Business Software » Customer Behavior

CRM Software for Small Business

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:43:58 +0000

Small to medium sized businesses are looking to the new software to help them manage their customer base. From contact management to sales forecasts, new CRM software is providing organizational and analytical capabilities that help businesses bottom line. CRM software is known for on-site application hosting and for the high cost of in house administration. The cost was well out of the range of most small businesses.

Today, new CRM software is offering a greater array of services and capabilities, many of which are customizable. New web-based CRM applications offer complete hosting and access via the web. The user only has to learn how to use the software and pay per user CRM pricing fees.

CRM software packages provide three main services for customer relationship management: contact management, salesforce automation, and customer relationship management. Having all three of these functional capabilities allows sales teams and customer service representatives provide better service to their customers and clientele.

Early software packages such as ACT, Outlook, and Maximizer helped people maintain customer contact information, schedule meetings, organize email, and record notes on customer related activities. The software and services available today allow sales teams to collect, organize and analyze sales data. Powerful database capabilities allow sales managers to drill down into sales data for accurate sales forecasts, and insight into customer behavior. Whatever sales people can research and collect, is recorded in the sales database. This provides deep insight into the customer’s needs and business processes, allowing the CRM user to foresee and respond to customer related events such as buying cycles and recent purchases.

Web Based CRM

The use of web based CRM tools means company’s are freed from having to purchase, install and maintain the software. Non web-based CRM applications require hosting services and technical staff capable of fulfilling all support requirements. The benefits of web based CRM software applications are worth noting: low cost as the base of users increases, ease of implementation as only the CRM software modules needed can be purchased and implemented; Internet connectivity and PDA/cell phone connectivity provides anytime anywhere access important for increasing the potential contributors; and minimal IT support staff are required. Proprietary and open source software are available for users, however there are considerations that need to be made before deciding on which is the best choice.

Leading CRM software includes Goldmine CRM, Microsoft CRM, Salesforce CRM, Sagesugar CRM, and SalesLogix CRM. Salesforce is a complete web based solution however the others still have web access. Goldmine CRM, a thin client solution offers an easy to use interface and comes in four different varieties suitable for small business to corporate enterprise level implementation.

CRM Training and Support

To make the most of these CRM software packages, it is best to have a consulting firm conduct a design audit, install the software correctly, and provide training to your sales and customer service staff. Implementing the software correctly and learning how to maximize its value, means you’re getting the full benefit of CRM software to help you improve your sales bottom line.

With in-house CRM software programs, there is a need for technical staff capable of implementing the software and maintaining databases and the network for access whether via the office LAN or Internet. If you have an IT staff, they should be able to implement the software easily. However, there are always technical issues to be faced and that’s why you’ll want an experienced consultant to help you choose the right software for your needs and to be able to upgrade to newer versions as they are released.

CRM software isn’t something that should be left to learning by online demos and help files. Users need to feel they have a certain level of confidence in what they are using and that they’re using it as it was designed to be. CRM seminars are helpful, but nothing can help your sales staff, customer service people, and other company staff better than professional trainers. If a capable sales and customer service team is critical to helping you maintain your customers and relationships with them, the cost of buying a CRM software system is a drop in the bucket. Aside from generating more sales and finding new sales leads, customers themselves will feel more confident in your organization, that you understand their needs and can anticipate issues before they’re even aware of them.

Your employees will be empowered by a CRM system. This is the power of technology working to help integrate your business activities and generate greater value from your staff’s collective knowledge. Most big companies are using CRM systems, constantly looking for insight into customer behavior and new sales opportunities. Now with latest versions of software available, SMBs can leverage the same information tools to keep pace with their larger competitors.

Find a good CRM consultant to help you assess your needs, find the right product and provide the right training and support services. The bonus for your bottom line in retaining customers and increasing sales makes it a smart investment.

By: Gord Collins

Small Business CRM Software – CRM Can Help You In Many Ways?

