Tag: sales CRM software for small business

Boxes You Must Check Before Adopting A Sales CRM Software For Small Business

The incredible impact that technology has on business growth is fairly recognized now, especially in marketing, support, and sales. However, for this, you have to choose the right business growth technology and tools for your company or you will surely run the risk of it not being used at all. Now, the most popularly used tool for marketing, support, and sales teams is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system because if you buy a sales CRM software for small business it helps SMB organizations to be more productive by working more efficiently and understanding the customer’s experience with your brand that boosts sales and revenue. However, to reap the full benefit of a business CRM solution, your teams must use the software application, even though it is often stated that the employee adoption of CRM is neither easy nor assured be it an enterprise-level CRM solution like Salesforce or other Salesforce Alternative CRM mostly used by small businesses and startups in the CRM space.

The incredible impact that technology has on business growth is fairly recognized now, especially in marketing, support, and sales.
However, for this, you have to choose the right business growth technology and tools for your company or you will surely run the risk of it not being used at all.
Now, the most popularly used tool for marketing, support, and sales teams is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system because if you buy a sales CRM software for small business it helps SMB organizations to be more productive by working more efficiently and understanding the customer’s experience with your brand that boosts sales and revenue.

43% of CRM customers use fewer than half the features they have on their CRM. - CSO Insights Click To Tweet

However, to reap the full benefit of a business CRM solution, your teams must use the software application, even though it is often stated that the employee adoption of CRM is neither easy nor assured be it an enterprise-level CRM solution like Salesforce or other Salesforce Alternative CRM mostly used by small businesses and startups in the CRM space.

Therefore, it is always a smoother process if you can understand what your teams (especially sales) need once you purchase a sales CRM software for small business and so here are the four most important qualities your team members will absolutely want to see in a new easy to use CRM tool, since purchasing bad technology is even worse than none, as adopting a wrong technology for your startup or small business can rapidly scale down your business growth.

1. Buy CRM That Automates Your Processes

The best sales CRM software for small business should be both easy to use and automate processes for your sales, marketing, and support teams.
This is because; fancy features that are not essential for your business processes can be not only pretty distracting but it can also make the whole CRM adoption more complicated than it should be for your startup.

Hence, before you buy CRM for your company, think of the bells and whistles (which might seem attractive) if they are absolutely necessary for your business.

Rather, look for features in your best CRM for small business that will save you time and not take it away by complicating your business workflows.

Now, the ability to automate tasks and processes by using functions like Sales Force Automation is the most time-saving qualities of a CRM.

Therefore, buy CRM that is capable of automating your staff’s daily mundane and repetitive tasks.

Moreover, CRM also saves time by automatically pulling all customer data into one place which not only saves efforts but also provides the great benefit of establishing one source of truth about your leads, prospects, and customers.

2. Buy CRM that is user-friendly

We all are aware of the feeling of frustration that happens when you are unable to make out how a piece of software or an application works.
This is because, when something is difficult to use or confusing, we normally tend to quickly work it out or stop working with it if it takes too long to understand.

This same thing even applies to CRM software systems. Since the very moment, a CRM solution starts becoming a source of friction that very moment people also stop using it.

Hence look for a CRM solution that is intuitive, and has a clean design so that it can be easily used by your employees.

According to research, it has been found that salespeople spend more than 60% of their time using various business growth technology and tools and so they just cannot afford to use a CRM that they do not understand.

As an early warning sign check out if your preferred CRM comes with a long training guide, since the less training a CRM system requires, the more likely it is that the software will be easy to use and can be conveniently adopted by your teams.

3. Buy CRM that can be quickly implemented

Some businesses (mostly large enterprises) require a full-time staff member to implement, train, and manage the CRM software platform.
However, for startups and small organizations, this is neither realistic nor necessary with limited capabilities.

Therefore your organization’s best small business CRM software should not be complicated to set up and maintain.

Buy CRM that has an easy implementation process.

Moreover, it is never a great beginning to your team’s CRM experience, if it starts with a lengthy and drawn-out onboarding process.

