Surprisingly, many business owners have never heard of a CRM and of those who are familiar with the term, many have no idea what it is and what it means. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and is basically a computerised system which manages a business’ customers and any data or information associated with them. Why is it important to have a CRM? Because a CRM helps you to manage your customer relationships more efficiently and effectively and ensures as your business grows you have the infrastructure in place to keep on top of your customer accounts – all of which is essential for successful marketing.

With a CRM system, you can store contact information for current and prospective customers, file accounts and record leads and sales opportunities in one location. This computerised filing system can be accessed by every member of your team and if your CRM system operates in the cloud you can access this important information any time anywhere to further increase your efficiency as a business.

Successful businesses rely on good customer relationships but they also rely heavily on communication, both internally and externally. As your business grows, you may require multiple departments - departments which will need to communicate with each other and with the same customers. A CRM system is essential for ensuring that customer information is shared across an organisation to avoid duplication and to maintain professionalism. Customers quickly lose confidence and patience in a business whose sales team besieges them with calls – even when they’ve expressed no interest in the product or service on many occasions. A CRM provides a centralised information system that monitors connections and keeps staff up-to-date with customer contact.

A CRM system can be as basic or as sophisticated as your business demands and may evolve over time to accommodate your changing needs. It offers the opportunity to send large numbers of customers’ customised emails, record social media data or provide a snapshot of business performance/productivity. While a traditional notecard or spreadsheet system might serve its purpose for very small, new business launches, it’s unlikely to sustain a growing business which requires more sophisticated customer relationship management.

I personally cannot see how any business can manage without one. My own CRM system contains all of my contacts and how I contact them. I couldn’t send an email to 500 customers without one and it’s very much the focus of my marketing and sales activity.

For my own business, I use the Intouch sales and marketing CRM system which helps me to keep all of my clients and contact information in one place. Another good system for small businesses which is equally affordable is the US CRM system Infusion soft which again provides a platform to enable businesses to organise their customer data.

If you’re unconvinced on whether a CRM system can really help your business and whether it’s worth the investment, it might be worth finding some internet case studies on how it has helped other companies to manage their customers. The proof is always in the pudding and you can gain a lot of value from looking at how businesses in the same sector as your own manage their customer relationships. We can all learn a lot from each other and I hope this blog post has opened your eyes to the wonders of the CRM.

*in the interests of being open, the links to Intouch and Infusion are both affiliate links meaning that we’ll receive a small commission in return for introducing their services, if you go on to be one of their customers

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