3 Ways a CRM Can Help Your Business
Contributed by Salesforce Essentials
As a busy small business owner, it’s easy to jot down details about your customers on whatever is right in front of you – on a sticky note, in a spreadsheet, or on your iPhone. But what happens when you accidentally throw the sticky note in the trash, or override your spreadsheet data, or lose your phone?
If you have a customer relationship management (CRM) solution, you won’t lose your customer information when one (or all) of those things happen. A CRM tool can help you manage all of your company’s relationships and interactions with prospects and customers, so you can focus on growing your business.
Here are 3 ways a CRM can help your business succeed:
1. Automate your business processes
At its core, a CRM tool helps you organize your contacts in a single source of truth. But a CRM can do so much more. Built-in intelligence automates administrative tasks, like data entry and lead or service routing, so you can spend your time on more valuable activities.
2. Sell more and deliver faster support
A CRM tool can help you identify and categorize leads so sales can prioritize the opportunities that are most likely to close. This allows your sales team to spend their time connecting with prospects and strengthening relationships with existing customers, which increases overall productivity. And once you turn those leads into customers, you can use your CRM to deliver standout customer service. By connecting your company’s social media accounts and support email to your CRM, you’ll be able to respond quickly to customer inquiries across channels – without having to switch between multiple applications and systems.
3. Share customer data across your entire business
By keeping all your customer information in a CRM, your entire team will have access to the same data for a consistent customer experience. Sales knows which leads to follow up on, marketing can nurture the prospects that are not ready to buy, and customer service understands the various touch points the customer has already had with your company to provide seamless support. And business owners can use real-time reports and dashboards to see how their business is doing at a glance.
What to look for in your CRM system
Ready to get started with CRM? It’s important to set the right foundation for your business growth with the right CRM. Look for a CRM that offers easy setup, backed by top-notch documentation and support to get you started quickly.
You’ll also want:
- Scalability, so you can add functionality and users as you grow
- Full mobile access, so you and your team can do business from a smartphone
- CRM delivered via cloud-based subscription, which offers flexibility, security, and near-zero maintenance costs on your end
Salesforce Essentials offers all of the above and more, in a complete CRM platform designed specifically for small businesses. ShipStation customers can save 25% off the 1st-year annual subscription of Salesforce Essentials. Start your free 14-day trial today and see how you can maximize your business growth.
Salesforce Essentials helps you find more customers, win their business, and keep them happy so you can grow faster than ever. Learn more about our small business CRM solutions by following us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Want to connect with ShipStation at Dreamforce this November? Contact us here and we’ll set up some time to meet.