The Issues that SMEs Can Solve with CRM

What Are the Issues that Small and Medium-Sized Businesses Can Solve with CRM?

In this article, I will introduce some of the issues that SMEs can solve by implementing a CRM system.

An essential factor of running a successful business is to have a deep understanding of each customer’s needs and build good relationships with them. At first glance, company-to-company communication may seem mechanical, but it is people who make up a company, and when you get right down to it, you can say that it is a people-to-people business.

There are parts of the business where emotions intervene, even though the degree varies from company to company, so it is quite natural for those who request to work with someone they like. So, companies that listen carefully to their customers’ needs, propose appropriate solutions, and build good relationships with them on an ongoing basis will have a much higher success rate in the business.

The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system approaches these business success factors from a system perspective. CRM systems are becoming increasingly important not only to large companies but also to small and medium-sized enterprises.

 Table of contents:

• Common customer-related issues in business
• How can a CRM system help with these issues?

Common customer-related issues in business

In business, there are always “companies that sell” products and services, and “companies that buy” and “people who buy” them. It may seem obvious, but in business, you need to remind yourself that you will continue to engage with your customers as long as your business continues. If there is any involvement, there may be some problems and challenges. Let’s start by sorting out some of the common customer-related issues in business.

Building a good relationship with customers

Until a long time ago, it was said that business would be possible if there were better quality products and services. But now it’s different. All industries are saturated with markets, and simply developing quality products and services is no longer enough to keep the business going. So how can we compete on factors other than the quality and price of our products and services? The answer is to strengthen your relationship with your customers and build a good relationship with them on an ongoing basis. Small and medium-sized companies with traditional craftsmanship are sometimes not good at strengthening relationships with customers, partly because their management has focused on making and selling high-quality products and services.

Preventing customers from leaving your products and services

In addition to the saturation of the domestic markets, customers can get all the information they need. Customers can easily compare multiple products and services, and they will change their purchase destination if they find that the product or service they are looking for is available elsewhere. In an age when customers are likely to leave your products or services, how to retain them for a long time is also a critical issue.

Accurately identify the needs of each customer.

One of the ways to strengthen relationships with customers and prevent them from leaving your products and services is to “have a deep understanding of the needs of each customer.” Each customer has a unique set of problems and challenges, and if you don’t have an accurate understanding of their needs, you will not be able to maintain an edge over your competitors.

As mentioned above, there are many customer-related issues for SMEs, all of which are critical to their business. On the contrary, however, clearing these challenges will surely take your business to the next level.

How can a CRM system help you with these issues?

If you think about the details, small and medium-sized enterprises have various customer-related issues other than those mentioned above. One of the reasons for this is that resources such as assets and human resources are limited compared to large corporations. 

So the best solution is to increase assets and human resources, but this is not something that can be done easily and quickly. Therefore, implementing CRM for customer-related issues can have a variety of benefits.

Visualize customer information that has been managed personally

In many small and medium-sized companies, customer information is managed individually by each salesperson, resulting in a personal situation. Although customer information is meaningful only when used company-wide, it is clear that various problems occur when a salesperson occupies it. By simply changing the input destination of customer information to the CRM system instead of the uniquely managed Excel, customer information can be accumulated as an asset, leading to the visualization of customer information.

Statistical analysis of customer information makes it easier to understand their needs.

You can analyze customer information stored in a CRM system from various angles. 

For example, you can independently aggregate and analyze information to capture trends in issues and issues that are easy to address for each customer attribute information or automate customer analysis in collaboration with analysis tools such as Business Intelligence (BI). 

By statistically analyzing customer information, it becomes easier to identify each customer’s needs, which leads to business optimization.

Strengthen your marketing, which is one of your weak points

Many small and medium-sized businesses are not very good at marketing, but strengthening marketing is recognized as an essential element of modern business. A feature of CRM systems is that many products have integrated marketing functions, such as simultaneous mail distribution based on accumulated customer information and individual emails sent to each customer. By using these functions well, even small and medium-sized companies can enhance their marketing with relative ease.

Improve the quality of customer service and gain a higher level of satisfaction

When a customer inquires about a product or service or complains about a product or service, it is an opportunity to increase customer satisfaction. The important thing is how to deal with the problem quickly and accurately. However, many small and medium-sized companies may not be able to share customer information, which leads them to go back and forth to the department in charge, which is not a flattering way to increase customer satisfaction.

A CRM system can instantly retrieve customer information in response to customer inquiries and complaints, check past response history, and confirm the details of products and services currently offered. So you can improve the quality of customer service and achieving a high level of satisfaction.

For small businesses, customer-related challenges are a kind of epidemic. Especially SMEs with more than ten years of management experience often face challenges in strengthening customer relationships and marketing, so new strategies are needed to survive the next generation of businesses.

A CRM system can be a prescription for this epidemic and will surely push your business to the next level. Of course, each company needs its CRM system.

Of course, to achieve this, it is essential to choose the right CRM system for your company and have a reliable implementation partner who will work together to solve your problems. As a first step to implementing a CRM system, I recommend that you organize your customer-related issues.