A lot of small businesses think that CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software is just for the big boys, but a CRM is one of the most important tools that a small business can implement.
50% of small businesses fail within the first 12 months. Small business CRM software helps you to manage contact information making it easy to follow up on your customers and activities. It is a central repository that collects all customer data in one single place and gives businesses the possibility to create the best possible relationships.
How do you know if you need CRM?
Unfortunately, an indication that a business is ready for CRM usually comes in the form of something negative.
For example, your top performing sales person leaves the company and takes all the contact information with him, leaving you in the dark. Or, while your customer service team is trying to help out an unhappy customer, your sales representative tries to upsell him, which makes him so mad that he doesn’t want to do business with you anymore. Or, one of you potential customers tells you that he has decided to do business with someone else – and you find out that this lead dates back to before he was looking for someone to buy from.
Perhaps you even recognize yourself in one of these situations?
10 questions will show you the way
Here’s a list of 10 questions that will give you an indication of whether or not your business needs a CRM solution.
- Are all your customer interactions and the information (in the form of letters, forms, documents, emails, etc.) stored in one convenient location and accessible to everyone in the organization?
- Are you certain that all leads in the sales pipeline are being followed up?
- Are you able to coordinate specific marketing campaigns and follow up activities along with the sales team?
- Are you currently able to generate accurate information on forecasts/ pipeline on a short notice?
- Are you currently able to view all sales activity and results at the click of a button?
- Can you currently accurately identify the areas of the sales process in which most sales are lost?
- Are your sales people able to access customer information when they are out of the office?
- Do you know how many deals you lost last quarter and why you lost them?
- Do you know how many customer service issues each customer had and why?
- Are you happy with the amount of time your sales people spend currently on administrative tasks?
If you answered “no” to any of the above question, then it’s probably a good idea to take a more in-depth look at small business CRM software and the benefits that it can bring your business.
Getting started
As a small business, it can be a big challenging to find out where to start. There are many articles and papers on CRM and its benefits, but the majority of them are targeted towards larger businesses.
If you’re curious about how CRM can help your business and need some pointers on how to get started, I recommend you download the latest SuperOffice white paper, “CRM on a Tight Budget” which educates small business owners on what, why and how CRM software can help them to grow their business and retain existing customers. Once you’ve read the paper, you will be better equipped to choose, implement or at least do further research on CRM and how it can positively impact your business.
What kind of challenges have you, as a small business, experienced choosing a CRM solution?
Give us your thoughts.
