Why Small Businesses should use CRM systems

Customer relations is the key for a business’ success. This is especially true for a small business. And the best way to increase your customer relations is using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. If you are a small business owner who is asking ‘I am managing fine with phone, mail and excel. So, why do I need to make a leap to using a CRM software?’, then you are asking the wrong question. The right question is ‘Would you like to take a lightsaber to a knife fight?’

Using a CRM will add wings to your business and greatly boost its success. And this is especially true for a small business. Let us look at nine reasons why your business needs a CRM.

Managing Contacts

Managing contacts and customer information will be quite a hassle, especially if you are a small business. A CRM tool will act as a digital Rolodex that will help you easily store your information like name, contact number, email, and address in a database. Since it is in a database, you can easily organize and search your contacts. When you are choosing the CRM system, it is important to choose one that has a simple layout and good usability of your contacts since no CRM is useful unless it is used by your employees.

Tracking Interactions

As a small business, it is important to identify and map the journey of every single visitor. Tracking potential customers and keeping note of each and every interaction will help you easily turn them into customers. A good CRM tool will help you document all your interactions with a specific contact and enable you to seamlessly continue an interaction even after a long gap.

Managing Leads

Managing leads is a difficult prospect for a small business. When you start getting prospective leads, you need to quickly prioritize your leads and respond to them to increase customer satisfaction. With the aid of a CRM, you will be able to seamlessly track your leads and help your team respond to them in a timely manner. A CRM system will also have a good lead ranking system that will help you prioritize your leads effectively.

Document Management

Tracking all quotes, invoices, bills and other documents can be a headache to growing small businesses. Much like contacts, CRM software will store all your documents in a database. So, revisiting a customer quote or searching for a bill will become a much easier task with the help of CRM software.

Mail & Chat Integration

As a small business, managing your contact information might not be enough as you should be able to instantly contact them. Only when you instantly contact a potential customer, will you be able to boost your chances to convert them into customers. CRM software will enable chat and mail integration which will enable you to reach potential customers instantly. Most CRMs will also provide WhatsApp and Live Chat integration, which will help you reach more people.

Increasing Sales

‘When your salespeople don’t sell, you don’t grow.’ Oftentimes in small businesses, salespeople will spend more time generating reports and identifying customers before they start to ‘sell.’ This severely limits your capability to outsell your competitors. A CRM will allow you to generate the necessary reports within minutes. This will help your sales team concentrate on selling your product or service more efficiently.

Target your Sales Efforts

A reason why small businesses take longer to grow is that they fail to identify their target markets immediately. This is a very important step as it will determine your future prospects. Using the CRM reports, you can easily identify sales trends and customer characteristics, which will enable you to quickly zone in on a single market segment. Your revenue increases when your sales team can target their efforts to a demographic that is actually interested in your product or service.

Customer Satisfaction

As the name suggests, the main theme of a CRM is increasing customer relations. Using a CRM, the sales team can instantly contact the customers and drastically reduce the waiting time of the customers. CRM will also help you keep track of your customer’s journey and instantly assist them. Furthermore, you will also be able to identify a customer’s preferences with accumulated knowledge from previous orders. Properly utilizing these benefits will make your customer feel valued and increase your customer retention levels.

Analyzing & Forecasting

A good business will always plan for its future. Hence, it is important to analyze market trends and create a sales forecast for a specific timeline. With the help of CRM, you can easily analyze market trends with the help of various reports and tools. A small business will be able to quickly adapt to market trends and increase its customer base effortlessly with the help of CRM. You can create a long-term map for your business growth with the help of a good CRM.

There you go, we have identified nine benefits of using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. If you are a small business (or even a larger one), we hope that you understand the benefit of using a CRM system and take the leap. Our last bit of advice for you would be to choose a CRM system that is easy-to-use and clutter-free.

We sincerely hope our advice helps you in your endeavor towards a successful future.