What Is A CRM, And How Can It Benefit My Small Business?
What Is A CRM, And What Are Its Main Functions?
A Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) is software that helps businesses manage their customer data, track customer interactions, and monitor sales and marketing efforts.
CRM systems help companies like yours improve customer satisfaction and loyalty by automating many mundane tasks and ensuring they surface under the mountain of emails that a business usually receives.
Many different types of CRM software are available, but all systems share some essential functions, including contact management, task management, lead tracking, and reporting.
CRM software can also track customer interactions across multiple channels, including phone, email, social media, and live chat. It can integrate with other business applications, such as accounting software and email marketing platforms.
You can see Wildwood Digital's CRM in action in the video above. You are looking at the CRM's pipeline section, and you can modify the columns to fit your business-specific requirements.
It's a straightforward way to keep track of your leads in an easy-to-follow and visual representation showing you how many leads you have and where they are in your sales pipeline.
For example, you can set this up to establish whether a customer has had a site visit, whether you have issued a quotation and at what stage of the sales cycle you are engaged.
Easily see which invoices you need to generate and, most notably, which invoices are overdue.
Businesses can better understand their customer base and make more informed decisions about customer service and marketing strategies using a CRM system.
How Can A CRM Help My Small Business Grow?
By tracking customer interactions and data, a CRM can help businesses better understand their customers and target their digital marketing efforts more effectively.
As in the video above, let's say you configure your website and CRM to track phone calls, enquiry form fills, and chat widget fills from your website.
With the click of a button, you can see how many new enquiries your business has had in any period.
You can use this information to divide the number of new enquiries you have had by your marketing spend to quickly work out a cost per lead and determine a price per job won.
A CRM can easily track enquires from:
- Your website
- Paid digital marketing such as Google PPC
- Social media
- Calls from a number, i.e. on your website (this can be a different number that forwards to your phone)
- Calls from a magazine (This can be a different number that forwards to your phone)
A CRM can automate many tasks, as in the video above. For example, you can automatically email a customer using their first name after receiving an enquiry or send follow-up emails to sales pitches.
Also, tasks such as appointment scheduling and sending automatic email and text reminders, follow-up emails and review requests, thus freeing up your time to focus on other areas of growth.
Perhaps most importantly, a CRM can help you to build a long-lasting relationship with your customer by keeping a record of your conversation history (see below) and adding notes for important details.
If you're looking for a way to help your small business grow, investing in a CRM is a wise choice.
What Are The Benefits Of Using A CRM?
If you run a small business, you may wonder if a CRM system is right for you. Here are a few ways a CRM can benefit your small business.
1. A CRM can help you keep track of your customers and prospects, including their contact information, purchase history, and interactions with them.
Having this information in one place makes it easy to follow up with customers and ensure they're happy with your products or services.
2. A CRM can help you manage your sales pipeline, especially if you don't have a sales team, as you can view your enquires visually rather than in a cluttered email inbox.
See at a glance who's working with your customer, how much potential pipeline revenue you have and how close each deal is to closing.
3. A CRM can help you automate some of your marketing tasks. For example, you can set up automated emails to go out to customers when they haven't purchased anything in a while or if they haven't paid their invoice or confirmed that they want to go ahead with the work, helping increase customer loyalty and boost sales
4. A CRM can give you insights into your customers' behaviour. This data can be precious when deciding everything from product development to pricing strategy.
Using a CRM can help manage your small business and keep your customers happy. If you're not already using one, it's worth considering!
How Much Does A CRM Cost?
A CRM, or customer relationship management system, is a valuable tool for businesses of all sizes. By tracking customer interactions and managing data, a CRM can help companies to improve sales, productivity, and customer satisfaction.
However, implementing a CRM can be a significant investment, and it is important to consider the costs carefully before deciding.
CRM pricing depends on several factors, including features required and the size of your business so prices can vary between £20 and £1,000 per month.
It's important to note a CRM may require many add-ons to run your system as you want it to, so thorough research is needed.
For small businesses, the investment in a CRM can be a significant expense. However, it is essential to remember that a CRM can save you money in the long run by helping to improve sales and efficiency.
A good CRM can provide invaluable insights into customer behaviour. For businesses that rely on customer relationships for success, a CRM is frequently worth the investment.
What Are The Best CRMs For Small Businesses?
Deciding on the best CRM (customer relationship management) software for your small business can be daunting - there are so many options available, and it can take time to know which one will work best for your needs. However, some CRMs stand out as excellent choices for small businesses.
Wildwood Digitals CRM system is our favourite (ok, we may be biased).
The main benefit of using a Wildwood system is to have a consultant who understands your business's needs and will build the CRM system for you with extra functionality you may not have considered.
HubSpot Sales CRM is exceptionally user-friendly, making it a good choice if you're not overly familiar with CRM software. It's also free to use up to a certain number of contacts, which makes it a cost-effective option for small businesses.
I used this system to start Wildwood Digital. It was a fantastic tool, but moving from the free version to the paid version, where you need more functionality, suddenly increases alarmingly in price. It was painful moving all the data to a new platform when outgrowing the tools available with the free version.
Another great CRM is Salesforce Lightning. It offers many features, including customer segmentation, lead capture, and automated workflow. Importantly, it is also highly customisable so that you can tailor it to the specific needs of your business.
Finally, ZohoCRM is another excellent choice for small businesses. Its key features include sales tracking, quotes and invoices, and contact management.
As you can see, several great CRMs are on the market for small businesses - it's just a matter of finding the one that's right for you.
How do I Choose The Right CRM For My Small Business?
Take your time to decide which platform is right for your small business. The first thing you need to do is define your needs. What kind of features do you need? Do you need something simple or something more complex and demanding?
Once you know what you need, you can start looking at different CRMs and comparing them.
Pay attention to price, ease of use, automation, and integrations. You should also look at reviews from other small businesses to understand how well the CRM works in real-world scenarios.
With so many options on the market, it can take time to pick the right CRM for your business, but if you take the time to define your needs and compare your options, you'll find the perfect CRM for your business.
CRMs are complex tools with a lot of different features and capabilities. Still, the bottom line is that they can be beneficial for small businesses in managing customer data and growing sales.
We've provided some great options if you've decided that a CRM is something you want to use to help grow your company.
Choosing the right CRM for your business can seem daunting, but if you know your needs and what to look for in a tool, you should find one perfect for your company.
Are you convinced? Contact me for a free trial of the Wildwood Digital CRM system
