What everyone should know about CRM

Author, Nadia Finer is the founder of smartli.co– helping start-ups and small businesses work smarter. 

A CRM is a useful tool which enables small businesses to organize and cultivate their customer relationships. It’s usually a cloud based system which retains details about your customers, prospective customers and contacts in one shared secure location, which everybody in your business can use and update wherever they are. A CRM also helps boost customer satisfaction and build your business by tracking conversations and actions, and giving you a good understanding of your business’ sales pipeline.

 8 GOOD REASONS WHY YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS A CRM

Organisation

As your company expands, so will the amount of client records you need to coordinate. Rather than relying on lots of different directories and lists, a CRM will keep all your data in one central place that your team can access and update in real time.

Security

Data kept in a cloud based CRM will be safe from ravenous cats, grubby children and mugs of coffee, as well as colleagues who sometimes leave documents on the bus. Considering your customers information is one of your biggest assets it pays to look after it.

Focus

Attempting to remember customer contact details as well as the details of every conversation you’ve had with them, is sure to drive you nuts. Use a CRM and focus your brain cells on more important things.

Client Care

Your customers should be at the heart of your business. A CRM will help you concentrate on giving them a top notch experience at every stage of your relationship.

Save time

Avoid wasting time sending the same email again and again. Use a CRM to send automated emails to clients, leads and team members at just the right moment.

Communicate

Use your CRM to create one big list of tasks – thus ensuring everyone in your team knows what they need to do and when. Everyone will be on the same page, literally.

Report

Dazzle your colleagues with easy to create reports that can be downloaded with one click. You’ll know exactly where the business is at, at any given moment, making it much easier to make decisions and grow the business.

WHAT ABOUT….?

Sounds expensive. And complicated.

Some CRMs are rather pricey, and some require a PhD in computer science. But, happily here at smartli.co we’ve found a good range of products that are very affordable and easy to use too.  For more information about smartli approved CRM systems head over to http://smartli.co/category/tools/crm-solutions/