Companies throughout the global marketplace have come to recognize the power of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, but not all have adopted the idea of moving to a hosted CRM platform. In doing so, there is some risk – whether perceived or actual – that the information moving outside of the company’s firewall may not be stored, protected or retrievable in its original format and therefore, subject to hacking.

This fear has kept some companies at bay on making the move to hosted CRM, which means they also have not enjoyed the benefits. As captured in this recent piece, CRM is one good way to use modern technologies to better service clients. When the company makes the move to hosted CRM, they are leveraging the latest innovations and enjoying real-time information that is updated consistently without heavy investments in ongoing support.

Hosted CRM is more than just managing customer relationships in the cloud; it is an overall business strategy. Taking advantage of hosted CRM enables an organization to leverage the latest tools available on the market to consistently improve performance and customer interactions. As a number of different elements are required within a robust CRM solution, moving to a hosted model ensures access to up-to-date features that may have been too expensive in an on-premise model.

When the CRM platform moves to a hosted model, all of the information gathered into the solution is readily available for anyone in the organization to access. The flow of information is effectively managedt within the hosted CRM platform and updated across all users so that any changes made by one employee can be viewed by all others immediately. This feature is essential if a customer interacts with more than one company representative over the course of their relationship.

Consider the sales rep that keeps in regular contact with a customer. He or she needs to know that the customer called a support technician about a problem – especially if the problem is not resolved. In the eyes of the customer, it is ultimately the sales rep’s job to make sure they are satisfied. If the sales rep knows a call was placed, he or she can follow-up on the call to be sure the customer is happy and the issue is resolved. If the issue is still pending (which should be apparent in the hosted CRM platform), this is the opportunity to get resolution and satisfy the customer.

While not every organization will be ready to move to a hosted CRM solution, there are many benefits to implementing such a strategy. The company should first determine if moving to the cloud aligns well with the overall strategy; if there is a good fit, hosted CRM will integrate well to drive measurable results.