Hence always buy a CRM with which your teams can get started right away.

4. Buy CRM that integrates with your existing software(s)

Think about all the business growth technology and tools that your teams already use along with the ones that you may also need in the days to come even before you buy your CRM.

It is most essential that you must check your best small business CRM software’s integrity with the tools that you use every day since if it does not, adopting a CRM for your business will only add to your team’s existing workload and that will naturally lead to further frustrations.

Moreover, when you use an all-in-one CRM that does bring in all the data from all your disparate silo software applications, the system helps your employee’s to find a bird’s eye 360-degree view of the information they need about their leads, prospects, and customers in a quick and easy manner.

Takeaway

Therefore to conclude for startups and small businesses, simplicity must be the key driving element behind your CRM software section process, since the less complicated the software is the more likely is it that your employees will understand the system and use it immediately.

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How To Rate Customer Satisfaction Using Sales CRM Software For Small Business

Maintaining customer satisfaction is extremely crucial for all businesses in modern times. Since it is only by concentrating on measuring customer satisfaction and carrying out necessary changes based on the customer feedback your company will be able to continually enhance the customer experience with your brand and hence retain more customers over the long haul using sales CRM software for small business. Nevertheless, it has been often found that customer satisfaction is an aspect that is overlooked by companies as most businesses focus too heavily on bringing in new customers and too little on retaining the existing ones. But do you know that on average an existing customer in any business spends 67% greater than a new customer, or that it cost 5 to 10 times more to find and onboard new customers than retain the existing ones?

Maintaining customer satisfaction is extremely crucial for all businesses in modern times. Since it is only by concentrating on measuring customer satisfaction and carrying out necessary changes based on the customer feedback your company will be able to continually enhance the customer experience with your brand and hence retain more customers over the long haul using sales CRM software for small business.

CRM can boost conversion rates by 300% - Financesonline Click To Tweet

Nevertheless, it has been often found that customer satisfaction is an aspect that is overlooked by companies as most businesses focus too heavily on bringing in new customers and too little on retaining the existing ones.

But do you know that on average an existing customer in any business spends 67% greater than a new customer, or that it cost 5 to 10 times more to find and onboard new customers than retain the existing ones?

Now, to generate stellar customer satisfaction for users of your brand that can help differentiate your business from the competition, you need to measure your customer satisfaction, using sales CRM software for small business which can be done by using these three primary models, to rate customer satisfaction, so that your customers reward your brand with recurring businesses.

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

CSAT is a widely acknowledge metrics used for measuring customer satisfaction using an easy to use CRM tool that is measured using a scale of 1 to 5.

CSAT is used for gauging the customer’s experience with a particular offering or topic, where customers can rate their level of satisfaction as:

  • Extremely Unsatisfied- 1
  • Unsatisfied- 2
  • Neutral – 3
  • Satisfied- 4
  • Extremely Satisfied- 5

For example, you can ask your customers to rate the quality of your brand’s customer support, on this five-point scale.

To find out CSAT, you can create a survey which can consist of 5 to 10 questions on a given offering or topic, and take the average of responses presented by each customer, which will be considered as that customer’s CSAT score.

Now, once enough responses have been gathered you can consolidate the CSAT sores of the individual customers, add them up and thereafter divide the figure with the total number of respondents, which will help in generating your company’s overall CSAT score using a business CRM software.

Alternatively, you can also draw upon the average score of individual questions, add them up, and then divide it by the total number of respondents to find insights on individual topics, which were there in the submitted list of questions in the survey.

However, CSAT is a stat that measures the satisfaction of your customers on a short-term granular level. Therefore, when this score is used in conjunction with any one of these other two metrics mentioned below, which can be easily found using sales CRM software for small business measuring CSAT becomes more advantageous for your company.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

While you can use CSAT for rating your brand’s customer satisfaction on a short-term, NPS is used for measuring long-term loyalty and satisfaction of your customers, and hence is considered as the better dependable metrics in your all in one CRM for measuring customer satisfaction with your company.

