Let’s face it: Female entrepreneurs have enough to do, so let’s start by un-complicating the systems we use to get business done. You can’t try every new thing or you’ll get stuck in FOMO (fear of missing out) thinking when it comes to fancy new tools. But if you’re avoiding implementing a CRM, you’re really, actually missing out on big business benefits. Like many business owners, maybe you tried one, but you weren’t sure how to best use it. Hesitation might be costing you money. Here’s how every business can benefit in several ways from using CRM…and why they should.
1. Empower your team
Whether you have employees working together in person every day or your team is spread out virtually all over the world, project management features in your CRM will keep things running smoothly.
Give your team access to customer information that helps them do their jobs. Let them all interact in real-time within the same program. Manage who is responsible for which tasks during a project, while tracking deadlines and progress. Email reminders along every step of your pipeline can keep your team and the project on track. You’ll even be able to manage invoicing from inside your CRM.
CRM gives your team all the tools they need to accomplish tasks on time and communicate efficiently, saving you time and money.
2. Maximize customer interactions
Blasting your customers with sales emails that don’t pertain to them is a waste of everyone’s time. With a CRM, you can keep track of what interests your customers, which messages inspired them to convert, what they’ve purchased from you in the past, and all their previous interactions with you.
Go beyond personalizing emails and specifically target their interests. Use Zapier and/or a CRM with app integrations to automatically add and adjust information across multiple systems, programs or cloud applications. For example, when your CRM integrates with Stripe, you’ll know all about your customer’s last purchase. Handy! Integrations like these put all the important data about each of your customers right at your fingertips when you need it most.
3. Nurture lasting relationships with customers
When you know what your customer purchased from you, the context of your interactions, and where they spend time online, you have the data you need to cultivate a lasting relationship.
Don’t stop at using data to target your marketing efforts, use it to inform how you treat your customers. Customer loyalty programs and other incentives will work better when you let customer data guide you. You should also use it to show your gratitude to your customers by sending thank you notes, free gifts, or invitations to events that will interest them (whether you’re hosting the event or not).
Let them know how much you value your business by offering them things they want, not just trying to sell them more. Remember: keeping a current customer costs you less and earns you more than finding new ones.
4. Cultivate Your Community
Small business owners and entrepreneurs can use CRM to manage professional relationships as well as client information.
When you refer a client to a colleague, keep track of the referral and feedback from both parties right in your CRM. Track the referrals you get and from whom. Set reminders to reach out to colleagues at intervals, make notes of your conversation, and create tasks associated with the chat if you need to follow up.
If your CRM has social media integration, you can check in on the feeds of specific business contacts, to avoid losing touch with anyone in your professional network.
Adopting a CRM may seem intimidating, especially if you have tinkered with one but couldn’t figure out how to best use it. CRMs can do a lot of heavy lifting for you…from streamlining your sales pipelines to improving customer relationships to strengthening your team. A good CRM will work for you and your business if you let it.
