In the Business world, there is a saying that customers are your most valuable asset. We would like to add something to this. Your customers are your direct ticket towards a successful and healthy business growth. Creating a Relationship with them is like any other relationship: it takes time, it’s based on trust and respect. And a little more customer service ingredients.

You need to understand why they want to establish a relationship with you and what you can make to keep them close. Remember they can always find a new partner. So what can you do to motivate them to stay loyal to your business?

Here is the point where we introduce customer relationship management (CRM) for small businesses.

What is CRM?

Customer relationship management (CRM) is, primarily, a strategy which focuses on the interaction between companies and their customers and aims to analyze customers’ behavior and relationship with the company. Its final purposes are to improve the relationship businesses have with their customers in order to increase sales and customer retention.    

Nowadays, the term is widely is associated with CRM Software. These services allow businesses to strengthen the relationship with their customers through specific processes and actions.

To put in other words, customer relationship management for small businesses can be the solution for you to increase your sales, your customer retention and grow your business.

How a CRM software works

We’ve mentioned above CRM can help your small business in 3 different ways:

• Improve relationships with your customers
• Increase sales
• Grow your business

These are 3 big actions and it may seem that a great software is required to fulfill them. True, but there is also an additional element: the tasks (the software performs). Each one, even the smallest ones, contribute to helping your business. Let’s take a look at a few actions the CRM software performs.

Automates repetitive tasks

You probably receive emails every day. Customers contact you with different questions and problems about your products and services. So what’s so hard in answering a couple of questions? Nothing when you have maximum 10 emails per day. Things get complicated when you receive 100 emails a day.

You may miss an email. This means a customer doesn’t receive an answer to his question and it can transform in a negative experience for than person. Studies have shown that a customer tells, on average, 21 people about such experiences. In other words, 21 potential customers may not choose your business in order to avoid such situations.  

This is the moment when CRM intervenes. The software sends you notifications when you have a new ticket. It can also send special notifications to representatives who deal only with certain categories of customers (new customers or already existing ones, for example).

If you don’t have a 24-hour customer support service and you received a ticket after hours, the software sends notifications about the received tickets. It also notifies you if you haven’t answered to a ticket for a specific period of time (24/48 hours).

The software can send automated responses and follow-ups to your customers. While it may seem as a standard procedure, it’s still the best way of showing your customers that you’ve received their inquiry and will get back to them as soon as possible.

Gathers information about your customers

CRM software monitors your customers’ activity. This includes:

• Activity on your website (searches, what products and services they view)
• Emails
• Social media activity

All this information is gathered and stored for you to use when you need it. Some of these types of software are cloud based, so you can easily access them.

The benefits of CRM for small businesses

Improves relationships between your business and customers

As we’ve seen above, CRM gathers various information about your customers. You have access to what they search, what products and services they use the most and basically, to everything they are looking for. This offers you the best resources to create a detailed profile of your customers.

Knowing who you are working with is the key to a strong relationship.

Personalizes your sales process

You see exactly which products and services your customers are mostly using. You can use this information to offer them personalized offers.

For instance, you are a small business which creates WordPress themes. You have a loyal customer who’s been with you for 5 years. You have data that he buys only from a certain category of themes. Use this information to make a special offer for him on the products he buys.

Can increase your sales

An excellent relationship and personalized services translate in great sales for you. CRM is a great tool for small businesses, as it can give you great numbers at the end of the month, a strong company reputation and help you in your business growth process.  

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