Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Small Businesses - BCO6604

This report provides a comprehensive overview of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) specifically tailored for small businesses. It begins by defining CRM and its importance in enhancing customer relationships and driving business growth. The report delves into the benefits of CRM, including improved customer service, data accessibility, automation of tasks, and the ability to identify and understand customers for increased revenue. Strategic issues related to CRM implementation are examined, including the importance of leadership vision, communication channels, and iterative strategies. The report presents case studies, such as Sidekicker and KBBS engineering, to illustrate real-world applications and outcomes. Challenges associated with CRM, such as system complexity, training requirements, and technological issues, are also discussed. The report concludes with a review of relevant literature and highlights key considerations for successful CRM adoption in small business settings, drawing attention to how to overcome the challenges and maximize the benefits of CRM systems.

CRM FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Introduction
• The customer relationship, management utilizes the customer data for the
improvement of the business through strengthening relationship with the
customers
• The CRM approaches and the systems are used for facilitating the business
by best catering to the needs of the customers.
• 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
the 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

Concept of CRM
• 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 become most important tool used by those
organizations wanting to engage with the customers.

Benefits of CRM
• 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 customer relationship management offers a range of advantages
which helps to identify, assist the clients and understand them for
incurring higher revenues.

Benefits of CRM
• 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.
• Since CRM can also be cloud based, it is accessible from any device where
there is an internet connection.
• 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.

Benefits of CRM
• 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
• 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 CRM supports n organization to effectively maintain the growth and
maintain the channels of communication.

Strategic issues
• 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.
• 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.

Case of Sidekicker
• 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.

Issues related to the CRM benefits
• The 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.
• 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.
• When a company decides to apply a local CRM system, the overhead
costs increase connected with running the software

Issues related to the CRM benefits
• 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.

The case of KBBS engineering
• 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.

The CRM challenges
• 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.
• As a first challenge, the leads and the clients need to be tracked in a better
way
• The second largest challenge is to set up a workflow schema which keeps
on top of the necessary follow-ups.
• 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.

Issues related to technology
• The technological issues involved with the CRM initiatives are highly
complex. It is because of the various technical options in the marketplace.
• 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 unverified data can be incorrect. Due to some faults in the CRM
software, there can be inaccuracy.

Reference
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