Business Card Management Tool vs. CRM

Differences Between Customer Relationship Management System and Business Card Management Tools

What is the difference between CRM and a business card management tool?

CRM and business card management to manage customer information. What is the difference between the two? 

From the customer management perspective, they may seem to be the same, but their functions are very different. In this article, I will thoroughly explain the differences between the two.

Table of contents:

• Functions and benefits of CRM
• Functions and benefits of business card management tools
• What is the difference between CRM and business card management?
• Understand the difference between CRM and business card management, and implement the best tool for your company

Functions and benefits of CRM

CRM, which stands for “Customer Relationship Management,” is a measure to build and maintain a good relationship with customers. And it also refers to a system that helps you do so. First, let’s take a look at what CRM has to offer.

Customer information management function

The customer information management function is the most basic function of CRM. In addition to customer profiles such as company name, address, email address, and purchase history, it allows you to centrally manage information about the customer by recording and organizing detailed communication history with the customer.

Customer information analytics

Next is the ability to analyze the customer information that you have managed and saved. 

For example, as a result of aggregating and analyzing each customer information. If you find that many companies in industry A purchased your products and that the time of purchase in the spring, you can improve the closing rate by sending targeted emails according to that time of year.

Automatic promotion function

Most CRM systems come with a function to automatically deliver emails and advertisements. As a result of analyzing customer information, if it is considered more effective to send a targeted email or when sending an apology email regarding a problem, each salesperson no longer needs to enter the email address and send it.

Sales support function

Some modern CRM systems have SFA (Sales Support System) functions. Such CRM can be a useful tool for salespeople. 

They are equipped with a mechanism to support sales representatives’ sales activities, such as automatically scheduling meetings with sales partners and creating sales routes.

Functions and benefits of business card management tools

On the other hand, the business card management tools specialize in managing business cards exchanged in business, and in recent years they have been implemented mainly in the cloud type. What functions does a business card management tool have?

The business card scanning function

One of the most basic functions of a business card management tool is the business card scanning function. It allows you to import business cards using a scanner with an OCR function and recognize them as business partners to create a database on your computer.

Search function

If business cards are not converted to data and stored in a card case, it will be hard to find the desired business card when the number of business partners increases. 

Support for multiple devices

If you have to go back to your office to scan business cards after receiving them, you will not improve your business efficiency. 

However, many business card management tools are multi-device compatible, so you can scan business cards with a smartphone camera immediately after receiving them.

Also, since you can check your business card information from your smartphone, you can communicate with your business partners no matter where you are.

What are the differences between CRM and business card management?

So far, I have introduced the differences in functions, but from this section, I will introduce other differences between CRM and business card management.

Purpose of the system

The most significant difference between CRM and business card management is that they have different purposes. The purpose of CRM is twofold: one is to improve customer satisfaction. The first is to build and maintain good relationships by responding quickly to customer requests and inquiries. Contact centers are often used primarily for this purpose.

Another purpose is to increase sales. Implemented in the sales field, CRM helps improve sales performance by effectively managing salespeople; CRM allows you to find those salespeople who are lagging in sales progress or are not meeting sales targets and direct them to solutions. Sales and marketing departments often use it mainly for this purpose.

On the other hand, business card management tools are designed to streamline the entry and management of business card data. Until now, it has been most common for individuals to accumulate business cards. By digitizing these business cards with tools, you can share them with the entire company. Since business card data can also be useful for promoting sales, some companies implement it to increase sales.

Managed data

CRM and business card management tools also have differences in the data they bring in and manage.

When CRM is used in sales departments, etc., data such as sales activity information is managed for each customer. By accumulating these customer data, you can quickly identify sales problems and create sales manuals.

When used in a contact center, the customer inquiry information such as telephone and email is the main. By accumulating data, you can also create FAQs for frequently asked questions. So it will also help to reduce the time required to respond to inquiries.

On the other hand, business card management tools use scanners to capture the information on business cards. Specifically, it converts the information printed on the business card such as company name, department name, name of the person in charge, zip code, address, and phone number into data. 

If business card information of personnel, dispersed among branches, can be centrally managed at the head office, it will be useful to strengthen relationships with customers and discover dormant customers.

Understand the difference between CRM and business card management and implement the most appropriate tool

As I have explained, CRM and business card management tools are different in terms of functions, purposes, and data you need to manage. And to get the best results from either CRM or business card management tools, the first step is to confirm your business strategy and the data collection required to achieve it. After that, it is necessary to consider the functions, purposes, cost, and other aspects to select the most appropriate tool.