10 benefits a CRM system can bring to a small business

Have you ever been frustrated because you want to quickly generate sales reports / customer letters? Or you don’t know which of your employees last spoke to a client? Do you wish you could instantly identify your best referrer or sales person? And do you need easy access to your customer contacts and the ability to see their complete communication history?

Sound familiar? Then you probably need a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. When installed and used successfully, a good CRM system will transform your business, no matter what its size or industry, you will save time, increase your sales and improve your customer service.

Below are a few ways that it can help your business:

"... winning a sale via an existing customer is only 10% of the cost of finding a new customer” – Simon Washbrook, ALKALiNE Design & Marketing

	Have complete visibility of your sales prospects and what opportunities there are in the sales pipeline (not only is this good to know, but you can also bring them forward if you are having a slow month).
	At a glance you can see which of your customers / prospects are due for a call or see any communication (from phone call logs, account balances, letters/emails through to won / lost opportunities) that you have had with them in the past, so you can make the most of your follow ups.
	Increase customer retention, loyalty and profitability with standardised processes and reminders of up coming events /  renewal dates.
	Automate and record your sales processes so you know exactly where a prospect is, reducing the chance of missing an opportunity and ensuring that your prospects receive a standardised professional response.
	Understand what is actually happening with your sales, with  real-time sales pipeline and forecasting so that you can pick the most profitable opportunities in front of you.
	Quickly identify and provide prioritised responses to your most profitable customers and prospects.
	Manage and monitor the success of your marketing campaigns on a real-time basis, so that you know exactly how many sales / leads the campaign has generated, so you can then replicate the most successful ones in the future.
	Identify which of your clients / prospects are suitable for new services / products, up-sell and cross-sell marketing initiatives or simply have the ability to identify your best / worst customers, saving you time.
	Increase customer satisfaction through not only decreasing customer inquiry response time but also through providing the right response the first time.
	At the click of a button, you can generate a call list report, identifying customers who have not been contacted recently, opportunities that need a nudge or category specific lists.

There are a variety of solutions that can be either hosted (accessed via your web browser) or installed on your machines locally. All of which can bring different benefits  to your business; systems include ACT!, Microsoft Contact Manager, Sugar CRM and Salesforce.com.

If you are a small business based in the Midlands and would like to find out more, please contact us via the contact page or call us on 0845 467 1074.