When it comes to owning or working in a small business, being organised is pretty much a prerequisite. There are lots of different tools on the market nowadays to help you automate certain areas of your business, streamline processes and ensure you are as efficient as you can be. If you are considering a CRM system for your team you might want to consider if it is the right option for your needs, before you start looking at comparing vendors…
What is a CRM System?
Before, you can decide if a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System is right for you lets clarify what it is. A CRM system is a piece of software that enables you to store all your customer data, keep track of the interactions you have made with them and helps you to manage follow-ups and improve customer service. You can also group your contacts, generate reports, send emails, automate your sales, analyse data and lots, lots more.
A CRM system is technically not essential to the running of your business and finding the time to evaluate and purchase one is difficult when dealing with the everyday workload that running a small business demands. However, the software is designed to help you build and maintain better relationships with your customers, driving higher customer satisfaction and loyalty so it’s worth weighing up if investing in one will be time well spent.
Is a CRM System right for my business?
Before you start looking at the best options for your business, consider if having a CRM system is right for your company and what you want to achieve. If you are looking to tie together all the customer data that you might have living in Excel spreadsheets, employee email inboxes and within your company accounting system into one central location, then you will definitely benefit from a CRM injection. Similarly, you will benefit if you want to gain insight into your customer interactions or track all your sales efficiently.
However, if you are running a one or two-person operation and get little of no repeat business, for instance, a full-blown CRM system will be unnecessary. The same will apply if you have only a few large customers and are not intending to expand your business further. It really depends on where you are as a business and what your long-term goals are.
What are the best CRM Systems on the market?
When considering which system to invest in try to factor in not just where you are today but where you want to be in the future, as well as what you want it to achieve. This handy guide to the best CRM systems for small business in 2019 will give you the rundown.
Here at Bells we have been using an accountant specific CRM System since 2013. Having the right tools minimises our activity and allows us to increase the amount of time we spend being productive with clients. We particularly like that it links up to our email system and automatically saves a copy of our email exchanges with customers. It means we have an audit trail of everything we’ve spoken about with our customers to date which is invaluable for quick reference and for checking details. When we enter a new client into the database it feeds all the information down into all the relevant sections and automatically populates for us which not only saves us precious time but also helps removes the risk of human error.
Now you are a little more informed on whether a CRM system is right for your business, we will leave you to your thoughts. Whilst we can’t make this particular decision for you, we can help your business with their accountancy needs, so please feel free to give us a call to chat through anytime. We’d love to hear from you.
To get in touch, please call 020 8468 1087, email or fill in our contact form.
