Common Challenges That Are Faced by Businesses and How CRM Helps

The key to the growth of an organization is the relationships with its customers. So, it is important that you manage them as effectively and efficiently as possible, especially if you are a small business. You will be facing multiple challenges that you have to overcome to improve your business’ growth. 

In this article, we will be discussing the common challenges faced by the businesses and how CRM can help them:

  • Finding the right customers

A lot of time and resources are spent to attract and generate new leads. But what after that? Are you sure that the leads are passed to the sales representative, and if they are, do your sales representatives know about the hottest opportunities? When you are small and trying to grow fast, time is very important. You have to make the most of the marketing tools such as social media, email, and Marketing Automation. Connect them to your CRM platform. Through the CRM system, both marketing and sales will have a total view of the prospects and leads. This way, they will be creating and targeting engaging communication and turning them into customers. Moreover, it can help in reaching key decisions faster. Without a CRM system, it is possible that several of your marketing leads are not being converted to sales. 

  • Building sustainable relationships

54% of U.S. consumers say customer experience at most companies needs improvement, according to PwC. All good sales leaders know that the key objective to sustain success is by creating deeper relationships with your customers. In order to develop a deeper understanding of your customer, you have to start with understanding your company’s history and what its vision is. A strong relationship is built on mutual success and trust. CRM software can help you do just that. Here is what it can do:

  • Explore the challenges of customers – Find out what is important to your customers and what their goals, preferences, and challenges are. This should be done at every exchange. Make sure to take follow-up action. All these notes should be recorded in the CRM system so that you can pick up where you left off by taking a quick review.
  • Engage with relevancy – Once you get an understanding of the challenges and goals of the customer, you will be able to recommend special promotions, appropriate products, or other content that is relevant to them. Through CRM, you will know their purchase and how they are using it. This will help in providing them with the most relevant information and content.
  • Scale the 1-to-1 relationship – As a small business, your customers will appreciate the personalized experience you offer. However, knowing the details of all the customers can be challenging. You might not know when you should follow-up with them, especially when you have high growth. Through the CRM platform, you will be able to set up task reminders, host email templates, and enable phone calls that will help in connecting with customers easier and faster.
  • Reducing the sales’ cost

A key aspect of your continued growth is new customers. But, they are not cheap or easy. The probability of selling a product successfully to a new prospect is way lower than the probability of selling one to an existing customer. However, it is possible to offset the cost of new customer acquisition through sales to the existing customer base. When you have improved visibility into the renewal, cross-sell, and upsell opportunities in the customer portfolio, you will be able to see repeatable sales increased. The reason for this is the trust you have earned.

Here is how a CRM system can help improve the performance of your business:

  • Improved sales efficiency – CRM system can help in prioritizing leads and opportunities that have more chances of being converted and closed. This is done on the basis of customer interactions.
  • Increased sales effectiveness – Through the CRM system, you will know which are the engaged customers and what is the right time for reaching out to them to get an optimal response.
  • Increased cross-sell and upsell opportunities – With CRM, you will be seeing all the opportunities that fit perfectly with the add-on deals that are already in progress.
  • Uncovered referral business – CRM can help you in finding untapped opportunities with your existing customers. This way, you won’t have to waste time cold calling or pay for dead-end leads.
  • Reduced time to close – Through CRM you will have a complete view of your customer that will help align the team and close the deal.
  • Increasing the productivity of employees

When you adopt the right technology, your team is free from process-heavy tasks. They can now spend more time connecting with the customers. Through a CRM system, all manual operations such as entering data and looking for customer information can be eliminated from the processes related to customers and automated. Automation can be applied across sales, marketing, and service departments. This will free your employees and they will be spending more time strengthening the relationships with existing customers and talking to prospective customers. You have to give your team the required tools so that they can focus on selling and be faster and smarter.

  • Offering better service to the customers

Your best product is as good as the accompanied service you offer, before as well as after the sale. Consumers are willing to pay for a better experience. Hitting up new prospects with marketing promotions will only annoy them or scare them away. Also, once you have a customer, you have to ensure that you don’t drop the ball. Otherwise, all the effort and time that you put into winning the customer will be wasted.

Through the CRM system, the entire team in the organization will be able to access the complete history of the customer immediately. They can provide personalized solutions and messages quickly with the appropriate sources. When you have a smooth interaction with the customers, it encourages repeat business and builds trust.

As a business owner, you will be facing several obstacles and challenges. Using a CRM software such as EngageBay CRM will help in alleviating some stress and improving your business processes.

Adam Hansen
 

Adam is a part time journalist, entrepreneur, investor and father.