A CRM, or to give it its full name, Customer Relationship Management, is software that organises a business’s transactions with their customers, including sales, customer service and marketing campaigns. But most of all, CRMs almost always lead to a significant increase in profitability.

However, unless you have no dream of expanding your business in the future, you will definitely need small business CRM that will automate different kinds of processes. This will essentially cut down the time that you will spend in perhaps creating a report or keeping track of your business. You also won’t need to add more people into your team, which may mean that you’re going to spend more on salaries. This is because you only have to pick a few who can run and use small business CRM to its fullest.

It’s definitely important that you get to know the multiple advantages that you can get from small business CRM.If you’re not convinced of its value, you can simply remember the following:

  1. You can centralize all your customer information. Do you have contacts that are in multiple e-mail accounts, and multiple locations? With a small business CRM, you can house everything in one single database. This way, you can effectively monitor the status of every client. Furthermore, this will also help your sales agents to become more efficient. Imagine, they won’t end up calling the same person twice or even worse miss contacting some of your customers whenever a new offer or product comes along.
  2. You can monitor the communication of your sales agents. If you would like to know if your sales staff are delivering business value or how they are performing, you will benefit from a CRM solution. You will be able to see call logs even communication history, e-mail messages sent, calls made, and the appointments set. On the other hand, you will be able to quickly identify which products customers are buying through their invoices, signed contracts, and placed orders.
  3. You can easily generate reports. There’s no need for you to collate all data and create graphs and charts. This method leaves so much room for mistakes. With a CRM software solution, all you have to do is press the feature that corresponds to report. It will instantly relate all data and produce the kind of presentation that you want, something that is understandable and factual. You can then send this information to your partners or even to your sales staff.

Remember that it takes more effort to generate new customers than maintain existing ones. Thus, a CRM solution becomes a handy tool to ensure that you can nurture your company’s most valuable asset, the existing customer base.

Here are four reasons why your small business could benefit from a CRM:

  1. Enhanced customer administration

A CRM can aid a small business in having a clearing understanding of their clients. For example, a CRM can highlight how many of your customers occupy a certain demographic, such as finance or medical, which could mean your business would be better served if it had staff who were trained in these fields.

  1. Sales tactics

Understanding your client base in this way will also help you to develop better marketing campaigns. For example, if you know a particular demographic has aspirations of a certain lifestyle, you could offer products that would help them achieve this. A CRM will also show which products are your best sellers and which are less popular, so you can decide whether to continue stocking poor sellers or whether to reduce the price to generate some sales. This should have a positive effect on your cash flow and stock control, effectively giving you the chance to de-clutter your stock.

  1. Profitability tracking

A CRM can make profitability tracking easier due to an integrated accounting software. The CRM will, amongst other things, produce financial reports and keep track of payments coming in and going out, both of which will make it clearer where your money is being spent and perhaps where it can be cut back.

  1. Value-added customer service

Knowing what your customers are buying, the complaints they are making and how much they are spending will enable you to deliver a customer service that has added value. Knowing what they buy and how often means you can anticipate their needs so that you need never run out of stock and make them wait for a delivery. You can also see what aspects of your business are causing the most complaints and react accordingly. All of this will improve your relationship with your customers and hopefully turn them into loyal patrons.

Of course, small businesses can manage without a CRM, but doing so could mean they are focussing on the less productive areas of their administration, rather than honing in on the areas that could make the most money.