How CRM Can Boost Your Bottom Line

One of the most common questions we get from small business owners is, “What is CRM?” They’ve heard the abbreviation for customer relationship management, but they are unfamiliar with the concept. What they should really be asking is, “What could CRM do for my bottom line?”

Customer relationship management programs provide a way for a company to centralize data about customers and prospects, including sales leads, contact data, sales and order information and customer service issues. Using CRM involves buying into a process, as staff members need to be conscientious about following the processes and entering and updating data. But once everyone is up and running on the system, there are advantages. A CRM system can:

Increase staff efficiency

All client information is centrally stored in a CRM system.  It’s not in employees’ heads or stuck on Post-It notes on someone’s desk. It is accessible to everyone. We have found that when information is more readily available to all employees, the cash flow of the business improves  because sales cycles decrease, customer service increases, and invoice payments accelerate. The net result will be an increase in net income per employee at the same time revenues are expanding.

Enhance Training

Training is a crucial but time-consuming function that makes at least two people temporarily less productive, and that process repeats itself every time you add staff. Companies using CRM can typically shorten training. A business can construct its CRM process so that it forces new employees to work the way a company’s most seasoned personnel operate. For instance, a CRM system can prompt a trainee to follow specific steps after contacting a prospective customer for the first time, or walk a new employee through the process of correctly filling out a customer order form so that all pertinent information is supplied.

Help manage the sales and marketing process

Managers can easily understand visual representations of updated sales information, enabling them to forecast more effectively. Marketing departments can pitch a segment of your customer base that might be interested in a particular product or promotion. Also, a company using CRM is less affected by the loss of a key employee, since the sales contacts and knowledge of that staff member have already been recorded in the system.

Provide a better customer experience

Having a good CRM system in place will enable you to deliver better service to customers. Each staff member that a customer deals with will have access to common information about that customer. For example, customer service representatives won’t have to check with the shipping or sales department before confirming an order, servicing a product under warranty or answering a customer complaint. This level of professionalism will be appreciated by clients. The true goal of CRM is to shift the focus of your business to where it belongs: delivering your products and services.