Best CRM For Small Business.Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a customer relationship management system, namely a program or service in which you can draw up a step-by-step universal sales plan and carry out each new transaction according to it.
Best CRM For Small Business.
Modern CRMs help automate many steps in this regard: they send a template message to the client, generate a commercial offer or a contract at the right time . CRM works like an advanced day planner, reminding you of planned calls, appointments and other activities that are needed for a sale.
CRM is not a magic pill for all sales problems. If the company has not set up business processes and sales are chaotic, the system will not help. But if the sales process is structured, CRM will be useful: salespeople will spend less time on routine actions and will be able to sell more, and managers will have access to analysis of the effectiveness of processes and employee actions.
There are several excellent CRM (Customer Relationship Management) options available for small businesses. The best CRM for your small business will depend on your specific needs and budget. Here are five popular CRM options that are often recommended for small businesses:
- HubSpot CRM: HubSpot offers a free CRM with robust features for managing contacts, deals, and tasks. It integrates well with other HubSpot products and provides a user-friendly interface.
- Zoho CRM: Zoho CRM is a comprehensive solution that offers a free plan for small businesses. It provides features for contact management, lead tracking, sales automation, and customer support.
- Salesforce Essentials: Salesforce Essentials is designed specifically for small businesses. It offers a streamlined version of Salesforce’s enterprise-level CRM with features for contact management, email integration, sales tracking, and customer support.
- Pipedrive: Pipedrive is known for its simplicity and user-friendly interface. It offers features for contact and deal management, email integration, sales reporting, and pipeline visualization.
- Insightly: Insightly is a popular CRM for small businesses and provides features for contact management, project management, task management, and email tracking. It also integrates well with other popular business tools.
It’s important to consider factors such as pricing, ease of use, scalability, and the specific needs of your business when selecting a CRM. You may want to explore the features and try out the free trials or demos of these CRM options to determine which one aligns best with your requirements.
What problems can CRM help solve?
Usually CRM is implemented in order to increase the quantity and quality of sales, start monitoring processes and objectively assess the effectiveness of employees. Here is a list of problems that the system usually helps to solve.
Clients are not lost
CRM creates a new deal immediately after the client’s request, through an application on the website or through a message in social networks or instant messengers. At the right time, the manager will see a reminder of what needs to be done to advance the deal.
Managers don’t forget to add customer data
If you maintain a customer base in Excel, an unscrupulous or inattentive manager will quickly ruin everything – for example, he will simply ignore the filling of the customer base. This will not work in CRM – the manager will not be able to advance in the sale process until he fills in the necessary cells in the buyer’s card.
Sales conversion is on the rise
Managers don’t forget anything. CRM reminds that now according to plan for each client. Buyers get what they want, which means that the number of successful deals is growing.
Learning newbies is made easy
In a CRM system, a sales plan is structured by stages. The training of a new employee can be carried out immediately in the program – modern systems are intuitive, so the manager himself will understand what needs to be done for the first transaction.
Customer base is not lost
Customer data is stored in CRM, not in the manager’s notebook. Therefore, if an employee leaves, clients and transactions are not lost – they can simply be transferred to a new person.
Essential features for an optimal CRM
Choose a system with functions that will help automate and optimize your business processes. Here’s a rough list.
- Creation and setup of a sales funnel. A phased plan that each client goes through before the transaction.
- Automation of setting tasks for managers. It is important that the manager does not need to assign most of the tasks “by hand”, this should be done by CRM, depending on the situation with the deal.
- Communication with clients in one window. As a rule, a business has different channels of communication with customers during sales: chat on the site, social networks, instant messengers, etc. In CRM, you can communicate with customers from all these sources in one window – you do not need to switch between programs.
- Generation of documents and other files. Managers should not waste time on bureaucracy, CRM takes over this task.
- Billing and debt tracking. CRM should not only help sell, but also generally control the transaction process. For example, it is convenient to create a rule for accounts receivable: if the client does not pay on time, CRM will send him a reminder letter. If he paid and the money came, CRM will thank him and offer to work more. The main thing is to configure the system once, then the templates will work.
- Control over employees. CRM should show deep analytics on the work of sales managers. It is convenient when statistics are available to the seller as well – this is how the specialist analyzes his strengths and weaknesses himself, sees how long it is left to reach the KPI and the bonus.
- Process analytics. Sales performance doesn’t always depend on employees. With the help of CRM, a manager can track the quality of business processes and the conversion of customers from one stage of the sales funnel to another. For example, CRM will show that the majority of potential buyers abandon a deal after receiving a quote. So, you need to study what is wrong with this document.
- Recording of conversations. Advanced CRM has a call control system. The manager at any time can listen to the manager’s conversations with clients and assess the quality of work.
- Ability to work from a smartphone. This is convenient if the manager needs to go somewhere, he can always control the processes. For example, see a message from a key customer and respond quickly.
Criteria for choosing a CRM system for small businesses
In addition to automation functions, there are several more criteria by which you should choose CRM. All of them are related to business processes and usability of the program.
- Simple and intuitive interface. Choose CRM, for which you do not need to conduct educational trainings for several days. Ideal if you can understand the system using internal instructions.
- There is a security system. The system should be not only convenient, but also flexible in terms of security. It is good if it has several types of users. For example, it is better to leave full access to the customer base only to the manager.
- Integration with other applications. As a rule, even in a small business, processes are associated with the use of some services – for advertising, sending letters, communicating with customers, and controlling accounts. It is convenient when CRM has the ability to integrate with these services – so programs can exchange data. For example, CRM will be able to send letters itself, no need to waste time on additional settings.
- Ease of implementation. As a rule, CRM will not be able to simply launch and start using it right away. It will take time and resources to implement it. Therefore, the simpler and cheaper it is to set up a CRM, the better.