The Importance of Using a Scalable CRM for Your Growing Business

The number of small businesses in the US has increased by 49% since 1982. New companies are started every day by aspiring entrepreneurs who want to have a business to lead and run on their own terms. But a start-up is an entirely different organism than a growing business. And with growth come obstacles. So how do we take our team, and meet the growing demands of our business? How do we successfully expand?

Some business owners make business growth harder than it is. They over-think their strategy, complicate their product and worry too much about their employees. Undoubtedly, these are important issues, but they pale in comparison to the one area that contributes the most to success: Sales.

Sales teams that follow a defined sales process average more than 33% in production and revenue than sales teams that don’t. To successfully grow, business owners have to spend enough hours in the day investing in Sales. But, with growth come challenges, and mature businesses have found the remedy: The right technology. Companies who have implemented a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform experience better, and more seamless growth.

The Importance of a CRM for Small Business

The importance of a CRM is the need to address the ever-growing size of any business. Today’s small business is tomorrow’s enterprise, and successful business owners who have implemented a CRM that grows with the size of the company are realizing revenue growth.

The proof is in the pudding: CRM applications have been known to increase revenue by 41% per salesperson, drive lead conversion rates to improve over 300%, and decrease sales and marketing costs by 23%.

CRM adopters are happy with how fast their business is growing, and are focusing on Sales above all else. They go out there and ask for money; and while this may sound crude, to succeed we need to empower Sales to have the resources to do so.

If you’re shopping around for CRM technology to help your growing business, you need to understand that a CRM goes well beyond record-keeping. Top performing businesses use CRM technology to its full potential by automating tasks like marketing and customer service, while ensuring that as an employee numbers grow, so does the capability to manage them.

Let’s explore 5 key ways that Agile CRM helps businesses grow

1.   Improves Decision Making

CRM technology provides visibility into crucial customer data. The more detailed and comprehensive our reports, the better we are able to forecast sales, measure sales activities, and track business performance. High-performing sales organizations are 38% more likely to use sales analytics to collect customer data that informs ongoing customer interactions and touchpoints. With information gathered from analytics, we are able to focus on big picture solutions instead of the tedious, repetitive tasks. Business owners have time to empower Sales and focus on opportunities – and then improve their decisions based on that focus.

2. Enhance Productivity

With CRM, sales, marketing and customer service teams can be safely, seamlessly integrated and automated. Ensuring that all critical business data is stored in a single place enables users to quickly gain access to customer information. When your business is growing, you can significantly boost business productivity by having a central place for all customer record-keeping. A scalable platform grows as your business grows, and expands to include all customer history and buyer journey.

3. Promote Teamwork

A growing business needs a scalable platform in order to make Marketing, Sales and customer service more aligned. Companies with strong sales and marketing alignment achieve a 20% annual growth rate. When combined with customer service, productivity increases and improves the customer experience. Promoting teamwork is critical for a growing business. With a robust CRM it becomes possible to open up lines of communication between teams.

   4. Improve Call-Center Service

CRM technology enables call centers to make inbound calls, outbound calls, to record calls, create call scripts, automate voicemail and other key activities. Employees quickly assign, manage and resolve incidents when these processes are automated. When a company is growing, and call center employees expand, it becomes necessary to have a CRM which grows with a growing database of customer data.

5. Provide Anytime, Anywhere Information Access

Key data is no longer confined to the office. The right CRM gives mobile teams instant access to centralized data and view into the processes of sales and customer service activities. With a complete view of customer history, pricing information and other types of lead intelligence from any mobile device, it becomes possible to gain access to information for a growing business.

Key takeaway

All great companies understand the importance of focusing on Sales. And they grow not just because they have a high quality product, but because of the commitment to sell better than their competitors. And they do so with the adoption of a CRM. Twenty six percent of  sales organizations think that their CRM effectively enables them to collaborate across departments; for world-class sales organizations, it’s 85%.

Agile CRM enables marketing, sales and customer service teams use a repository of lead intelligence that grows along with the business. As a business matures, it becomes critical to have the necessary support of scaling with growth. When that is possible, it becomes easier to manage the sales process. Is your business growing and are you implementing the kind of technology that enables you to do so efficiently? Agile CRM may the solution for your growing needs.