4 Benefits of CRM Software for Small Business

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, CRM and the Customer Experience (25-slide PowerPoint presentation). This presentation discusses Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy and developing the Customer Experience (CXP). This is the final phase of the Customer Analysis Approach and where all the previous analyses and recommendations must come together cohesively--e.g. the value proposition, [read more]

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The most important part of any business is its customers, they are your most valuable asset no matter what’s your product or service. That’s why good CRM software can make or break a small business. Good CRM software helps you keep tabs on your orders, customer needs, complaints, and helps to track all the interactions your customers had. Just choose which plan works best for your particular business and it will give you the full payback of your CRM solution in 10 months. A properly set up CRM system is an immensely powerful tool that pays for itself. Here are some key benefits.

1. Build a Better Relationship with New Customers

Whenever a customer makes a purchase from your online store or clicks on one of your well-placed ads you receive valuable data about them and their needs. Your CRM harnesses all that precious data you can analyze and figure out who your main target audience is and how to reach them. The best way to reach customers is through social media. Most platforms will let you place ads to people based on various factors like their interests, their profession, and certain keywords they use in posts. Targeting people who love your business and products or services similar to yours is a great way to expand your business and maximize your growth potential. As more and more people respond to your social media ads and interact with your business the more data your CRM will have and the more you can work with. You will be able to send follow up emails and improve website conversion rate.

2. Explore the Interconnectedness of Your Audience

Whatever the type of your product or service, a CRM will help you view your contacts in a single audience dashboard. It will organize them in a way that makes the best sense for your business, as a whole. You can group your customers in any way you like, age, gender, location and plan your campaigns accordingly.  Because your CRM provides you with an aggregate view of your customer data, it will be easier to tailor-make group discounts relevant to them (birthdays, location-specific celebrations, etc.). Many CRM’s will allow you to apply different tags to your customers. This is extremely useful as you will get some of your potential customers by working trade shows, or at some other promotional event. Having all that extra information at your fingertips can be useful when you make contact again. Adding that extra touch when you contact them will help you build better rapport.

3. Create In-Depth Sales Reports

The greatest benefit of a CRM system is its ability to collect and organize information about your customers and sales with features like sales dashboards and reports. With better automation, your sales reps will better manage their pipelines, deals, and contracts while evaluating their own performance. This way they can keep track of all their goals and learn better ways of reaching their quotas. In turn, sales managers have an easier way of tracking quota attainments and better review all closed deals. Organizational leaders can monitor the amount of revenue that’s been generated and better predict sales performance. Miscalculated data should never be the reason your business fails, something that’s almost impossible with a good CRM.

4. Make Sure Your Teams Communicate

The best way to keep your brand image and values among your sales reps is to have good communication between them. When they interact with your potential prospects and share all the data they acquired they effectively learn from each other, ensuring each rep reaches their quota. Specifically your team, with help from a CRM system, tags reps and managers on any deal they want to bring them into. You don’t have to leave the system to write and send emails to your team members, everything can be done within the CRM.

Conclusion

By using a CRM system you will boost the productivity of your reps, keep all the data concerning your customers in one place, have a better rapport with your customers, and close more deals. Understanding your customers is the key to providing them with what they need. Manage your business in the most efficient way you can and invest in a quality CRM tool.

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In the modern Digital Age, advances in technology and communication, combined with the explosive growth in data information, have given rise to a more empowered global customer. Recent economic and political events highlight the need for organizations to understand how consumers view the world and the most important attributes for their purchasing decisions.

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