A CRM, or customer relationship management system is the perfect way to enhance your sales operations. Theses software program help you manage customer data, streamline customer interactions and automate repetitive tasks. You’ll get better efficiency, less complaints, and in theory, you should be making more sales and money. But how do you know if you really need one?
Here’s just a few off the tell-tale signs your business would benefit from a CRM.
Leads increasing, but sales aren’t
So, you’ve done some advertising or improved your website’s SEO and you’ve got an increase in website traffic. That’s fantastic, but are you converting those leads into sales? If not, there could be a couple of reasons. One is that your website isn’t optimised for conversion. This means customers get to your site, but they’re not encouraged to buy or take action.
The other reason is you’ve got no way of managing those leads properly. Leads often fall through the cracks if not managed correctly, and let’s face it, it’s hard to keep track sometimes. A CRM helps deliver leads to the right staff members, allowing them to act quickly and close sales.
Increase in customer complaints
Now, this one may not be specifically about how you manage your customers. Complaints increase for a number of reasons. It could be directly product-related. But more often than not, complaints increase because of poor customer service. And if customers complain about service and nobody contacts them back, you’ll get even more complaints.
A CRM not only helps you manage complaints more effectively, but helps stop them happening in the first place. Because your sales team are better equipped with the right information, you’ll provide far greater customer service and limit those issues.
Your customer data is a mess
When your sales team are trying to manage their customers, they need some sort of structure. Notes on pieces of paper or knowledge stored in people’s heads isn’t efficient. What if the only person who knows a customer’s needs is away? A CRM is a centralised place where all customer data is kept. Previous orders, current issues, preferences and much more. That means any member of the sales team can access the right information and help your customers.
You’re spending too much time on data entry
Are your sales staff spending to much time on admin? Re-work is common in most workplaces, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying or more efficient. You hire sales people to sell, not to perform mundane data entry tasks.
CRMs handle a lot of the repetitive data entry work for you, giving your sales team more time to do their job.
You can’t keep up with all your points of contact
Finally, where are all your leads and opportunities coming from? More than likely, they’re coming from several points of contact. It could be phone, website, social media, apps. The list goes on. This is great for generating more leads, but converting sales is the crucial part.
A CRM gives you better visibility of all potential leads, and helps your sales team act on them quickly and efficiently.
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