There are many articles on Customer Relationship Management

(CRM) and its benefits. However, most of such content is targeted

towards larger organizations and doesn’t concentrate on the needs
and objectives of smaller businesses.

The purpose of this white paper is to educate smaller businesses on

what, why and how CRM can help them to grow the business and
keep existing customers.

After reading this white paper, you’ll be better equipped to choose,

implement or at least do further research on a CRM solution,
because you’ll know how it can positively affect your business.
1 Introduction
Introduction
If you’re a smaller business, you recognize that
relationships at the heart of what you do. Every sale
or transaction that is executed represents a
relationship. If you break down the relationship even
further, it really comes down to bits of data – the
customer’s contact details, what the customer
bought, payment terms, etc.
orders, invoices and phone lists, etc. and the only
Think back to when you had a limited number of
customers, and you knew every single person that
you did business with. You remembered birthdays,
names of family members, favorite products, and
probably even the name of their dog! You may have
kept all this information in a rolodex or on an Excel
sheet or – worse – Word file.
Then, your business started to grow Where did you put all the personal information about
You began interacting with 300 customers, 600 your customers – like birthdays, names of children
prospects and 1,200 leads by phone, email and via and avid interests?
social media. You started to create lists, keep some In what file did you keep all the service issues and
information on your computer and some on Post-It complaints? In which spreadsheet did you track
notes. You had a file cabinet which filed purchase customer responses from your marketing
campaigns?
place that tied all this information together was your
brain.
You swear to yourself each time you create a file that
you will remember where everything is, but with so
much information in different places, you soon begin
to lose track of it all.
5 How do you know if your business needs a CRM solution?

How do you know if your business

needs a CRM solution?
Unfortunately, it’s when things go wrong that you realize that your business is in need of a CRM solution. Here is just
a handful of examples:
Your top-performing salesperson leaves the company and takes Your salespeople lose track of what to do next during a sale,
all the contact information with them, leaving you in the dark forget about appointments and follow-ups, and can’t trace back
While your customer service team is trying to help an unhappy who said what and when, and what was sent to whom
customer, your (unaware) sales representative tries to upsell Your customers start to leave because of the lack of attention
them, making the already-upset customer head for the door Your marketing and sales teams work with separate databases
Your service team is drowning in emails and can’t track on customers and prospects.
requests; while customers who ask for help need to repeat
themselves over the phone or email.
6 How do you know if your business needs a CRM solution?

Any of this sound familiar?

Do you need CRM? YES NO

Before you get plagued by more of Are all your customer interactions and information (in the form of emails, forms, documents, contracts, quotes,

etc.) stored in one convenient location and accessible to everyone in the organization at the same time?
these negative scenarios, we’ve

prepared a list of 10 questions that will Are you sure that all leads in the sales pipeline are being followed up on?

indicate whether your business needs

Are you able to sync specific marketing campaigns and follow-up activities with the sales team?

a CRM solution.
Can you generate accurate information on forecasts/pipeline at short notice?

Are you currently able to view all sales activity and results at the click of a button?

Can you accurately identify the areas of the sales process in which most sales are lost?

Are your salespeople able to access customer information when they are out of the office?

Do you know how many deals you lost last quarter and why you lost them?

Do you know how many customer service issues each customer had and why?

Are you happy with the amount of time your salespeople spend today on administrative tasks?

If you answered “NO” to any of the above questions, our

recommendation is that you take a more in-depth look at CRM

and how it can benefit your business.

7 Things to look for in a CRM system for small business
What to look for in a CRM system
for small business
Small businesses operate on a totally different scale
than larger businesses. Many larger organizations
have long established processes with offices spread
in different geographical areas. Because these
processes involve employees from many teams, a
lack and need to add
CRM solution must be flexible and customizable, so
that it can work together with their established
routines.
Another difference between large and small
businesses is access to IT infrastructure. Small
businesses usually don’t have specialized IT
resources in-house and, therefore, they pay for it as a
service, whereas a larger company will typically have
its own IT department headed by an IT manager.
So, as a larger business, you can afford to run the What are the most inefficient processes in our
CRM on-site with support from your IT staff, but business and what do we want to improve with a
small businesses must look for other options. In CRM system
general, small businesses need a hosted, out-of-the- What operational processes and workflows do we
box CRM solution, which can be easily set up.
With the 100s of CRM solutions out there, how do
Who in our company is going to use CRM? How
you know which one is right for you? many users do we need
Needs evaluation comes first What other software do we want to integrate
with a CRM system
Before you start evaluating CRM vendors, ask
yourself these questions: What is our budget?
Once you know what your needs are, here are 6
things to look for in your search for the perfect CRM
solution.
8 6 capabilities a CRM system for small business should have
1 2
Integration with email and MS
Office applications
Outlook and MS Office applications are the most
used applications by businesses today. You want an
easy way to store all emails and documents in your
CRM solution without a lot of hassle.
An easy way to import data
A lot of small businesses have their data scattered in
different places such as Outlook, Excel, Gmail or
Address Book in the Mac. You need an easy way to
import all your existing customer data into the CRM
software because no one wants to manually do this
all over again.
3
An easy way to manage
document templates
Having document templates in one place (and
accessible to everyone) will save a lot of time for all
your teams. Look for a CRM solution that has
document management features built in. This keeps
everything organized for easy reference, so that you
don’t have to waste hours searching for the right
template.
9 6 capabilities a CRM system for small business should have

4 5 6
Reporting and data analytics Adequate file storage Reasonable price point
features Online CRM solutions must have adequate file There are many CRM solutions out there. But many
You don’t want to just record data – you want to be storage. A CRM solution is the type of thing that of them have big business price tags, so make sure to
able to make use of the stored data. You need a CRM grows exponentially as a small business matures and look for a reasonable price from a small business
tool that will provide you with analytical insights into the space to keep track of past as well as current standpoint. You should be aware of the hidden costs,
your data. This will help you make smart decisions clients and/or customers is essential. such as storage, number of users, service fees, etc.
that drive revenue for the future. This way you won’t end up paying a premium price or
have to use consultants to adjust the software for you.