My clients often ask, “why should I use a CRM?” And it’s a good question, because a CRM can do so many things, it’s important to find one that does the things that are important to you. If you’re not sure what you need, here are a few of the things a CRM can do:
A CRM can store client information
In its most basic form, a CRM can be used to store the contact details for your clients. You can make notes about what the client likes; important dates such as birthdays and anniversaries; and often link to their social media accounts. It also associates multiple contacts with a business. Then if you need to contact someone in accounts, it’s easy to find the right person.
A CRM can be used to send and track marketing information
Many CRMs have marketing functionality and allow you to send bulk emails and sometimes SMS messages to your clients. Some have good marketing functionality; if so you can use your CRM as a one-stop shop. However, if the email marketing isn’t particularly sophisticated I’d recommend using an email marketing tool like CampaignMonitor or MailerLite in conjunction with your CRM. Zapier and IFTTT make that easy to accomplish.
A CRM can organise your sales funnel
Your CRM can manage the sales process for you. Integrate your Lead Pages with your CRM and you can manage the sales funnel on your CRM. A major benefit of this is that it makes it easy to see where each lead is in the sales funnel. It also allows you to see where leads are coming from, which are the best qualified, and how leads are being converted to sales.
A CRM can be used as your task list
CRMs allow you to set tasks, meetings and telephone calls to clients. Then you can easily see what needs doing. You can get reminders about the items due today. In most CRMs you can attach information to your tasks, so if you need to email a client a document on a certain day, you can attach the document to a task and when it comes time to send the email, the document is at hand. You can also set up lists of actions, for example an On-Boarding Checklist for new clients. Then when you have a new client, add the checklist and all the tasks required to complete the on-boarding process are automatically added.
A CRM can hold your knowledge base
If one client has a problem, there’s a good chance that another client will have the same issue at some point in the future. Instead of finding a solution all over again each time it happens, create a Knowledge Base where client issues are tracked. Not only do you have an up-to-date status on each issue, you can refer to it in the future when other clients have issues. And then the steps to resolve it will already be there.
A CRM can track client communication
One of the greatest benefits of a CRM is that it allows you to track client communications. All emails, phone calls and even letters can be stored with the client contacts. This is useful because it allows you to know where everything is at when you’re talking to a client. It means that everyone in your business knows the status of client communications. Plus, it’s easy for anyone to find something if it’s needed.
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