Part 6: CRM 2.0 - more than just CRM

Anyone who owns a small business will understand the daily pressures that go hand-in-hand with running their own business.

It can sometimes seem as though there really are not enough hours in each day to get everything done. What can make matters worse is using poor and ineffective software programs to deal with CRM (customer relationship management) as this can dramatically reduce the profits of the business.

Good CRM so important when you are running a business, you need to ensure that not a single sale slip through your fingers. To do this properly you need to make sure you have sound CRM software to help you with the day-to-day running of your business. Smart business owners use CRM to run their business through.

Why put up with running several different software applications at any one time on each and every computer within your business when you could use one and get the job done quicker?

Believe it or not there are still business owners out there who do not recognize and realize the massive benefits that using one single CRM solution can bring to their business. Imagine how much easier it would be to log in to one software application every morning and do everything through it from accounting and invoicing to customer and employee management. You can even create and schedule meetings, marketing campaigns, manage projects and tasks, create shared documents, write e-mails and blogs and so much more. In fact anyone who wants to develop their business and move forward and develop really needs to get on board and use a good CRM solution.

This is what we set out to build when developing WORKetc.  A single, whole of business management solution.

Businesses are only as good as the information that they are able to handle process and attempting to do this using multiple software applications is a step in the wrong direction. Not only does it waste countless hours every year, it is also very costly to run so many types of software each year.

Switching and using one type of CRM software means that the cost of running software for the business and for different users is vastly reduced. To put this into perspective if a company has 10 employees and each of those 10 employees have to use five different software applications each costing $150 each year, it will cost the business $7500 every year just to maintain software licenses.

When one single CRM solution is used a business can expect to pay around $1500 each year instead, a total saving of around $6000 a year, which is only part of it: a single CRM solution would include customer service software among other extra beneficial features. Now how many small-business owners can say that they would not benefit from an extra $6000 a year in the business bank account?

Running a small business can be a very time consuming and difficult task, but by using a good CRM software solution with help desk software, some of the pressure can be eased. Any small business owner who is running several software programs yet still manages to miss out on targets relating to customer relationship management should look towards using a CRM solution and begin reaping the benefits almost immediately.

In Part 7 - Exploring the 'relationship' in CRM