5 Reasons your 'Small Company' Needs a CRM

Did you know customer relationship management system (CRM) is the fastest-growing software on the market today?

A CRM system is crucial when it comes to organising your customer database, across all departments within your company; from marketing, to sales, to services. Any company, small and big, can certainly benefit from an effective CRM, as it tracks and manages the journey of every single lead acquired. Not to mention the interactions customers have with your brand, website, and the types of products and services that are offered. 

Investing in software can be a big decision for any company, no matter their size or revenue, and sometimes we convince ourselves that we can make do with what we have. This is true, but any business hoping to grow would do well to invest in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. It can help you track your leads, close more sales, and increase your revenue.

Depending on the nature of your business, tracking customer leads is attainable through many sectors such as the; 

• Technology Industry 
• Business Services
• Retail
• Banking
• Manufacturing 
• Security 
• Communication
• Media

Why is CRM important? 

These systems have been designed and implemented to help businesses collect, organize and manage all the customer-related data that is gathered across all departments. This data then helps business owners and managers determine exactly how the customers will move down the funnel from being just a sales lead to a qualified customer. 

With this in mind, CRM systems also allow for effective communication with existing, and potential customers. This in turn helps businesses establish exactly what customers need and what they are looking for from the products and services they are searching for. Effective communication with customers means that there is also an enhancement in customer services;  pre and post-sale.

No matter what the business goal for your company is, all departments need to work together, but bearing in mind that the customer is key. Therefore, to ensure greater customer satisfaction and retention, a strong CRM needs to be put in place.

5 reasons to use a CRM for sales enablement 

 1. Organise and simplify growth

The more your business grows, the easier it is for valuable leads to get lost along the way. By implementing a CRM system, the marketing, sales and services departments won’t need to go through hours of admin trying to find the necessary information on a specific lead. Productivity in other areas, mainly sales, will increase.

This gives you, your sales team, and your marketing team insight into how many leads are coming into the business, how many are converting into sales, and how many more leads are needed to maintain a healthy sales pipeline. This means that your resources can be better allocated to where they need to be in keeping the sales pipeline functioning properly.

 2. Resolve the challenges of customer-facing teams

Reaching and engaging with your clients is of utmost importance. However, this could be quite overwhelming if you need to constantly keep updating your clients on any new changes within the business. 

Sales reps and managers are often the ones who engage with prospects the most, and this could be rather time-consuming. A strong CRM cuts corners when it comes to managing those leads that come through the business, and thus improves in establishing and maintaining your relationship with customers. To add, it also aids in customer-facing teams being a lot more productive with their work loads, and improvements in overall communication between departments.

 3. Creating workflows to save you time

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of workflows, it is an internal process that is aimed at  streamlining all the necessary functions using automated tasks, used across all teams. You can choose to create contact-based workflows as well as lead nurturing workflows and company, deal, quote, or ticket-based workflows. It is a comprehensive tool that aims to measure the success of the leads that come in.

Once you have this information, you can plan for the future and hire the resources you will need to make your business grow, or reallocate resources to where they need to be.

 4. Automate your day-to-day tasks 

Nurturing a lead from a barely qualified contact to a customer takes time, patience, and a whole lot of work. Modern CRMs allow you to set up marketing automation in the form of automated emails, social media, responders, and sales sequences. Time and expertise is finite, especially in a smaller company, and a CRM can free up time for your sales team to work on prospecting and closing deals. Gone are the days of manually scheduling tasks; with automation, all of this can be done with a few simple steps, making sure that everything is scheduled for you, so you don’t skip a beat. 

Once your CRM and marketing automation is up and running, you’ll find that a lot of leads will enter your pipeline, and will filter through your sales funnel. Because every lead will fit a different buyer persona, and will be at different stages of the nurturing process, keeping them organised is crucial. Having an organised database of leads lets you know where the bottlenecks are, who needs attention, and who is still being nurtured through automation and does not yet need your attention.

 5. Report on and Analyze your tasks

A CRM system enables any company, big or small, to accurately report on and analyze the tasks that are fundamental to the company's overall functioning. These reports also make your company’s processes and pipelines a lot more accurate and effective.

Reporting aids in analyzing all your internal sales and marketing processes, so you can optimize on your efforts. Knowing that all the information that comes into the business is accurate, then allows you to create a better experience for your leads and customers.  

Pulling these reports are accessible at any time, and can be shared with your team members so they are always in the loop of day-to-day tasks.

One of the greatest advantage of a CRM is the data that it stores. Modern CRMs can track what website pages your leads are visiting, what content they’re interested in, what emails they’ve opened, the links they’ve clicked on, who they’ve spoken to, what they’ve asked… the list goes on. By the time they get in touch, you have a thorough understanding of how to approach them, and how you can best tailor a solution to their problems. They won’t feel frustrated that you don’t understand them, and you won’t spend hours trying to interrogate how you can best help them.

Final Thoughts 

CRM systems help your business grow for a number of reasons. Whether you need it for internal organisation, managing all customer-related information or simply converting more leads into customers, it has your business covered. 

It has also proved to be a useful tool in allowing businesses to gain insights into the behaviour of their customers, modifying business operations and ensuring that customers are assisted in the best possible way, aligning to your business' solutions-based practices.