Customer relationship management ( CRM) software is no longer a buzzword, but a critical business decision for most companies in order to remain competitive and help solve important business challenges. According to Gartner’s research on CRM Software, it will continue to be one of the fastest-growing business software application markets globally, with a forecast of 13.5% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) from 2017 through 2022.
One of the key benefits of CRM software is that it allows businesses to organise all interactions and relationships with customers and prospects in an efficient way. It is a centralised platform to gather and store all the data from customers and prospects in one place.
There is a CRM solution for every business challenge
How can small businesses leverage the benefits of CRM without needing a large financial investment? Every company will need to choose the software that matches their needs, depending on the challenge they are trying to solve and the size of their business. In this post we will look at the three main business challenges that are solved by CRM software : better-quality customer service, cost and time reduction and improved productivity.
Improved customer service
Another benefit of CRM is that it allows companies to segment customers by acquisition source, location and company, making it easier to analyse customer data to craft more effective marketing and sales campaigns.
This can lead to an increased customer satisfaction due to personalised communication. As an example, e-commerce companies could benefit from this by sending targeted emails with tailored promotions based on the customer’s information.
allows users to manage their business using only their Gmail inbox. This can prove particularly helpful when managing conversations with prospects, as it has a system of email tracking that associates each unread email to a customer record – allowing to identify the non-tagged ones and avoiding these falling through the cracks, potentially missing a prospective client in the short term.
This tool can also be used to provide a sales team with relevant customer data inside every email and using Gmail as their ultimate tool for work, organise customer support and carry out marketing campaigns with mass mailing and email tracking.
Reduced time and cost
One of the biggest challenges for SMEs is how to replace inefficient manual processes for automated ones with a more intuitive interface that can easily be used by all the staff and doesn’t involve a large investment. CRM can help with migrating from old-fashioned spreadsheets to a modern platform to improve collaboration in a company .
Citizens Advice, a charity organisation in the UK, provided support to more than 2.6 million people in 2017-18. Citizens Advice needed to move from an email-based system that handles custom inquiries to another that is more effective and reduce time and cost. The company decided to implement
and to standardise and control how data flowed in and out of the support teams.Following implementation, the organisation saw an increase of 40% in agent efficiency, mainly thanks to the automation of processes that meant that agents were able to resolve more customer issues faster.
Improved productivity
CRM helps to optimise and improve processes, which leads to an improved productivity. An example of this would be sales representatives having the ability to access previous conversation history and information about prospective customers that other staff members can input. This would save these sales representatives time from searching for client information. This way, small businesses can also experience an increase in productivity by providing their employees with the ability to access CRM software from different devices.
Not to mention, it can translate into an increase in customer satisfaction rates. Implementing it could mean making easier for sales representatives to call customers from outside the office and add in the information from a mobile phone if needed and not having to be restricted to be in the office all day.
BHS Group, the owner of known home appliance brands such as Bosch and Siemens, decided to implement
to harmonise the sales process, keeping the documents and conversations in one place. Following implementation, the company achieved a 10% – 20% reduction of time in deal closing.
Benefits of CRM software for small business
The above examples demonstrate how CRM software can have a significant impact on the overall performance of a company internally and externally, helping it solve key business challenges. CRM tools can help small businesses deal with customer service, as it allows for a more targeted and personalised communication. It can also improve productivity, reduce time and cost, mainly by replacing more traditional methods, making processes more agile and effective – allowing teams to focus on customer service.
It is vital for business owners to have the right tools available to help them make the correct decision when choosing a software provider. Visit our CRM software catalogue to learn about the different providers on the market that can meet the needs of your company.
