5 Reasons why Small Businesses Should use CRM?

CRM for Small businesses is a concept that is alien to many. For those who think of automation tool and software as something that’s useful for multinationals only, are either living under a rock or are simply Technophobic.

Today any small business that aspires to be efficient, effective and excellent, they need to make use of the intelligent tools that are so readily available at an affordable price. Be it vendor management, operations excellence, sales processes or marketing, there is a software out there that can make your process not just easy but also efficient.

The time when businesses would use a rolodex to chase their customers and hope for everything to fall in place is long gone. Today, it’s the time and age in which businesses want to scale efficient selling without depending too much on manual processes.

What is a CRM?

One can think of CRM as a digital rolodex that has evolved over a period of time from being just a contact management software to an intelligent and integrated platform for sales, marketing, and support functionalities of a business. It’s a great time today for small businesses who now have the option of choosing the same tools that are being used by multi-nationals to do efficient selling.

Why CRM for Small Business?

Customer relationship management (CRM) enables small business owners to tackle operational challenges along-with setting a strong rhythm for following up with users who are potential customers. CRM can often be that secret ingredient that helps transition a small business to a rapidly growing one. The right question for small businesses to ask is not “Should we be using CRM?” but instead it should be “Why aren’t we using CRM?”

Let’s look at the top five reasons why a CRM is imperative for small businesses :

1. Extensive Lead and Contact Management

As a small business, generating leads & managing contacts is of great value. So, using a CRM for your small business not only streamlines your lead acquisition it also makes your  contact management more effective and seamless.

Let’s now imagine you attend a local fair that is relevant to our market and meet a few contacts who would be potentially interested in your products or services. Those people are leads and may or may not end up becoming clients – but they have to be nurtured over time to increase their chances of becoming your customers. Basis their reaction to your first outreach you would need to come devise a robust cadence so nothing falls through the cracks and a CRM tool is just the tool for you to help you pre-empt and automate your sales needs.

2. Understanding Your Clients

For a business big or small what is key to success is having a deep understanding of your client base. Knowing what works and what doesn’t for your clientele will help you close deals quickly. A CRM Software will allow you to keep all the information regarding a client in one place and make it accessible in a jiffy. That way, you will be able to easily understand your client behavior and predict different contacts respond to different messaging: which ones buy more easily, which ones leave the highest profit margin, which ones pay on time and which don’t etc.

By using all this information intelligently, you can ultimately sell more and sell better, which is what every business wants no matter its size.

3. Managing Effective Marketing Campaigns

CRM for your small business also centralizes the entire marketing process in a single tool, so that you have access to all the data you need in order to launch effective campaigns. Knowing the individual open rates of your e-mails by individual client, the degree to which your emails and ads are effective within a certain segment of the market etc. All such smart analytical input will let you know what the ROI of every element in your campaign is and that makes for efficient and intelligent marketing decisions.

4. Customer Support

With CRM, businesses can now resort to quick labeling of customer issues, using canned responses effectively to resolve customer complaints. CRM can also improve a company’s customer service practices, helping employees respond to clients’ queries quickly and effectively.

5. Client Loyalty

A CRM allows you to offer added value to each of your customers by knowing what and when they want something. That means you can now offer a client with your products and services right at the moment of need – which results in a boost in sales over a period of time and repeat business coming from loyal clients.

In conclusion, if you are ready to take your small business to the next level then choosing the right CRM that will help you integrate your sales, marketing, and support needs is imperative. So, keep your rolodex aside and gear yourselves for the next generation selling and marketing techniques.