CRM becomes the need of a business when it starts brimming in the market. It is considered one of the easiest ways to automate and distribute the work, leads, and messages. However, most companies start their journey of automation with lead management software. So the question here arises, what is the difference between Lead Management Software & CRM? Are they completely different, or do they have a few common features?
In this blog, I will discuss the 3 major differences between lead management software and CRM.
What is CRM?
CRM stands for customer relationship management that aligns with the need of a business and consumers. It helps maintain the relationship, a healthy relationship between customers and the services produced by a company. However, many may not think of CRM as a great way of internal communication which I will be explaining in the upcoming differences.
What is Lead Management?
Lead Management is a self-explanatory name that helps manage lead inflow, distribution, and maintenance. It is majorly beneficial for the company’s sales team as it segregates the data as directed by the agent.
Now that we are clear about the work of lead management & CRM let me enlighten the differences.
3 major differences between lead management software & CRM
The name and its workflow:
Lead Management software is more or less a type of framework that keeps all the data collected from various channels in one place along with the consumer insights. What the consumer wants and what we can give can be understood through this type of management. It helps with the lead collection and distribution among the sales team to avoid the communication void.
Customer Relationship Management or CRM software is a framework that includes the framework of lead management and additional features like creating marketing automation and marketing funnels. It is not only used to maintain relationships with a consumer but with the company’s employees too.
Customer Acquisition:
Another major difference between lead management software and CRM is the placement of leads or customer acquisition. Therefore, lead management software is also known as the pre-CRM, and that is backed by an excellent reason: maintaining the relationship with the lead transferred by the LMS.
A lead management software ends its role after assigning the lead to the respective department while the CRM maintains the relationship and the lifecycle of the lead/customer throughout the business time.
Type of businesses:
Yet another important differentiation between a Lead Management software and a CRM is that businesses will be using this software.
The type of businesses having a one-time communication with the customer/client/consumer will be using lead management software. In comparison, CRM will be used by the companies that are building a relationship with their customers.
However, we should not forget that numerous organizations would utilize either lead management software and CRM or a solitary framework that will deal with their utilization cases.