Spotlight on Small Businesses: How a CRM Solution Helps You Grow

The term CRM stands for customer relationship management software.

At its core, a CRM solution helps you manage relationships between your business and your customers.

CRM software typically comes with features that help you keep track of all customer interactions, notes, and data.

The customer data you track with a CRM is available to multiple team members to streamline the customer journey from marketing to sales and service.

Creating a centralized source of information about customers empowers your team to personalize the customer experience and build stronger relationships.

Not to mention, many CRM solution providers also include automation features that help small teams get more done.

Some CRM tools focus on a single area, such as marketing, sales, or service, while others offer all-in-one software that has functionality for all of your business departments.

Small businesses don’t have the resources of large corporations, so they tend to manage clients and customers using free tools.

Unfortunately, free software solutions are limited and can often be time-consuming for team members.

Scaling and lack of automation are two of the biggest challenges small business owners face.

Without the right tools to support you, these issues can lead to bad customer experiences and a stagnating business.

Let’s look at each one a bit closer.

As you grow your small business, you may find what worked for you in the beginning starts to fall apart as you gain more clients.

For instance, your sales spreadsheet worked when you had one person handling all deals, but now you have more employees.

Your team doesn’t have a centralized source of customer information, and you’re seeing more dropoff in your sales funnel.

Once you’ve reached the point where client volume and employee bandwidth limit your business growth, it might be time to invest in a CRM platform that can support you.

There’s only one problem.

How do you find the right one for your business?

There are dozens (if not hundreds) of CRM providers out there, and it can feel overwhelming to narrow it down to one.

The key is to start by understanding your customer life cycle and identifying pain points in the customer journey.

In other words, add tools to support the areas where your business struggles.

Let’s say you own a small SaaS company, and you do a great job of bringing in new leads and closing deals, but you’re missing contract renewal goals.

You could benefit from service-oriented features in that example, but you might not need to spend a lot on marketing tools or sales management software.

Here’s a closer look at which type of CRM to consider based on your pain points and business needs.

A marketing CRM is best for small businesses that struggle to keep potential clients and users engaged with their brand.

Look for features that help you build a website and create email newsletters to educate your audience on your products and services.

Businesses that struggle to bring in new leads and close more sales opportunities would benefit from a sales CRM.

You can take advantage of lead generation features like sales funnels and landing pages, plus follow-up reminders and forecasting tools with a sales CRM.

Once a lead enters your pipeline, lead management tools such as outbound email tracking, call recording, and meeting scheduling help your sales reps stay on top of deals in the funnel and provide a personalized experience.

As mentioned earlier, a service CRM works best for small businesses that struggle with onboarding, retention, and customer satisfaction.

With the right tools, you can create customer service tickets and offer channels like live chat to improve your customer service experiences.

Service CRM tools also help you gather valuable customer feedback through surveys to help you improve your service workflow and product quality.

As you continue to narrow down your CRM provider options, consider these factors to help you narrow down your provider list:

If you’ve decided that an all-in-one small business CRM is the right step for you, we’ve gathered some of the top providers here.

Let’s dive in.

This is the best all-in-one CRM for blogs, online courses, and digital classes.

This is the best all-in-one CRM for small businesses looking to scale.

This is the best all-in-one CRM for fully remote businesses.

Starting a business and scaling for growth are two different challenges, and you’ll need to adapt your strategy and tools as you grow.

CRM solutions are an excellent tool to help you centralize customer data and empower your team to build relationships that create loyal return customers.

If you only need help in one area, then a standalone option might be the best CRM software for you.

Otherwise, if you can afford it, there are several all-in-one CRM platforms to help you simplify business processes and provide the best source for centralized customer information.