Most businesses, especially after early successes, struggle to grow beyond their founder. What this means is that the founder still has a tight grip on business operations, which can cause organizations to not approach their growth holistically. As such, growing businesses need tools to be able to democratize information and widen the pool of decisionmakers.
One of the best tools to do this is a CRM. But what is a CRM? A CRM is a software that helps with customer relationship management. However, a CRM is not just a software. It is also a systemized process to manage all phases of a business’s relationship with its customers. Within a CRM, a business can house all of its different functions, including information management, marketing, sales, customer service, and finance.
However, implementing a CRM with a growth-oriented mindset can be a challenge. This is because oftentimes founders serve as a bottleneck to growth. This is especially true for founders who feel like they need to do it all. For founders who are looking to “fire themselves” a CRM can help them grow beyond their capabilities and hand off responsibilities to other trusted members of their team.
This is because, along with its other numerous benefits, a CRM is an excellent tool for collaboration and switching to a customer-centric approach. With a CRM, a business can profile their customers and track all of their interactions with their business. They can also report on this data and make it visually displayable for all in the company to see. This helps the founder set realistic sales goals and see what improvements can be made to the business to increase conversion rates.
Furthermore, a CRM is a great tool for improving customer retention. After all, a business that retains its customers at a higher rate does not have to grow as quickly to make up for the loss in revenue. Using a CRM, a business can identify dissatisfied customers who are at risk of churning and offer a resolution to their issues before they affect the business’s bottom line.
More broadly, a business can use a CRM to improve customer service performance. Once they are able to see patterns in customer behavior and data, customer service representatives can proactively anciticpate customer needs based on this information. This can help a growing business provide superior customer care without making a founder feel like they need to take all the disparate elements of running a business into their own hands.
A CRM is an excellent tool for growing a business, especially one where a founder is serving as a bottleneck to growth. This can be done by democratizing information across a company and allowing key decisionmakers to collect feedback and harnessing it into their product and service offerings. While a CRM is not the only tool that a business should implement to grow, it is an essential software solution for any growing business that is interested in providing superior customer service and growing in a sustainable manner.
