Customer Relationship Management (CRM) For Small Businesses

Small business, like any other, needs order, both in internal and external processes. This is where the CRM system helps. Thanks to CRM, you can increase profits, reduce costs, and improve the quality of leads. By working with each lead, you will be able to determine exactly how your sales funnel works (or does not work).

A CRM system (Customer Relationship Management system) is a program that allows you to track interactions between customers and employees, collect statistics, and record sales of goods and services.

For example, your sales funnel may be something like this:
See your ads on Google → Do an enquiry → Compare prices with other competitors → Purchase the product/service → Delivery

A CRM system will help you effectively work out such a sales funnel and implement interaction with the buyer. It will collect and store his data: name, phone number and email address. And finally, it will generate analytics and reports.

Yes, you can keep Excel by entering data manually, but the trick of the CRM system is that many processes are automated.

At each stage of the funnel, you need to interact with the client, “warm up” him to the deal. The CRM system will remind you exactly what needs to be done and at what moment. For example, send an email reminding the potential client about the enquiry, or after the purchase, send an automated email to them asking for a review, and so on.

If there are at least two people in the project, it is already a small business. And it can have the same processes as any other: attracting customers, retaining them, selling, upselling, and so on.

Failures in small businesses are felt much more painfully than in large ones, so you need to work with each client pointwise. And you need to monitor the work of the team, even if it is small. You cannot write off the human factor and the familiar situation “suddenly”.

In general, we have collected five relevant problems that a CRM system will help to cope with:

1. Form a sales funnel

Problem. The team has led several clients. And for some unknown reason, two of the clients “jumped off”.

Solution. The CRM system will help you form a sales funnel and guide customers from start to finish. The automated system will show at which stage clients left, and it will be clear what exactly needs to be improved. For example, if the clients left after seeing your service prices, you can maybe ofeer them a discount, or tell them in details why you would be a better fit than competitors.

2. Collect data and build a customer base

Problem. The sales funnel you have in the place, did not work. You had customers, but no one recorded anything about them, and how they interacted with your business.

Solution. The CRM system will combine all customer data into a single database. Thus, routine actions are minimized, information will be structured and available to the entire team. The customers can be segmented based on how they interacted with your business.

3. Store documents in the same space

Problem. All documents and reports on transactions are scattered in different places. One dock at the project, the other at someone else. If you urgently need one of them, you will have to raise the ears of the whole team.

Solution. The CRM system will provide convenient storage of all documents and reports on transactions in one place. Everything will be freely available to the whole team. This will significantly save time in work process.

4. Track the work of employees

Problem. We hired a new sales manager. At first, he did a good job, but after a while, sales began to fall.

Solution. With the help of a CRM system, you can control how the work is going at any time. And assess the lack of resources, and correct this point in a timely manner. Perhaps the employee should be replaced or another manager should be hired to help, or there is some external factor affecting the business.

5. Quickly train new employees

Problem. Your employee resigend, and all the information on the transactions remained in his mind. The new replacement/hire is confused and cannot work proficently due to lack of information.

Solution. The CRM system stores reports and data on all transactions and sales. If a new manager who knows how to work with a CRM system has joined the team, he will easily adapt to all processes.

And now let’s figure out how to choose the right CRM system.

How to choose a CRM system

It depends on the tasks of the business – as always, there is no one hundred percent universal approach. But we did derive something.

Before choosing a CRM system, consider the following criteria:

The program should either be tailored to your type of business (for example, a beauty salon), or be flexible and have the tools to be adapted and customized with the help of programmers.

When every penny counts, it is important to figure out whether the implementation of a CRM system will now pull the project forward. More expensive programs are often tailored for large businesses with a bunch of processes, for small companies this is simply an unprofitable investment.

Each team has support programs and systems that ensure the work process. For example, for accounting or for communication with customers. It is very convenient when these tools can be combined with CRM like pieces of a puzzle.

Although the business is small, it strives to grow. Ideally, the CRM system should be able to adapt based on your needs — There should not be too many unnecessary features, and it can withstand scaling.

What your CRM system should be able to do to make the project work like clockwork:

• Customization for the specifics of the project or business
• Creation of individual pipelines and sales plans
• Maintaining document flow and databases for all clients
• Collecting leads from the website, social networks and mobile communications
• Setting tasks for the team
• Receive system notifications so you don’t forget anything
• maintaining communication with customers and employees in one place
• tracking deal analytics and sales reports