Unlike CSAT which uses several questions for evaluating customer satisfaction, NPS relies on a single question:

“How likely is it for you to recommend our offerings?”

The responses of an NPS survey are measured on a scale of 0 to 10.

While 0 in this survey is considered “least likely”, figure 10 is considered as the “most likely” answer for NPS rating.

Here is a further breakdown of the middle-order ratings in the NPS score:

  • Promoters of your brand (customers who will stay around and buy more and will recommend your brand to others) – 9 or 10
  • Passive respondents (customers who do not have any stronger emotions either way for your brand) – 7 or 8
  • Detractors of your brand (customers who are likely to leave and not recommend your brand to others) – 6 or any lower number in the list

Now rather than calculating simply average like CSAT, here an example along with the math used for calculating Net Promoter Score.

For this, let us assume you have found answers from 100 respondents in your NPS survey, with 80 Promoters (80%), 20 Passive (20%), and 10 Detractors (10%) for your brand.
Therefore, taking these above-mentioned figures, to get the NPS, you need to deduct 10% from 80%, while ignoring the 20% that are Passive respondents to come up to 70%, whereby 70 will be considered as your brand’s Net Promoter Score.

Additionally, unlike CSAT your business can also have a negative NPS, which will happen if there are more Detractors than Promoters in response to your survey.

Therefore, while figure 0 is considered to be a “Good NPS”, a score in-between 50 to 70 is considered “Excellent NPS” and anything beyond that is considered “World-Class NPS” for your brand.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

Lastly, to rate customer satisfaction for your business, let us discuss in brief CES, which differs from CSAT and NPS, as it is a customer satisfaction metric that unlike others does not measure the satisfaction of your customers directly.

Rather, CES is a metric that measures the amount of effort the customer had to put in order to complete a specific interaction with your brand.

There are many organizations that use CES using enterprise-level tools or even Salesforce Alternative CRM platforms to access the efficiency of their brand’s customer support activities.

This is because the lesser amount of efforts your customers make while interacting with your company (during the purchase or for clearing their service-related issues) they will remain more satisfied and support your company.

Now, CES is a customer satisfaction rating that is calculated by asking the customer the amount of effort they had to put into an interaction with your brand, on a 5-point scale where:

  • Very low Effort – 1
  • Very high Effort – 5

Hence, while calculating CES a score of or below 2 implies that your business is making life easier for your customers, and your customers are happy, a score of or higher than5 should really make you think again as to how you can better support your customers and take some burden out off their shoulders by revising your business processes.

Conclusion

Therefore to rate customer satisfaction, evaluating the results of either NPS or CES with CSAT and then implementing changes based on customer feedback, is one of the best ways to continually improve customer experience and decrease customer churn over the long haul, which ultimately translates to a bright future and longevity for your business.

Using easy to use CRM software can help generate these above-stated metrics, and thereby provide world-class customer satisfaction for buyers of your products and services as most all-in-one, cloud-based CRM for small business is capable of managing all of your marketing, sales, support, and billing needs and are also priced within your reach.

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5 Types Of Customer Sales And Their Behaviors To Generate The Highest Profits Easily

Customer sales always play a significant role in any business. Hence to understand your customer’s behaviors and to better allocate resources to different customers for generating the highest profits we feel like one of the leading vendors of sales CRM software for small business it is utmost necessary that businesses irrespective of their size and industry must be able to identify and thereafter segment different types of customers using a business CRM tool. This is because it is only by better understanding the different types of customer sales, businesses can be better equipped to develop effective and successful strategies that can help in rapid business growth.

Customer sales always play a significant role in any business.

Hence to understand your customer’s behaviors and to better allocate resources to different customers for generating the highest profits we feel like one of the leading vendors of sales CRM software for small business it is utmost necessary that businesses irrespective of their size and industry must be able to identify and thereafter segment different types of customers using a business CRM tool.

