As a small business owner, you must ensure that your sales and marketing teams are aligned well. At this point, you have two options. Either you hire a new department of staff, or you set up the software. Compared to staff costs, the software is cheap, quality-assured, and immediately usable. Small Business CRM software manages customer relations for you, lessening your workload.
Although it can be confusing, don’t feel daunted by new software. We are here to help you understand what CRM is, and how it can help your business flourish.
Why Do You Need Small Business CRM [Customer Relationship Management]?
As your business grows, it becomes impossible to manage all customer data on your own. There are clear benefits to using CRM software.
- CRM Software Is Gaining Traction
CRM is becoming more commoner with time. It has been predicted to achieve significant revenue for most businesses by 2025. Even now, 91% of small businesses have CRM systems in place.
- Businesses Benefit from CRM Software
When using CRM, small businesses have better customer retention rates. Customers stay around longer and are happier to do so. It can increase sales accuracy, and boost productivity and overall sales.
- CRM Allows Data Access Remotely
No longer do you need to refer to hard copies of data or reach office computers to get information. CRM uses cloud computing to make data available to your sales team on their smartphones and tablets. This improves productivity and leads to higher turnover.
Teams that can access information at their fingertips meet their targets 65% of the time as compared to 22% for those who cannot.
What is CRM Software?
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a lightweight application that helps businesses. It is often considered to be enterprise software for large organizations. However, small business CRM has features that are customized to your needs.
What Does It Do?
CRM software is designed to manage and optimize customer relationships. As a tool, it observes sales pipelines, manages, and tracks activities at each stage.
It manages customer data that helps you provide services. You can then provide products that your customers want, improve services, and close deals.
Additionally, you can capture and convert leads to sales, retain current customers and understand your client base better.
How Does It Do This?
CRM software links your business to customers, connecting salespeople with sales data. Through CRM software, you can input, store, and manage data about your leads and client base.
CRM software mirrors sales cycles through pipeline stages. You can customize this to do several things, such as setting up alerts for follow-up reminders.
All CRM have the following common features:
- Contact management
- Opportunity management
- Lead and prospect management
Using this, you can stay on top of your business organization and access information to boost sales.
Features and benefits of CRM
CRM software has specific advantages for small businesses. Here are some of the features you can look forward to using:
Lead and Prospect Management
CRM creates a central place for your sales team to manage all the leads they have. It integrates leads from their own prospecting as well as those that are referrals. A source can categorize these leads to get an overview of what sources are generating good leads.
CRM software achieves this through its sub-features like note-taking and documentation, lead data entry, lead tracking, and conversion. Together, these make sure that your sales team can access customer relationship data and track their activity to capture more sales.
It also helps send better prospect emails that keep your clients engaged. Templates and automation cut down the time spent on composing and sending emails.
Account and Contact Management
Additional to leads, sales teams must also manage their accounts and contacts. Clients who are businesses might have multiple contact points for organizing services. Your sales team will want to maintain and nurture relationships with them all.
While managing accounts, CRMs must provide these features:
- Housing contact details
- Creating contact links
- Linking to social media profiles
- Entering unique insights
- Personal communication
With these, CRM software helps optimize relationships, leading to increased sales.
Opportunity Management
Sales teams can use CRMs to track opportunities and manage pipelines. This enables them to document and work on sales opportunities.
They can predict sales and then determine the amount of effort required to meet their targets.
This helps strategize action plans such as following up with contacts until closing sales. Keeping track of activities helps prioritize efforts and leads to higher turnover rates.
Opportunity management is done through these sub-features:
- Conversion of opportunities
- Performance tracking and forecasting
- Post-sales communication
Together, these features help you make the journey from landing to deal closing as seamless as possible.
How to Choose The Right Small Business CRM
By now, you must have realized the need for CRM software for your business. The next step is to select the right one. Make sure that it has the following:
Customization For Small Businesses
You shouldn’t need to pay for the same capacities as an enterprise if you have a small workforce. Get quotes from multiple vendors and keep track of your budget.
While comparing CRMs, see who reviews them. Ideally, it should be a good mix of large and small companies. When in doubt, ask the vendor if their product is suitable for you.
User-Friendly Interface
You want software that is intuitive and doesn’t have a steep learning curve. At the same time, don’t give up too soon. Invest some time into understanding the full scope of the software. Ask questions and request training if needed.
GDPR Compliance
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation is a recent development that protects client data. Make sure that your CRM has GDPR features built in. This protects your company from accidentally ruining your reputation and raking up a big fine.
Implementation Support
Check if your vendor will help implement the software. You don’t want to be stuck at the setup stage and not be able to use CRM. Select vendors with good support services who will get you set up in a short time.
Test Drive Availability
Make sure you have a trial period with the software before purchase. Use this time to test out as many features as possible. Get a feel for the software and then decide how you like it.
Conclusion
The early stages are the best time to invest in Small Business CRM support systems for business growth. Use our tips to get the most out of your CRM and see transformation today!
Thank you Saurabh for sharing this massive informative post on Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
– Mayur