A Small businesses guide to CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Running a business isn’t easy. To make the leap from an idea to launching a business and then to successfully growing it, will require you to successfully bring a product or service to market at a price point that meets consumer demand levels. It’s likely you will face many challenges as you continue with this journey.
To successfully deliver your service, you’ll need to track potential customer leads, organise where and how you interact with them, and clearly communicate your value proposition.
It’s important you find the right tools early on that can help you be efficient with your time and make this process as easy as possible. One such tool to consider using, is a customer relationship management (CRM) system. A CRM system gives you a central location to manage your client relationships and communications, and can help you improve the overall customer experience. Unfortunately, many small business owners have the perception that CRMs are for large corporations and that they are quite expensive. However, there are CRM packages available that are cost effective and tailored towards small businesses.
Here are some ways a CRM system can help you.
Communication
For your business to grow and evolve, you will need to attract new customers. Your messaging might be brilliant, but without a place to store these new contacts or a system to manage the right communication channels, you may find it difficult to scale your business.
A CRM software allows you to communicate directly with your prospects, as well as giving you the platform to manage leads. A CRM, like the one offered in the accounting software Surf Accounts, allows you to easily add business and personal contacts to the software keeps track of prospects and makes follow ups easy. With Surf Accounts, you can also leave notes for your colleagues explaining their current stage in the buyer journey and send emails or SMS messages directly to the lead or customer.
In Surf Accounts, you can segment your contacts into specific groups, allowing you to send targeted information to them. For example, you may choose to segment by geographical location and send targeted content directly to people in a specific county, encouraging them to buy your product or service. Targeted and helpful content through the correct communication channels will help to turn your prospects into sales.
Maintaining relationships with your clients
Building and maintaining healthy relationships with your current customers is important, as it helps you develop an understanding of them and their needs, resolve their problems, and ultimately keep them loyal.
It is important when communicating with your customers you know exactly who you are speaking to and have a record of their previous encounters with your company. Failure in having this information can lead to an unsatisfactory service and may hinder building that healthy relationship you should strive for.
A CRM feature allows you to view and analyse all the activity that has occurred with a single customer. With it, your employees will be able to view any current quotes or orders associated with the customer. They will also be able to view the transaction history with the customer, of all past and present invoices and payments. This ensures you and your team have a full understanding of your customer when communicating with them.
How does it help employees?
As a business owner or manager, you are sure to have a busy to-do list. Your time can be easily tied up and you may have to prioritise certain tasks over others. You may not have time to check in on your employees as much as you would like. Understanding your employee’s workload is vital as you manage responsibilities, schedule, and delegation.
A CRM can help you achieve this. Employees can fill out their task list in the software, giving you a quick overview of what they plan to achieve. Your sales team can use a CRM software to maintain their own diary appointments as well as manage their follow up activity logs. This gives your employees the chance to improve their productivity levels and enhance organisation throughout your practice.
Did you know that some companies offer an in-built CRM system as part of their accounting software package, with no extra charge?
Surf Accounts is a cloud-based accounting software that is perfectly suited for small and medium-sized businesses. The software is an end-to-end bookkeeping solution and comes with a free in-built CRM feature. The system performs all the tasks previously discussed, allowing you to begin to build positive customer relationships.
The CRM system offers many benefits and can help you to create an overall better customer experience. If you would like to explore our CRM feature or have a closer look at our cloud accounting software, you can book a free one to one demo with our product expert.
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