Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Small Businesses: A Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) within the context of small businesses. It begins with an introduction to CRM, explaining its core principles and the importance of customer data management. The report then delves into the usage of CRM systems, highlighting their benefits such as improved information organization, enhanced communication, and automation of tasks. Strategic issues related to CRM implementation are explored, including the need for effective leadership and the importance of aligning CRM strategies with business goals. The report also addresses the benefits and challenges of CRM systems, such as the cost of implementation, training requirements, and data security. Furthermore, the report examines the technological aspects of CRM, including social media filtering and data accuracy. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and emphasizes the significance of CRM in strengthening customer relationships and driving business growth, specifically for small businesses. The report also includes real-world examples of companies that have successfully implemented CRM strategies to overcome challenges and achieve positive outcomes.

Running Head : CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Customer Relationship Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The customer relationship management is the approach to manage the interaction of the
company with the present and the potential future customers. The customer relationship,
management utilizes the customer data for the improvement of the business through
strengthening relationship with the customers especially concentrating on the retention of the
customers and driving the sales growth accordingly. One of the most important aspect of the
customer relationship management approach is the way data is compiled from different channel
such as the website of the company, the live chat, emails, telephone, the social media and the
marketing materials (Badwan et al. 2017). The CRM approaches and the systems are used for
facilitating the business by best catering to the needs of the customers. The aim of this report is
to outline the relevant and the up-to –date issues connected with the selected CRM topic that is
the application of CRM in small businesses. The paper will prepare a literature review for
addressing the CRM issues which are associated with strategy, benefits, challenges and the
technology. The paper will also include the industry examples in order to support the four topic
areas. The paper will conclude by giving a brief overview of the entire paper highlighting the key
points.
Brief Analysis
CRM explained
The Customer Relationship Management is a concept which refers to the strategies
which are used by a particular organization in order to improve the business relationship with the
customers. It is found that most of the organizations use the CRM software which dates back to
the 1980s. These softwares are designed to collect and analyse the customer information and has

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become most important tool used by those organizations wanting to engage with the customers.
The aim if using the CSM software is also to drive sales and improve the marketing efforts. The
CRM is like a digital Roledox that keeps the contact details of people and makes the resources
powerful to the marketers (Dewnarain, Ramkissoon and Mavondo 2019). Moreover, it also
streamlines the sales and optimizes the business purpose
Usage of CRM
It has been found that almost 94 % of the business uses the CRM software for the contact
management. More than 65% of people use it for the lead nurturing and 59 % use it for the email
marketing. It is also used to improve the customer service and boost the customer satisfaction.
There are various benefits of using the CRM systems. The primary benefit is the information
gathering. The collection, organization and the storage of important customer data is a full-time
job and there are high chances of mistake (Lillard and Al-Suqri 2019). The high quality customer
relationship management is a tool that takes the customer satisfaction upto higher levels. The
customer relationship management offers a range of advantages which helps to identify, assist
the clients and understand them for incurring higher revenues. The primary benefits of the CRM
are as follows:
Improved Informational Organization
The knowledge of the customers and their preferences help to drive a positive experience
that pays off in future. It is the interaction of the customers with the organization which needs to
be identified, recorded and documented. The CRM helps to store a vast range of the customer
data which is important for them.
CRM enhances the communication

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The customer relationship management makes it possible to provide higher levels of
service. CRM makes the detailed information communicable to whom it is necessary. Since
CRM can also be cloud based, it is accessible from any device where there is an internet
connection.
The customer service is improved by CRM
In an organization there are various issues an customer faces , either with the operation,
the customer service or the management. The issue needs to be understood by the organization
and it should be resolved as soon as possible. With the help of the Customer relationship
management, the representatives can easily retrieve the customer data and all the other necessary
information the moment the customer reports an issue. In this manner, the customer service
becomes fast and smooth with the help of CRM.
Automation of the everyday task
In an organization, the sales is not the ultimate task which makes the organization
successful. There are also few smaller tasks which have to be completed to keep everything
functioning properly. The CRM systems are used to handle the burden of the tasks with the
magic of automation. It suggests that the customer service representatives are focused on
resolving the customer pains and other mire important issues.
Strategic issues related with CRM
The CRM involve change in the business processes along with the introduction to the
new information technology. Additionally it also asks for the effective leadership. The leaders
are important for the monitoring of the external environment of an organization and they are
often able to have a strategic vision of the CRM projects. The leaders are influential for the

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control of the expenditure and the monitoring of the performances. The CRM supports the
organization to effectively maintain the growth and maintain the channels of communication.
The sourcing is another strategic or implementation issue. There are many organizations having
fewer alternatives and they have limited resources to develop the CRM software. They outsource
a considerable portion of their CRM solution. It has been found that most of the in house CRM
fails because Timing is also equally important. Another important dimension is the successful
delivery of the strategy. The CRM strategies are only important if they deliver the positive
outcome. Sidekicker, Australia (headquarter in Melbourne) faced some issues with the customer
activities predictions based on which they could have tailored their service. Hence, on order to
understand the customers better, they created a 360 degree view of the customers for driving
insights which would keep their upsell and renewal opportunities on track. They also engaged
themselves in the AI-driven customer success. Through using the AI-driven customer service,
successful customer outcomes were also driven. The real-time connector have also helped this
company to avoid communication issues. They gather information from email/calendar, log files,
consumption and support tickets for gathering information. And run better customer service.
The idea of CRM needs to be reinforced in the organization. The fundamental goal of
CRM is to improve the profitability of the organization, and if an organization is struggling to
influence the profitability, there must be some problem in the organization itself. In this regard,
the organizations are advised to devote proper resources and time to the CRM ensuring that the
CRM strategies are iterative and consistently evolving.
Issues related to the CRM benefits
The customer relationship management is used in both the small and large businesses in
order to track the customer information, the orders, addresses and the shipping information. The

