CRMs, or customer relationship management software, is one of the most overlooked solutions for nascent businesses. This is because most businesses start by tracking their relationships manually, either through a connection with the CEO or founder or through a spreadsheet. But with the advent of new technology, companies should no longer be asking what a CRM is. Instead, a CRM should be understood as a process, and not purely a software solution. It is a way to manage and optimize your customer relationships while automating the most time-consuming manual aspects of those relationships.

If you’ve asked yourself the question, what is a CRM, then it’s probable that this software solution can save you both time, money, and headaches as you expand your business. For one, a CRM can help you prospect and collect customer information. With a CRM, this process occurs from the first interaction with a customer, up until the end of the customer lifecycle. This ensures that you

Using a CRM, you’ll also be able to segment your customers into different lists. This will help with various marketing and sales initiatives, and allow you to better target these customers. Furthermore, you can use this information to optimize your sales process. Doing so will allow you to better track and manage your customer interactions. This, in turn, will maximize customer satisfaction and retention, and allow you to develop more longstanding relationships with your customers.

This is much better than simply tracking things through spreadsheets, which are harder to update and interpret. They are also less likely to be used across different times, which will make customer communication inconsistent with different parts of your business. By creating a centralized hub for all notes on a customer, everyone from a sales person, to a marketing manager, to an account manager, to a customer service representative can be aware of what has been said to a customer or client. This can help with companies that have issues with overpromising and underdelivering, even if this is not done on purpose.

Finally, a CRM can help you forecast and improve your sales methodology. This can help you more accurately predict what your sales will look like so that you can set more realistic revenue goals. If these goals fail to move the needle in your business, you can figure out ways to improve them while using past customer data as a predicator of future success.

Overall, a CRM is a great solution for any business that is moving out of being a small business and moving into being a medium sized business. While a very small team of employees or contractors may be able to make do without a CRM, it is essential for everything from getting new hires up to speed quicker to providing a better customer experience. Only when you are able to implement a CRM will you able to scale your growth accordingly. At that stage, the less you do out of spreadsheets and the more you do in a CRM, the better.