Using Small Business CRM to Achieve Success

The overall goal of small business CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is to find, attract, and win new clients with the hopes to retain the clients that a company already has. Additionally, organizations implementing small business CRM look to bring back former customers and reduce the costs of marketing and sales support activities. However, merely implementing a customer relationship management solution does not guarantee success.

Below are 3 reasons why CRM for small business can be executed poorly.

1. The first reason small business CRM can fail is the lack of an established need. If a small business does not understand their customers, than many sales opportunities can go down the drain. CRM for small businesses are only effective if an organization can properly identify its customers, and leverage the capabilities of the CRM technology to deliver better and consistent service.

Carlene Jackson, GM of the CRM division at Sage software, discussed the use of CRM. She said, “The accumulated information can change the way companies operate. Once you have all the customer data in one place, you should try to plan to mature the investment and take advantage of the business intelligence and analytical capability within the CRM technology. It is Important to move on to the next stepping stone in that maturity and use the data to get insight into trends that are happening in their marketplace to drive up performance.”

2. Another reason is that some small business CRM solutions could be using an outdated process system. Old CRM systems for small businesses were data-centric, and the new direction of CRM for small businesses is to guide the user to predict and learn from customer needs and trends. These new CRM solutions that are not just for large enterprises can help small businesses by offering a more flexible and intuitive interface that can add a new level of automation and customer support capabilities.

3. The final reason is that any technology solution, particularly CRM for small business, is only as good as the person using it.

John Everhard, technical director of Pegasystems Europe, stated “Displaying data onto a screen for agents to pick-out the meaningful elements does not in itself provide relationship management. Relationships are built on the excellent execution of the processes that address a customer’s requirements in a useful, easy, timely and enjoyable way.”

For any successful small business CRM deployment, users must be able to leverage their CRM to create faster customer service deployment practices, which reduce IT costs, and increase sales while reducing risk. Just purchasing the software means absolutely nothing, a company needs to be able to properly implement the customer relationship management solution in order to reap the benefits.

Tags: calrene jackson, customer relationship management, john everhard, Pegasystems, sage software