Traditional CRMs track customer relationships and interactions. Businesses use the data gathered to tailor the customer experience for each lead. The insights gained from a CRM can be analyzed to track product process and customer satisfaction. Your organization reviews the data and adjusts product offerings and marketing campaigns accordingly.
Today, CRMs can integrate inventory management systems into a shared database for streamlined access. Customer information is displayed alongside inventory data to showcase the real time impact of incoming orders. Here we’ll go over how you can manage inventory levels and order management together.
What is a CRM with inventory management?
Combine customer and inventory management with a simple CRM solution designed to support both. A CRM with inventory management takes data from purchase orders and compares them to customer orders to give you a snapshot of current fulfillment capabilities. The CRM system automates engagement tasks that normally take precious time to complete. Small businesses without a dedicated marketing team benefit greatly from the optimized workflow.
Inventory management adds another layer of information available to sales and accounting teams. Customers are able to see which products are available in real time to make an informed purchasing decision. Some inventory management software supports barcode scanning as well to report physical sales that share inventory levels with your e-commerce. You can adjust your inventory ordering process to take advantage of the tools a CRM with inventory management offers.
Benefits of a CRM with inventory management?
Both CRMs and inventory management systems leverage data from customer orders in order to provide predictions and notifications of changes. You can add additional data points to a CRM with inventory management to increase the value of insights generated. Track customer orders to uncover trends in your target demographic with in-depth customer accounts.
Benefits on the operational side of a CRM’s inventory management system create internal value beyond dollars and cents. Create tasks for incoming work orders to be backlogged and automatically assigned to team members based on priority and availability. You can automate order requests to suppliers when inventory levels cross a certain threshold and keep items in stock for your customers.
Bringing a CRM and inventory management system together is a pleasantly simple process. Further optimize your inventory management and follow a few tried and true processes.
Best practices for using a CRM with inventory management
The inventory management tools found within a CRM create opportunities to streamline your inventory ordering processes. Product managers can set up alerts for low stock issues and adjust which products are being pushed in response. Provide each team with the relevant information needed and nothing more and their tasks will be clear and concise. Each optimization is a boost in productivity and a reduction in costs.
Make sure the organizational categories used for customer and inventory data are easy to understand and access. Only provide data access to teams that need it. An example is a bill of materials for a certain product. Sales teams don’t need to know how much of a resource is used to create a product. Only the product details, features, and pricing are required in this case. Use a CRM software that supports task and data labeling and give your teams a smooth route to the data they need when they need it.
Using monday.com as a CRM with inventory management
Finding an all-in-one CRM with inventory management can mean a set of restricted features and tools. monday.com’s Work OS changes this by offering your organization a collaborative space to design and implement a CRM with inventory management. Customer orders are tracked and fulfilled through automated tasks with corresponding changes to inventory being updated in real time.
Supply chain mapping can help visualize the process and find unnecessary steps that reduce efficiency. Create vendor lists to track professional relationships with suppliers and give your organization multiple high-quality options to choose from. Recurring orders can be automated to respective vendors with an intuitive Work OS template.
Related blogs on the different features a CRM can offer:
- CRM with Project Management
- CRM Gmail Integration
- CRM with Order Management
- CRM with Marketing Automation
- CRM with Document Management
- CRM with Quoting
Related templates
Small businesses often view the process of creating and managing an inventory system as a time sink that requires technological skills to complete. Our customizable templates are here to simplify the process and remove the barrier of entry for powerful CRMs with inventory management.
Vendor list template
Use our vendor list template and give teams access to information on each vendor available to your organization. Vendor listings can include:
- Material supplied
- Contact information
- Pricing information
- Quality of product and service
- Current status of vendor
Ensure orders are placed correctly by your team via real time notifications to changes in vendor information. This provides your team with the confidence to complete tasks without needing to request additional details. As vendor relations change, so does their CRM profile which leads to up-to-date information at all times.
Supply orders template
A supply orders template is one of the easiest methods for tracking and organization purchase orders. You can get started with just a few details such as the material being ordered, the price, and the delivery date. Add more information about the order over time based on your team’s feedback. The data also has value regarding vendor lists. For instance, a trend of late shipments on supply orders can be notated in the vendor list to set the expectation for future orders.
The implementation of a CRM with inventory management can turn a strenuous task into one that only requires supervision. Our Work OS makes the management of customers and inventory simple. The more you know about inventory management, the more you’ll get out of monday.com’s templates and Work OS.
FAQs
How do you manage inventory in Excel?
Managing inventory in Microsoft Excel provides users with a completely blank canvas to start from. Start by creating a new spreadsheet and naming it based on the included data or department using it. Add product and service categories as columns to organize each list. Next create a table to house product descriptions, pricing, bills of materials, quantity in stock, and delivery timing. You will need to adjust the quantity manually each time a new order is placed.
What can Zoho track?
Zoho is a web-based business solution organization that provides CRMs and project tracking software. Zoho systems can track task status, available resources, budget spending, and the time needed to complete various processes. Managers can use time tracking tools to monitor productivity among team members and ensure a project is completed on-time. Zoho’s CRM tracks and records customer interactions such as phone calls, web chats, emails, and marketing engagements.
How do you keep track of inventory?
Inventory tracking has been used since the beginnings of commerce. Pencil-and-paper inventory tracking consists of listing your offered products in one column while adjusting the quantity available in another. This method offers no way to collaborate between teams and is unable to be backed up in the event of lost documents. Keeping proper track of inventory takes a powerful CRM with inventory management.
Balance customer orders and inventory at a glance
Organizations that provide a product or service rely on consistent inventory levels for success. Leverage monday.com’s powerful Work OS to generate insights and automate tasks that would take a team hundreds of hours to tackle. Reduce errors, streamline processes, and generate value internally and externally with the right CRM.
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