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:16:07 +0000

Small businesses can benefit from a CRM solution because it gives you more by using less. In other words, it gives you more time, more profits using less resources and lesser cost. CRM solutions help companies streamline their customer handling operations. With most of the repetitive functions running on autopilot, your role in the operational CRM is minimized to viewing requests assigned to you for the day and responding to them. This reduces the time and staff required to handle customer requests.

The collaborative functions of small business CRM software further increase these benefits by allowing customers to trouble-shoot their problems by self-service. The knowledge to do that is stored in the knowledge database of the software and is made easily and quickly accessible by the software’s user interface. Initially, after installation, you can build the knowledge database with information divided into concise chunks and classified into relevant groups and subgroups. Once this is done, your database will continue to grow, even automatically, because with more customer visits more questions and their solutions get posted for all to see.

Another part of the database that the software maintains is that of customer request information. This gets build up over time as more and more customers use the software to lodge problems, get solutions, ask questions, suggest changes and so on. The database stores the history of each customer, the correspondence exchanged with them, and the kind of problems they have faced. This valuable information can help you in many ways. To begin with, you can give personalized service to each customer based on this information.

Furthermore, this information allows you to study patterns of customer behavior which can help you forecast behaviors such as how customers would react to a change in product, service or even price. You can use this information to take key decisions for your business. Notably, these decisions would be customer-centric rather than product-centric, which makes remarkably good business sense in today’s world. Thus by using a small business CRM software solution, you cannot remain a small business for long.

Usually there are three communication channels through which CRM is implemented: direct channels through telephonic and personal contact, online via internet, and call centers via phone, fax and email. Of these, the most easily and constantly used channel for small businesses is the online channel. CRM software can easily support this channel by providing tools for web marketing, tele-sales and customer self-service portal for marketing, sales and service respectively. The added benefit of online CRM solutions is that you can access customer information from any location or computer.

Small businesses need not be unduly concerned about investing in these solutions as there are many solutions available for free or at minimal costs. Many of them are easily customizable to fit your unique needs. However, remember to check their free trials to ensure optimum utilization of CRM features for expanding your business.

By: Gary J Jezorski

How Intelligent is Business Intelligent Software

admin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:57:12 +0000

Business intelligence applications and technologies can help companies analyze the following: changing trends in market share, changes in customer behavior and spending patterns, customers’ preferences, company capabilities and market conditions. Business intelligence can be used to help analysts and managers determine which adjustments are most likely to affect trends.

BI systems can help companies develop consistent and “data-based” business decisions–producing better results than basing decisions on “guesswork.” In addition, business intelligence applications can enhance communication among departments, coordinate activities, and enable companies to respond more quickly to changes (e.g., in financial conditions, customer preferences, supply chain operations, etc.). When a BI system is well-designed and properly integrated into a company’s processes and decision-making process, it may be able to improve a company’s performance. Having access to timely and accurate information is an important resource for a company, which can expedite decision-making and improve customers’ experience.

Business intelligence analysts have developed software tools to gather and analyze large quantities of unstructured data, such as production metrics, sales statistics, attendance reports, and customer attrition figures. Each BI vendor typically develops Business Intelligence systems differently, to suit the demands of different sectors (e.g., retail companies, financial services companies, etc.).

As businesses started automating more and more systems, more and more data became available. However, collection remained a challenge due to a lack of infrastructure for data exchange or to incompatibilities between systems. Analysis of the data that was gathered and reports on the data sometimes took months to generate. Such reports allowed informed long-term strategic decision-making. However, short-term tactical decision-making continued to rely on intuition.

Business intelligence involves different strategies. The BI task can be handled with the aid of application software. Application software is broadly categorized under class of computer software that enables a computer to function in accordance with what the user desires. The application software is different from the system software that integrates different capabilities of the computer but these are not directly applied to the benefit of the user. The application software is designed to help people be prudent in taking decisions by imparting them accurate, current and requisite information. This is precisely the reason that business intelligence is also referred to as ‘decision-support system’ or DSS.

By: Navneet Kumar Singh