CRM means Client Relationship Management. It helps to gather information in one place (like a central hub).
CRMs are used to get your business processes organised, help you to track leads and clients, follow up, personalise interactions and look for opportunities to see what's working and what's not working in your business processes.
For businesses to thrive CRM is an essential tool. Ultimately any tool used to store client and sales data can technically be called a client relationship management tool.
Some of the goals of a CRM is to quickly track the status of your leads/ clients, sales and gain insights.
Why do you need it?
CRMs designed to help businesses improve client experience by collecting information and building relationships.
If you’re not tracking your leads/clients it can be quite difficult to understand what they want and what their interest are or even identifying your best selling service. You might have an idea in your head but have the stats can confirm your idea!
CRM takes the guesswork out of the sales process and makes it easier for you to make the sale. Basically, it increases your conversion rates!!
When you know what your leads and clients want and what they are interested in you’re more likely to convert, retain and repeat sales.
Benefits of a CRM
Increase sales - a CRM tool will help you to understand your market and so that you can give them what they want and not what you think they want.
Ratain clients - by using a CRM tool will help provide a simple and faster service and in turn improving your client experience.
Improve efficiency - the right CRM tool will streamline and automate your processes, making it quicker and easier for you to gather information and make the sale!
Who should be using it?
Whether you’re a product-based, service, online or offline business you need a CRM (basically, if you have customers or clients)!
The point is anyone from freelancers all the way to large organisations can benefit from a CRM.
CRMs make work faster and more efficient.
It makes sense to invest in tools that will help you make your work, easier, quicker and done in less time.
You cannot always predict which way your business will go if you’re not tracking your sales and pipeline.
Monitoring your sales can help you determine the health of your business.
Yes, you can use a spreadsheet to keep track of your sales and that could technically be your CRM. But to help you really get more insight into what your clients want you’d probably want a more robust tool that will help you gather the data more efficiently.
"A CRM can help automate tracking and data collection".
Going between different tools to gather information can be time-consuming and can slow down your sales process.
The answer to saving time is to keep it simple, centralise your data and streamline your processes.
Your clients are your most important assets. Without clients, you don't have a business.
Most of the time information on your clients are spread across different platforms and don't usually speak together unless integrated.
It’s best to try and use fewer tools but only when it makes sense. For instance, you don’t or can’t really use a CRM tool to replace project management tools. You’d need certain features to manage projects which a CRM might not necessarily have.
The best way to determine the type of tool you need is to understand your processes.
As your business grows it becomes more important to centralise client information and not have it scattered across your many tools. You want to go to one place to obtain all the information you need.
Typically, you want a tool that’s right for your business. The process doesn’t have to be complicated.
Simple is more and that’s why I use Dubsado as it helps me to keep track and centralise information for leads and clients.
CRMs are all about sales, saving time, efficiency and providing a good client experience regardless of which tool you use make sure it’s right for you.
The best tools are the ones you can use consistently and efficiently.
Thanks for reading.
I'm Phebi, Online Systems Strategist and Business Management Support!
I help online service-based businesses to build out their client management system and streamlines their processes using Dubsado to increase sales and improves client experience! Learn more here