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CRM for a Small Business

Written by: Niall Devitt

Article Overview: A client of mine called me the other day looking for some advice. He owns and operates a small distribution business and as he put it is considering investing in CRM technology with the aim of helping his business through automating his sales and customer reporting.The catalyst event for this call was that one member of his sales team had recently left the company taking with him a long list of contacts and presumably with time customers.

CRM for a Small Business

A client of mine called me the other day looking for some advice. He owns and operates a small distribution business and as he put it is considering investing in CRM technology with the aim of helping his business through automating his sales and customer reporting.

The catalyst event for this call was that one member of his sales team had recently left the company taking with him a long list of contacts and presumably with time customers.

In my experience, this unfortunately is not unusual particularly with smaller businesses who often consider CRM technology after an event such as the one above and can initially look at CRM as a preventive measure against such events happening again in the future.

For a small company such as my client’s investing in CRM can be daunting but it doesn’t have to be if you appreciate one very important point:

The primary goal of CRM is not to automate reporting but to increase revenues through makes sales easier to new and existing customers.

CRM is about making the right information available to the right person so that they can make the best decisions for customers.

It’s also important to note that CRM is also a cultural company change. Employees need to be consulted so that they are able to understand its advantages, in other words simply rolling out a CRM technology with not get your small business CRM.

It’s important to audit existing reporting mechanisms and tools prior to implementation. This can initially be messy and difficult work because most companies will already have in place non-integrated systems including spreadsheets etc, which more often contain incomplete, duplicate, and conflicting information.

Don’t be put off by the complexity aspect to CRM, in fact it’s OK and advisable to start small in terms of technology and investment as long as there is some form of long term planning.

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Article Tags: aim, catalyst, company change, complexity, decisions, distribution business, existing customers, implementation, important point, integrated systems, mechanisms, preventive measure, small business, spreadsheets, time customers



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