I stress to all my clients that the first step in getting your contacts organized is to sign up with a customer relationship management (CRM) service. The first one is a specific but important reason, but I had an actual instance recently where this was helpful so I was motivated to write about it. And while I was at it, I decided I might as well provide other reasons as well.
Here are the five reasons why you need a CRM.
1. Find a Contact Based on their Information
Have you ever received a voice message or text from someone and didn’t know who they were? Recently, I received a call from someone who left a message that lasted several seconds but there was no sound. I was easily able to search for the phone number in my CRM database and voila, there it was with the contact it belongs to! And it turned out it was someone who wanted to reschedule our meeting the next day so it was important to know about her call. Whether you receive your calls on your cell phone or some other platform, having a database to cross-reference by phone number, email or other information can be a life saver!
2. Follow Through on Your Promises
You can set up reminders in your CRM system to send you an email and/or create a task on the calendar in the dashboard so that you never forget to call someone, or send them something, or whatever you promised to do when you promised to do it. Being someone your clients and prospects and rely on is crucial to the reputation of your business.
3. Track Customer Interaction
As well as scheduling reminders, you can record results of phone calls and other conversations, attach documents related to that contact, and add any other notes or descriptions you’d like for that contact. While not all CRMs are set up to effectively send mass mails (but some are CRM and email services combined), you can email to individuals through the CRM, which will create a record in the contact’s profile, and in most cases will record if and when the contact read the email.
4. Track Metrics
Most CRMs not only store contact information, most all have modules for pipelines, projects, campaigns and other activities. The dashboard shows metrics on all these modules, and is generally customizable to fit your needs.
5. Stay Organized
Having all this information in one place can be a real time saver and you can avoid anything slipping through the cracks because you have your data spread across too many locations.
[tweetthis]Five Reasons Why Your Business Needs Customer Relationship Management[/tweetthis]
If you want to learn more about how CRMs can help you stay organized and save time, contact me!
Your turn: What are other ways you’ve found that CRMs are helpful to your business?
Deidra Miller
Administrative Consultant
