Starting a Small Business has BIG challenges. With so many people starting out as entrepreneurs the number of small businesses has increased drastically over the last decade or so. The personalized service that such small startup companies offer is what endears them to their potential and existing customers. Not everyone prefers to do business with a relatively unknown company, no matter what word of mouth reputation it may have. Many variables can influence their success. One factor crucial to the success of a small business customer relationship management is keeping in touch with your customers and potential customers. In a small business you do not depend on the sales volume as much as you do on repeat business. This means that you need to be constantly on your toes following up with any existing customers. At the same time you cannot ignore a potential lead which may turn into a loyal customer. For a big corporation with tens of people in marketing & sales department this is not a problem. They can assign a number of people to the different tasks involved in CRM. The Disadvantage of being a Small Business, being a small business means that you have limited resource (man power and funds). You may have the same people doubling up as sales and after sales support. So who gets to organize the customer relationship management? Most people are too busy handling the regular day to day crises to pay attention to special CRM needs. It is here that managing the database of your existing customers and potential customers becomes a major contributing factor to the success or failure of your business. To make it easy to handle, a lot of small companies are now going in for web based CRM systems. The ideal solution for a Small Business set up: A web based contact management software allows you and your core business development team to keep track of your existing customers with ease. You can feed in contact information, purchase history, special notes and even add follow up alerts for each individual customer. That way when you need to get in touch with a particular customer you will not be hunting for that small diary in which you made special notes to remember while speaking to this particular client. With a click on a button you can get access to all the information you need. The added advantage: In the given economic situation where we are experiencing a global growth decline the customer truly is king and needs to be pampered. CRM systems give small businesses many strategic advantages such as the ability to personalize relationships with customers regardless of which employee is service them. So Customer Relationship Management assumes a great deal of importance. If you can keep your present customer base happy, they will stay loyal. With a central CRM data management system you are giving your sales team the added advantage of knowing just how to handle each individual. If the customer is an old lady who lives with a cat and when you call up you ask after her cat by name, believe me you are going to close a sale that day. Using CRM data, marketing campaigns can be co-ordinated more effectively by ensuring that promotions do not target customers who have already purchased that particular products. It also ensures higher customer retention by introducing loyalty programs. A business would never like to see a product to a customer who has just bought it recently. In a short over view using CRM, a small business can:
1) Provide Better Customer Service
2) Increase Customer Revenues
3) Discover New Customers
4) “Cross Sell” and “Up Sell” Products More Effectively
5) Help Sales Staff Close Deals Faster
6) Simplify Marketing and Sales Processes
In a one line definition about the CRM, it allows the business to give its customers the option of choosing how they want to communication with the business.
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