How does CRM play its part in company culture?

1 May 2014

Recently, I’ve been reading about and reflecting on Company culture, specifically this post by the CEO of AirBnB, and it got me thinking: What makes up company culture? How can a CRM system help preserve that? Is managing relationships a pivotal part of company culture?

OpenCRM, as a company, holds its values very close to its heart. We value communication, community, and flexibility. You will see these words on our website: Clever, Flexible, Familiar and Advanced. We like to abide by those values as closely as possible, through our initial interactions, our product, and our customer service.

Recently we were even sent some feedback by a client which I found really hit the nail on the head in regards to our ethos. The comment mentions our dedicated and helpful staff, saying that because the interactions with some of our competitors were so much less informative and not as helpful,it made OpenCRM the obvious choice.

In no way do I mean to debase another product or rival company, I refer to this comment simply because of the positivity we were shown, and the effort it took to send it in. I think that was a part of that person’s (and his company’s) culture: to promote a positive situation. The comment was in no way mean or rude in regards to alternative CRM systems. Simply informative and meant as feedback.

For this company, communicating both positive and negative feedback to their suppliers (and potential suppliers) is clearly important to their decision making process. For us, as a company, ensuring that our customers are able to communicate with us in a variety of ways, including phone, email, LiveChat, and our Customer Portal, is central to our values.

So to come back to my original question, how can OpenCRM help keep your culture alive? It will, of course, depend on your own company culture. Saying that, I don’t think it’s too far a stretch to say that communication is key, whether within your team or with your clients, you will want to keep lines open and free flowing.

In terms of how a CRM can help you with that aspect of company culture, OpenCRM has a myriad of great features that will help you keep communication on track The ease of the email function, as just one example, from almost every record helps keep people in the loop, sharing thoughts and ideas.