Why Every Business Needs a CRM
When you first start up a business, it’s all hands on deck, all of the time. With both time and money in short supply,
you need to decide on your business processes, and any changes, fast. And for a while, this flexible approach works well
for you. But as the business grows, the way you have been doing things for the sake of getting business through the door
starts to hold you back. You might suddenly find yourself with too many clients to memorise and no way of recording
everything that is said, or forgetting to follow up with a prospect, resulting in lost revenue, wasted time and an
annoyed customer. Now, you’ve outgrown your processes, and it’s starting to affect your bottom line. So what do you do?
What many business owners have done before you - invest in a good CRM system and a set of processes that work for you.
But what is a CRM, and why do you need one?
What Is CRM?
Let’s start with the basics. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, so a CRM system is simply a platform or
piece of software that helps you manage your relationships with customers. There are hundreds of different flavours of CRM out there,
all of which help you with contact management, sales management, workflow processes, productivity and more. What many business owners
don’t realise for a long time is that effective customer management enables you to focus on your organisation's relationships with
individual people – whether those are service users, colleagues or suppliers. And when those relationships are all working in harmony,
success isn’t far behind. If you’re not sure if CRM is right for you, here are just a few of the benefits your business would be missing out on:
1. A ‘Future’ View Into Your Business: CRM systems open up a whole new view of your business. Where your sales reports give you
the historical view of revenue and performance, CRM opens up the future view, allowing you to accurately forecast cash flow and
give you a view into future trends and events that could impact your revenue and profit. Using these insights, you can then make
strategic improvements or changes to the business to avoid issues and maximise your profitability.
2. Consolidated Information: If you look around your desk right now, how many places is information about your customers, suppliers
and employees stored in? Whether it’s post-it notes on your desk, an overflowing filing cabinet or a drawer you’d rather not
open – having all of this information in different places is a huge waste of time. By bringing all of that information together in
a CRM system, you will be working with a single data set that allows you to see everything, up to date and in a convenient
way - meaning you might use that data more than you are now!
3. The Ability To Keep Up With Everything: I’m sorry to break this to you, but your memory isn’t perfect. You may think you’ve
got it all stored away and you’re juggling all of the balls, but trust me, you’re going to miss one some time. Sure, you might
be able to keep up with 10, 20 or even 50 clients (at that point, you’re a better person that me!) in your head, but there comes
a point when you just can’t keep track of all of them and their associated tasks and events. So, ask yourself, do you really want
to limit your business to what information you can store in your head? CRM systems give you the chance to externalise all of that
information, set reminders and automate processes, so you can keep up with everything without the stress of remembering it all.
4. Great Sales: Sales are the key to every successful business, and you need to know how well your salesforce, whatever size,
is performing. When a business uses a CRM, marketing and sales become tightly connected, giving sales complete visibility into
the marketing campaigns that are going out. By arming your sales team with a wealth of information, historical data and visibility
over the last points of contact for each prospect, they are more informed and better equipped to close the deal – all while giving
their manager detailed insight into their progress. Because most CRM systems come with apps, all updates and information can be
available on the road, so you and your team are never out of the loop.
Of course, there are many more ways a CRM system can benefit your business – but I wouldn’t want to give it all away, would I?
Instead, I want to invite you to come and experience the power of a CRM system for yourself. After all, it's one thing to read
about it, and quite another to see it in action.
or more information, or to book your free demo, just get in touch with us today.
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About the Author
John Clark
Founder | Microsoft Dynamics 365 & Power Platform Consultant, Solutions Shared Ltd