Uniqueness of a small company comes down to some basic traits. First of all, it’s operation on the market depends mostly on loyal, regular customers. It means, that there is a bigger importance of client retention than in corporations. The number of employees in small firms is rather small, therefore choosing the most professional staff is crucial – you cannot let your company have unprepared customer service or IT support.
That kind of enterprises progressively use more communication channels, and their presence in social media slowly becomes one of the indicators of business growth. Another important fact is that online attendance isn’t expensive, while being one of the fundamental elements of marketing and sales strategies. Let’s remember that a small firm doesn’t have the highest budget or powerful logistic and technical backup. Minor capital (especially on the beginning of enterprise) enforces finding effective and affordable solutions. Decision about implementation of CRM should be made only after you find the perfect system, or at least the best fitted for a specific business.
How should such a system look like? We have some clues for you.
- CRM should guarantee intuitive usage. If your firm is on the beginning of development, it’s not worth investing in dedicated and expensive program – it’s better to choose simple online solution. Of course there are still voices which say that CRM should be always dedicated to a specific branch or company, but with new elastic platforms it is no longer necessary.
- Small firms have tendencies towards dynamic growth – if they choose proper strategy and attend to their customers’ needs, of course. In connection to this, the best CRM should be calibrated, trimmed to every stage of company’s growth. It is worth to look at the bigger picture and consider next few years of exploitation. In this case handy would become CRM in SaaS model, which is actualised automatically.
- System has to have the opportunity to synchronize with other applications and accept different file formats. In other words – CRM should be as flexible as possible. There are many possibilities of free system trials online, which are worth trying out. Elasticity of good CRM should not only improve communication processes with current clients, but also help in acquiring new ones, speed up transactions and offer better consumer service. Profiling customers and dividing them into groups can significantly increase your strategies’ quality. Another substantial matter is constant control of specific relations.
- CRM should enable growth of your productivity, but not necessarily through reduction in staff costs. It means, that managing your communication should be more intuitive. Extremely important and functional are modules like: data base which can import different file formats, schedule with reminders about upcoming meetings etc., tool for company’s inside communication, regularly created automatic reports based on sales and marketing data. Those reports are not only a great way to get feedback, but you can also use them to motivate your employees and increase productivity. Building strategy in small firms relies on human factor far more than in bigger companies. That’s why CRM shouldn’t (mustn’t even) be too complicated tool from IT point of view.
