No matter your business model, you have some version of a customer. Whether that’s another business, the general public, or something else, someone is buying your product or service.
How do you keep track of these people? Great customer relationships are the key to business growth. Most businesses collect customer data to use in a way that allows for an improved customer experience.
The easiest way to do that? Customer relationship management software solutions.
Time and time again, you’ve been told that implementing customer relationship management (CRM) software into your business model is the best next move. But what happens when you don’t invest in CRM for your business?
Let’s dive in and talk about it.
CRMs are no longer a luxury that only top companies can afford to take advantage of. CRMs are becoming standard practice, and you may be falling behind your competitors without one. Automation, artificial intelligence, and analytics have the potential to take your business to the next level—or to hold you back while the rest of your competition moves ahead.
What Is Customer Relationship Management?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software does just what it says: it helps businesses manage relationships with their customers. As a result, businesses can create customer loyalty and retention. What does customer loyalty and retention lead to? Increased sales and, therefore, increased profit.
Essentially, CRM is a tool that creates an easy-to-use interface for businesses to collect data about their clients that can help them recognize and communicate with potential and existing customers in a scalable way. By using a CRM and building these relationships with clients, businesses generally expect to see increased profits and streamlined processes.
Now that you’re familiar with CRMs, here are 3 reasons your business might be doomed without one:
Problem #1: You Don’t Understand Your Customers
What is a business without customers? Doomed! Without clients, our companies lack the fuel they need to move forward. But the only way to attract new customers and hold on to current ones is to understand what makes them tick.
With the help of CRM software, your business and employees can learn about your customers, including everything from their demographics to what products and services they typically purchase or have purchased from you in the past. With such information, you can understand and even anticipate your customers’ needs.
When is the last time your customer bought their usual product? Is it time for a restock? Based on history, which customers would be interested in your new service? You can use updated, relevant information from your CRM to your advantage.
But without it, you’re missing countless opportunities to serve your customers and increase sales.
Customers also want to feel appreciated and known. In fact, buyers stated the following as three of the top ways you can create a positive sales experience:
- Listen to their needs
- Provide relevant information
- Respond in a timely manner
Without a CRM, you may find that customers are falling through the cracks. Who or what is keeping track of your contacts? When a customer moves to a new job, modifies their buying interests, or changes positions within the same company, are you aware of it?
If not, you’re automatically losing contacts and, as a result, potential sales. Clients won’t hesitate to find a business that knows their name, provides the right incentives, and nurtures them to create customer loyalty if yours isn’t already doing so.
When debating the importance of a CRM, remember: If you don’t understand your customers, they won’t have a reason to continue to come back.
Problem #2: You’re Doing It Too Slow
Whether they’re using it for sales processes, marketing campaigns, or business analytics, companies everywhere are using CRM software to automate aspects of their business. What does that mean? They’re streamlining customer interactions, attracting clients faster, and optimizing mundane business tasks. As a result, they’re seeing:
- Enhanced customer satisfaction
- Improved team productivity
- Shortened sales cycles
- Increased pipeline rates
For example, automation in the form of AI customer service chatbots free up time for employees while giving existing and potential customers immediate help and attention. Not only does this tool cut out mundane, repetitive tasks for employees and allows them to focus on larger, long-term goals, but it also leads to immediate customer satisfaction as they feel heard almost instantly.
Similarly, when a CRM is used to automatically assign leads to sales reps and engage new prospects with drip campaigns, your competitors can cut out manual entry for their employees. As a result, their employees can spend more time on the phone reaching out to potential clients, which is especially important since it takes 18 calls to connect with a buyer.
Plus, when they’re receiving better and more relevant data on their customers, they can score leads, research prospects, and generate more accurate quotes. As a result, less time is wasted during the sales cycle, shortening it and allowing employees to create relationships with more leads and clients.
Let’s face it: Your competitors are probably already using CRM software to improve their business. You risk missing out on great leads if you can’t keep up with what they’re doing!
Problem #3: Your Sales Team is Burning Out
Now possibly more than ever, in the midst of the “Great Resignation,” employees aren’t afraid to leave their current positions for something new. According to the Willis Towers Watson’s 2022 Global Benefits Attitudes Survey, 44% of employees are currently labeling themselves as “job seekers.”
Employees may be job seeking for a variety of reasons, but burnout is cited as the number one cause for employees leaving their current jobs. Your employees may be at risk of burnout if they find themselves:
- Grinding away at mundane tasks every day rather than working on meaningful projects and leads
- Constantly frustrated by a lack of correct, recent data
- Unable to easily collaborate with teammates and management
- Lacking constructive feedback on their performance
Without a CRM to automate smaller tasks, how much time are your employees spending on menial day-to-day tasks? It may be more than you think. Did you know that after writing emails, prospecting leads, attending meetings, and scheduling calls, sales professionals typically spend only one-third of their day talking to prospects, even with the help of a CRM? If your employees find themselves with even less time, they may decide to leave for a business that offers better tools that allow them to be more productive workers.
Similarly, if your employees feel frustrated by the lack of relevant leads or embarrassed by outdated information when making sales calls, you could find yourself with a dwindling roster. With CRM software, you can control the accuracy and timeliness of your data, but how will your business do that without one?
According to Entrepreneur Magazine’s article on the “7 Secrets to Employee Happiness,” collaboration and feedback are both essential to keeping your team on the right track. With CRM software, your employees can work together to identify and share leads, your management can assign prospects and calls to specific teammates, and everyone in the company can keep track of each other’s progress.
Not only can this streamline business processes, but it also allows your employees to feel connected and supported. Plus, with an inside look at how each employee is doing, management can offer constructive, positive feedback to all members of the team, which contributes to each employee’s overall happiness.
In short: If you’re not providing the right tools to your employees, you’ll likely lose talent and damage your company’s culture.
Are You Doomed?
CRM software is no longer a glimpse of the future—it’s a resource that most businesses already have in their toolkit. With it, companies are understanding their customers more than ever, maximizing productivity and efficiency, keeping talent in-house, and so much more.
Don’t sit by and doom your business with outdated software and manual processes this year. Take the next step and learn about how CRM software can put your business back in the game.