Setting up a new business comes with challenges that take you out of your comfort zone. You know your craft well, you are good at what you do, but not many new business owners are prepared for the paperwork, processes and information handling work required to successfully operate a business.
On the accounting side of things, you will need to manage not only the outgoing payments, but also the payments coming in – these will range from supplier invoices, wages and superannuation, to sales for goods and services, rebates, and credits
Then, there is keeping track of your customers. What have they inquired about? What have they purchased from you? What after-purchase sales support do they need? How do you communicate effectively with them on a regular basis?
Let's face it, no matter how good you are at what you do, customers will not come back if they are mishandled, or if they don’t feel important. Your business won’t survive unless you have the right systems in place to handle the volume of work needed to do to be successful and thrive.
If you have already heard of CRM then you are one step ahead. If not, CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is used to store all the important customer contact details and other important information about the interactions you have had or need to have with your customers. It is an essential tool that helps small businesses organise their customer data in a way that is readily available, easily accessible by all members of the team and provides valuable insight into customer behaviour and any follow-up actions required to ensure a positive customer experience.
Act! CRM is custom-made for small and medium-sized business. It is a robust CRM that will store the information you need to deliver on your customer promise. Investing in a CRM will help you grow your business in many ways.
Here are the top 6 ways CRM will help grow your business:
1. Helps you organise your customer data
Consolidating all your customer data in one central location. That includes your customer contact information, communication history and buying history. Having this information all in one place and easily accessible by everyone will ensure your business can better manage growth.
2. Streamlines the selling process
CRM allows you to sell more, faster. By automating a lot of the data entry processes, your team will be able to focus more on the customer and providing the service rather than data entry. Closing a sale will be a lot quicker and the probability of closing a sale is a lot higher.
3. Build strong relationships with your customers
A CRM will help you build strong relationships with your customers. By having their past information at your fingertips, you will be able to log conversations and this will result in better handling of each and every customer in a more personal approach. Collection of customer data and customer interactions also means that if an employee leaves, the data and relationship history stays with the business.
4. A clear picture of the buyer journey
Streamlining your customer interactions in one central location allows you to see patterns and trends emerging from customers buying behaviour which will allow your team to identify stages of the buyer journey and know what works at each stage.
5. Employee empowerment
Allows employees to feel empowered to make decisions as they have a clear view of the situation regardless of whether they have had any previous interaction with the customer.
6. Visibility on business performance
A CRM allows you to work more efficiently while accumulating critical data to make important decisions about your business based on your customers and their product and service preferences.
Investing in a CRM in the early days of your business is one of the wisest business decisions you can make. If you have been in business for a long time, you may find you are stuck in your old ways of maintaining customer information in a multitude of spreadsheets. Regardless of your circumstances, it is not too late to invest in a CRM system. Not only will it instantly provide a return on investment, but it will also place you in an organised and positive position for growth. The new Act! Growth Suite combines the reliable and trusted CRM with a high functioning marketing automation system, this will be a game-changer for your business.
You can trial Act! for free or contact one of Act! Today's local consultants who can guide you through the process.
