to see how you like them. 

Integration Time

Instead of choosing between the 2, you can integrate and use them together. A good integration will push the information into your CRM for you to view. 

This could include actionable insights, reporting, and analysis. You’ll be able to plan your content and marketing strategy since you’ll see how your site is performing overall. 

Think about which integration will work best for your business since each platform will work differently. If you’re already with a CRM that you don’t like, it might be worth it to learn and switch to a new option. Once you’re ready for integration, there are various options such as a CMS Hub. 

The integration will allow you to manage your content, analytics, contact management, and lead capture in one location. It’ll allow you to have leads from your website automatically enter the system. 

You’ll spend less time trying to sync up your software tools. Instead, you’ll focus on growing your business, optimizing the customer experience, and more. 

Understanding the Difference Between a CRM vs. CMS

After exploring this guide, you should have a better idea of a CRM vs. CMS and which is right for your business. Consider integrating them together for a more effective option.

Would you like to read more informative and educational content? Be sure to check out our other articles today!