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complexity in the CRM system depends on the size of the company and the business rules.
There are various advantages of encouraging CRM in the businesses, there are various
disadvantages too. Some of the CRM utilize the remote internet connections for saving the
customer records. The drawback of such types of CRM application is that there is no control of
the company on the data. The company cannot retrieve the data if any breakage occurs with the
CRM system (Navimipour and Soltani 2016). When a company decides to apply a local CRM
system, the overhead costs increase connected with running the software. The company becomes
liable to pay to the software developers, the maintenance people and the system administrators in
order to keep the software running. It is equally important to keep backup plans to store the
information.
It adds to the expense of the CRM application. There can also be the system downtime.
In smaller companies, the training related issues are also small. In the large corporation, the
training schedules are required to be rolled out for their employees. The training consumes the
time of productivity and thus it is a drawback for the new CRM systems, It takes huge time and
patience to make the employees get used to the application of the systems (Nyadzayo and
Khajehzadeh 2016). In order to address the communication problem in the Customer relationship
management, KBSS engineering based in the city of Karratha with 70 global headcount have
focused on integrated communication. They make good use of personal e-mail, phone call,
personalized approach and other processes to stay connected with the customers. They engage
themselves in automated sending and tracking of e-mails. It helps them to speed up their
response times and ensures that the e-mails are followed up with the alternative forms in
communications.

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The CRM challenges
The companies across the world have adopted the CRM strategies in order to gain the
competitive advantage. There is a rush among the companies to implement the CRM. Hence, the
companies must take precautions to handle the systems in the right way. CRM is not software
but a business philosophy. It is rather a strategy that is implemented by the organization having
used a solution which covers all the departments such as sales, customer service, marketing and
others. Hence, CRM can be considered as a combination of the strategy and software. As a first
challenge, the leads and the clients need to be tracked in a better way. CRM is about finding an
organized way to interact with the customers (Ritter and Geersbro 2018). The system might be
the spreadsheets, the software or the manual methods.
When the existing method causes to lose important customer data, it must be replaced as
soon as possible. The regular follow up of the system and the contacts also need to be
maintained. The second largest challenge is to set up a workflow schema which keeps on top of
the necessary follow-ups. It is in for not losing the revenues by not staying in touch with the
client as promised. The CRM system needs to be replaced when there is lack of proper tolls to
automate the follow-ups (Santouridis and Veraki 2017). The issue with the follow-ups can also
be a matter of the corporate hygiene. The negligence to utilize the tools properly and work on
something tedious might be crucial for the business. Another challenge is that the software that is
developed for a small organization can become a giant stumbling block as soon as the
organization expands. Hence, it needs to be made sure that the organization will change its CRM
with its expansion.

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Issues related to Technology
The advancement in the technology has led the CRM to provide a sophisticated and
analytical customer insight which can give the business a competitive advantage. The
technological issues involved with the CRM initiatives are highly complex. It is because of the
various technical options in the marketplace. The social media filtering involve the monitoring
tools which uses the rules based filter searches such as the specific group of the customers
(Navimipour and Soltani 2016). The technology challenges in the way of finding the best
possible way to integrate the insights collected from the public communities and the private ones
too. The data collected for the marketing purpose needs to be accurate from the very beginning.
The unverified data can be incorrect. Due to some faults in the CRM software, there can be
inaccuracy.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that the customer relationship,
management utilizes the customer data for the improvement of the business through
strengthening relationship with the customers especially concentrating on the retention of the
customers and driving the sales growth accordingly. The report aimed at outlining the relevant
and the up-to –date issues connected with the selected CRM topic that is the application of CRM
in the small businesses. The paper prepared a literature review for addressing the CRM issues
which are associated with strategy, benefits, challenges and the technology. The paper also
included the industry examples in order to support the four topic areas.

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Bibliography
Badwan, J.J., Al Shobaki, M.J., Naser, S.S.A. and Amuna, Y.M.A., 2017. Adopting technology
for customer relationship management in higher educational institutions. International Journal
of Engineering and Information Systems (IJEAIS), 1(1), pp.20-28.
Dewnarain, S., Ramkissoon, H. and Mavondo, F., 2019. Social customer relationship
management: An integrated conceptual framework. Journal of Hospitality Marketing &
Management, 28(2), pp.172-188.
Lillard, L.L. and Al-Suqri, M.N., 2019. Librarians Learning from the Retail Sector: Reaching
Out to Online Learners Using Customer Relationship Management. Journal of Arts and Social
Sciences [JASS], 9(3), pp.15-26.
Navimipour, N.J. and Soltani, Z., 2016. The impact of cost, technology acceptance and
employees' satisfaction on the effectiveness of the electronic customer relationship management
systems. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, pp.1052-1066.
Nyadzayo, M.W. and Khajehzadeh, S., 2016. The antecedents of customer loyalty: A moderated
mediation model of customer relationship management quality and brand image. Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services, 30, pp.262-270.
Ritter, T. and Geersbro, J., 2018. Multidexterity in customer relationship management:
Managerial implications and a research agenda. Industrial Marketing Management, 69, pp.74-79.
Santouridis, I. and Veraki, A., 2017. Customer relationship management and customer
satisfaction: the mediating role of relationship quality. Total Quality Management & Business
Excellence, 28(9-10), pp.1122-1133.

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