44% of businesses are planning to increase IT budgets in 2021, up from 38% in 2020. This is not just to keep up with their competitors, but also as a result of improving sales.- SuperOffice Click To Tweet

This is because it is only by better understanding the different types of customer sales, businesses can be better equipped to develop effective and successful strategies that can help in rapid business growth.

What are the Different Types of Customers?

In the retail industry, consumers can be divided into five main types which include:

1. Loyal customers: Even though these customers make up a smaller percentage of customer sales, nevertheless this customer base generates a large portion of sales and revenue.

2. Impulse customers: These customers do not in general have any specific product or services in their mind but they purchase when it seems good at times.

3. Discount customers: These customers shop frequently but base their valuable buying decisions primarily when the market is down.

4. Need-based customers: These customers come with the intention of buying a specific offering.

5. Wandering customers: These customers are not sure of what they want to buy.

Type #1 – Loyal Customers

The loyal customers are the most important segment of the customers that all businesses must appease and should keep on top of their mind.

According to research, it has been noted that this type of customer, in general, represents no more than just 20 percent of any company’s customer base. Nevertheless, they contribute to the majority of sales revenue.

As the name suggests loyal customers are not only loyal but they even value a product or service heavily.

Additionally, loyal customers are more likely to recommend their preferred brand’s products and services to other people.

Hence it is important to always solicit their feedback and inputs and even involve them in a company’s decision-making process since heavy emphasis must be placed on loyal customers if a company wants to grow rapidly.

Type #2 – Impulse Customers

After the loyal customers impulse customers are the best customers to upsell and so are the most attractive segment in the customer-base to focus on.

These customers do not have any specific list in their mind and buy products and services spontaneously.

Additionally, these consumers are typically open and receptive to recommendations on new offerings.

Hence these customers are second to loyal customers in the generation of revenue in sales and so keeping impulse customers in the loop on new offerings goes a long way in boosting a company’s profitability.

Type #3 – Discount Customers

These customers in your CRM database play an important role in turning over a brand’s inventory. Hence discount customers are a key contributor to a company’s cash flow during holiday season sales or while implementing Christmas sales strategies of a company.

As it has been observed discount customers seldom purchase at full price and mostly shop around when the markets are down.

Now, these customers are resistant to upselling and are also the least loyal type of customers, that typically move on when they find better markdowns – elsewhere.

Type #4 – Need-Based Customers

These customers are typically driven by a specific need.

In other words, these customers enter the retail stores and online e-commerce portals quickly, buy what they require, and leave.

Need-based customers only purchase for their specific need or occasion and so are hard to upsell.

It is critical to note over here, that these customers can be easily drawn by other businesses both in B2B and B2C market landscapes.

Hence it is important that brands must initiate positive personal interactions with this segment of customers in order to retain them for a longer time.

Additionally, converting need-based customers to loyal customers is very much attainable with the right positive personal interactions and nurturing that can be fostered with the help of an easy to use CRM tool.

Type #5 – Wandering Customers

Finally, wandering customers are the type of customers that draw the largest amount of traffic and footfall to the company. Nevertheless, they make up the smallest percentage of any brand’s sales revenue.

This is because wandering customers do not have any specific requirement nor desire in their minds and are mostly attracted by the location of the business more than anything else.

However, these types of customers in the retail shopping marketplace enjoy the social interactions of their shopping experiences.

Hence investing too much time trying to please this segment of the customers can draw your business away from the more revenue-earning segments.

Now even though wandering customers generates the minimum amount of sales revenue, providing intuitive and insightful information about your offerings to these customers can stimulate interest which can ultimately create customer sales resulting from a purchase.

Conclusion- Flexibility Is The Key

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you will probably never meet a lot of customers who will perfectly fit one of the aforementioned types since most of them will be a mix of different sorts of personalities.

Hence even though it can be difficult to personalize your customer service efforts for each individual types, nevertheless, as a vendor of CRM for SMB we suggest that the best strategy is to get to know these five core type of customers, recognize the customer your are dealing with and thereafter adjust your communication strategy based on our business growth ideas accordingly.

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