Why your small business needs to invest in a CRM solution
Many small business owners have concerns about how they need to prioritize their technology investments. Since a good majority of companies start with limited budgets, the portion kept aside for IT infrastructure (both hardware and software) will be under great scrutiny. However, there are some technology platforms you simply cannot ignore in your small business because they are crucial in enabling long term growth and success. One such platform is Customer Relationship Management or CRM. The global market for CRM software is expected to reach $81.9 Billion by 2025 and this is proof of how important businesses see this as a path to success.
Related Reading: 6 Benefits of Using a Cloud CRM
In the initial days, it might be easier for you to keep a spreadsheet or document having details of customers and leads and follow-up with them occasionally for new business. But as time grows, your business will expand and so will the list. Missing out on tapping and monetizing the huge potential of your accumulated customer and lead data will turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes you will make as a small entrepreneur. A CRM platform can solve all these problems in one go. If you are wondering how here are 5 reasons why every growing small business or startup must on-board an efficient CRM solution:
1. Managing contact and relationships
Over the years, your sales guys or business development folks may change. But the customers or leads with whom they have interacted will still be a potential business opportunity for you to explore further. If there is a place where their data can be stored and organized for easy discovery in the future by your salespeople, then your business can continue to build and nurture relationships with customers even if people handling the operation change over time. It also allows sales personnel to track the progress of each customer relation like the context of the last conversation that was reported for the customer, their preferences and behavior as observed by the previous or sub-ordinate salesperson and many such insights.
2. Forecasting business opportunities
A good amount of success in your business depends on how effectively you can predict revenue for the coming months or an entire year. For this, there is a need for clear visibility into the sales pipeline as well as insights about customers that frontline staff can use to nurture and close deals at the earliest. A CRM platform is a perfect choice for this situation as it helps managements identify business opportunities, forecast revenues based on relationship status with prospective leads.
3. Engaging responses
Today there are multiple channels through which customers or potential customers interact with a business like social media, in-store visits or through any digital and physical channel. Sales personnel need to have accurate information about the services or products that are up for grabs and need to know the preferences and interests of the customers they are handling. By tailoring responses suitable for each customer with a tinge of personalization, they will be able to engage them better and ultimately have greater chances of a sale.
A CRM solution can bring about this level of engagement by acting as a medium to dispense information for use by the sales personnel. The information will include details of what to sell, how to sell and whom to sell. A CRM can bring about social conversations with customers to improve brand loyalty and bring in long term business prospects by allowing folks to respond to queries and sentiments posted on social media channels as well.
4. Improving team productivity
CRM software can create a virtual platform for different employees in customer-facing and support roles to collaborate efficiently for better customer service. It helps divide tasks between colleagues or departments such as marketing and sales, assign the responsibility of customer engagements with respective regional or area representatives, provide relevant support and progress measurement for leadership and so on. A huge amount of sub-tasks within these collaborative scenarios can be automated through the digital capabilities of a CRM solution. With automation, teams can focus their energy and effort on core sales and customer service activities thereby improving productivity levels considerably.
5. Empowering intuitive growth of sales process
Your sales strategies need to accommodate market trends over time as consumer demands are very dynamic. With a powerful CRM solution at the heart of your sales and marketing activities, you have an engine that can constantly supply rich information on how your customers and potential customers react to market trends. This allows your sales team to modify rules, policies, and strategies accordingly and garner support from other divisions such as marketing. In short, your sales team can sell what the market demands at any time.
Related Reading: 5 Digital Capabilities Every Small Business Needs To Invest In 2020
A CRM solution is an inevitable component of the growth strategy of a small business today. Having an effective digital enterprise platform that offers you a data-driven business infrastructure accommodating even CRM capability is the need of the hour. This is where InfinCE can be the solution. Get in touch with us to know more.
