You have plenty of reasons — increased revenues among them — to want to grow your small business. But you will need the right tools to help it along. You don’t have endless resources to invest in every available technology. You need to choose wisely, getting the most bang for your buck.
Customer relationship management software is one of those right tools. CRM applications can streamline the processes behind client outreach in powerful ways. In addition, CRM software can fuel growth by leveraging personalized customer communications and behavioral insights. When you’re a small business on the move, CRM can get you to where you want to be. Here’s how.
Consolidate Contact Data
Every small business team makes sales because of their connections. Some of those contacts are leads seeking guidance. Others are repeat customers looking to expand or upgrade what they already have. While nurturing those individuals is part of sealing the deal, it’s harder to do when their information isn’t well organized.
With today’s fast pace, you don’t have time to sort through spreadsheets, notebooks, and business cards. You don’t want to spend precious moments remembering who’s a lead versus a current client. Nor do you want to wrack your brain to figure out when you last made contact and what about. As your list grows, manual methods of organizing it become inefficient, impractical, and costly.
Less streamlined approaches can lead to mistakes and missed opportunities. A CRM for small business puts all your contacts in one place. You can instantly separate leads from existing customers while gauging where each person is in the sales process. Additional data, such as customer lifetime value, last contact, and previous engagement, is easily visible. CRM software’s centralization capabilities allow you to find and target people at the right time.
Reach Out With Relevant Intent
The promise of a steep discount on your latest product may drive people to your website or store. But it won’t necessarily make them feel more loyal to your brand. A 2022 survey found 74% of participants equated brand loyalty with feeling valued and understood. These sentiments overpowered savings and rewards from loyalty programs.
Yes, perks can be nice. Consumers do appreciate them. However, they can start to feel generic when every company offers similar ones. The survey also found 64% of participants prefer to give their business to brands that seem to know them. CRM applications give you the data your company needs to make clients feel this way.
You won’t be sending generic messages your contacts’ way when you reach out. You can personalize communications according to each person’s interests, buying behaviors, and purchase stage. As a result, you’ll increase the odds of customers continuing to buy from you. When people feel a brand sees and “gets” them, 34% spend more on products the company sells.
Focus Sales Activities
Say you’ve got a list of projects you need to power through to winterize your home. Do you try to tackle all of them yourself, even though you know some are beyond your expertise? Probably not. If you want to be efficient, you’ll separate them into items you can handle and items you can’t.
Then, you’ll hire out the projects you know will be beyond your skill set. And you’ll get busy checking off the items you can finish in a weekend or two. For small businesses, deciding where to focus your sales efforts often requires a similar approach. You’ll want to devote more of your time to activities more likely to net you a higher return. You don’t completely neglect the other activities, but you avoid dedicating the majority of your efforts to them.
The trick is figuring out which contacts will give you the returns you’re after. CRM applications help identify these opportunities so you can minimize the costs you put into your sales process. You stand a 60% to 70% chance of selling to an existing customer. But how do you know which ones to target? Data collected by CRM software helps your team sort by probability so they don’t chase sales unlikely to happen.
Reduce Churn
Replacing good customers with new ones is expensive. It takes much more to convince someone who doesn’t know your brand to switch to it. You’ll have to make contact more frequently, spending additional time explaining and persuading. When all is said and done, the probability of conversion is only between 5% and 20%.
It’s better business sense to keep pleasing the customers you already have. When churn goes up, your growth takes a hit. Not only do you have to replace those clients, but you also lose out on future upselling opportunities. Churn tends to go up when satisfaction rates go down. It could be because of underperforming products, feelings of neglect, and/or misunderstandings.
You won’t get to the root of potential churn problems with just numbers. A CRM app allows you to stay in touch and collect well-rounded information. For example, declining email engagement and open rates may point toward disillusionment with the customer experience. Integrated surveys might reveal negative trends associated with product quality and service gaps. This combined data lets you address collective and individual issues to help boost retention.
CRM Applications Fuel Small Business Growth
You won’t grow your company without strong sales and customer retention rates. At the heart of winning results is the quality of the relationships between individuals and your business. Making each one feel valued, understood, and listened to is challenging, even when your base is small. Investing in a CRM application helps you maintain the personal, relevant, and efficient outreach you need to expand. You won’t lose sight of where your growth can come from.
For more tips and tricks to enhance your productivity and streamline your workflow, don’t forget to check out our comprehensive guide. Happy optimizing!
