Does my small business really need an online CRM?

In this 4 minute read, learn:

  • What is an online CRM for small business
  • What can CRM do for your business
  • Why you need an online CRM specifically built for small business

Do you know the name, contact information, and purchase history of every single one of your customers? If the answer to that question is “no,” you need an online CRM for small business, and don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Many small and local businesses rely on paper records, clunky software, or their own memory to store customer records.

Want to know every one of your customers? Womply’s reputation management software gives you access to the only CRM that comes pre-populated with customer data. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!

Big businesses and online companies, on the other hand, know every single one of their customers. And not just who they are, but almost everything about them.

Collecting, analyzing, and utilizing customer data is a cornerstone of big business today. That’s why CRM is now the largest software market, with revenues approaching $40 billion.

This might leave you wondering, “What can CRM do for my business?”

Let’s start by looking closer at what CRM actually does.

old fashioned file drawer for small business crm

What is online CRM and what does it do?

CRM stands for customer relationship management, a term that should be familiar to even the most technophobic of business owners.

After all, building and managing good customer relationships is what small businesses are known for. In a way, CRM software was built to help online companies recreate the personal touch customers expect from Main Street.

Keeping customers happy takes knowing and reacting to their individual wants and needs. For big businesses with hundreds of thousands of customers across the world, this takes gathering and storing a lot of data.

That’s where CRM comes in. Big businesses and online companies use highly complex and expensive cloud-based CRM platforms to store and manage their customers’ personal information.

This includes everything from contact information, purchase history, communication history, personal preferences, and more.

That data can then be used to send automated emails, help with customer support issues, and a whole lot more.

But what about small businesses and mom-and-pop shops? Do they really need the same kind of high-tech help that the big players are using?

CRM works great for big business, but do I need an online CRM for small business?

“I don’t have hundreds of thousands of customers to worry about.” “I know my customers pretty well already.” “Even if I wanted to use CRM, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

If these thoughts have gone through your head, don’t worry, we’ve heard them from countless small business owners. And who can blame them?

The vast majority of CRM platforms were created with big business in mind, leaving cloud-based “enterprise CRMs” too complex and inefficient for small businesses to use them.

So, back to the original question: “Does my small business need CRM?”

The answer is an unequivocal “YES.” No matter the size or situation of your business, using the right CRM platform can save you time and grow your business.

The key is to find a platform built specifically for businesses like yours.

You might also like: What’s the best CRM for small business in 2019?

What can online CRM do for my small business?

CRM can help small businesses in many of the same ways they have helped big business increase revenue by 41%. It just takes finding a CRM platform built to address the needs and situations unique to small businesses like yours. 

Here are some of the ways the right CRM can help you manage and grow your small business:

customers in eclectic cafe for small business CRM

Use online CRM to know every customer, not just your regulars

Big businesses have more customers than they know what to do with. Internet-based businesses have to forge customer relationships without ever making a personal connection.

CRM fixes these issues by helping them know and keep track every single customer.

For small businesses, knowing your customers’ names and preferences often begins and ends with your most frequent patrons. Keeping track of one-time visitors and infrequent customers is a nearly impossible task.

A good small business CRM should automatically create and update customer records from the moment they complete a transaction. That way you know all of your customers, from first-time customers as well as your regulars.

Use online CRM to automatically gather customer contact information

E-commerce companies have the luxury of requiring customer contact information for each and every purchase. For small businesses, gathering contact information from even the most loyal customer requires a lot of work.

A good online CRM for small businesses should automatically append contact information to a customer’s record whenever they complete a transaction.

woman handing credit card to grocer for small business CRM

That way, you can focus on building good customer experiences instead of repeatedly asking for email addresses and phone numbers.

Womply CRM, which was built specifically for small businesses, provides a perfect example of this service. Using our existing database of 200 million American consumers, we automatically add contact information to your customers when they do business with you.

This gives you an instantly powerful automatic marketing and customer service resource.

Use online CRM to connect customer records to transaction history

Knowing your customers’ names and email addresses is helpful on its own, but a powerful CRM has the ability to attach transactions to customer records.

That means you’ll know precisely how valuable every customer is — no guessing.

A good small business CRM will do this for you automatically, with every purchase. This gives you valuable insight into your business, customers, competitors, and much more.

Use online CRM to supercharge your small business marketing strategy

In our research, improving marketing to attract new customers and driving repeat business from existing ones are consistently two of the top concerns for small business owners.

A good CRM for small businesses should make it super easy for you to communicate with your customers after they leave your business, with these types of features:

  • Sort customers by who’s new, who’s loyal, who spends the most, and more
  • Send personalized marketing messages and offers to drive repeat visits
  • Collect customer feedback by text or email to increase customer loyalty

See how the right small business CRM can help you grow your business

We hope that the question to the answer “Does my small business need CRM?” is now abundantly clear.

You need to know all customers, get their contact information automatically, and easily utilize your customer data. Your small business needs CRM, but not a CRM made to solve big business problems.

As we mentioned earlier in this post, we built Womply CRM specifically to help small businesses start taking advantage of the incredible CRM features that larger businesses have had access to for decades.

Read more about the launch of Womply CRM in this article from our founder, Toby Scammell.

You need a small business CRM built for the unique and specific needs of local businesses. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!

Sources: https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3871105 https://www.salesforce.com/crm/strategy/

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