Are you searching for a way to keep track of all your customers and leads?
Are you finding it difficult to keep track of all their important information?
Are you searching for a “magical” system that not only can store all your customers important information
but also be available within SECONDS whenever you need it?
Then a Contact Management Software (aka CRM or Contact Database) is exactly what your business needs.
Having a efficient Contact Management Software will make your business life a little bit easier, allow you to feel more organized and in control and also allow you to increase your revenue and bottom line.
Who Needs a Contact Management Software?
Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, Insurance Agents, sales managers, business managers, office managers, network marketers or just about anyone that needs to keep a list of contacts will greatly benefit from using a CRM. Just as all businesses need many tools to survive and achieve a high level of success a Contact Management Software is a must for any kind of business that needs to keep track of customers. Perhaps you have a shipping business and have many orders coming in and out and you need a way to keep track of all the labels and addresses of your customers. Then a Contact Management Software is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Why Would You Need a Contact Management Software?
There are many reasons why a small business would need a Contact Management Software. I will explain just 2 of those important reasons.
1) Having a state of the art Contact Management Software will save you time. Imagine having to look through hundreds or thousands of files just to search for one customer in particular. Now imagine being able to just type very minimal information about your customer into a data base and have their information pop up in a matter of seconds. That is the power of a good Contact Management Software. It will save you time, which equals money, and it will also allow you to be more organized.
2) Another reason to have a Contact Management Software is the capability to attract more customers. A good Contact Management Software will teach you how to use social media to get more clients but a GREAT Contact Management Software will actually GIVE YOU the tools and systems necessary to get those clients from social media. Business owners are starting to realize that having a web presence online is virtually a must. Majority won’t do either.
How To Select The Right CRM For Your Business
There are 3 important factors that you should consider when selecting a the appropriate CRM for your business. The first of those factors is efficiency.
Don’t you just hate it when your computer acts slow? The slower the computer becomes the more difficult it is to get your work done. We all know that as business owners time is a very valuable asset. It isn’t meant to be wasted, especially because of a slow running computer or a slow system that you are using.
The Contact Management Software that you select should be as efficient as possible when it comes to getting in contact with your clients. Lets say that you are looking to import 10,000 names/contact. Those contacts will include phone numbers, email addresses, web sites, etc… when it comes time to get a hold of your customers how efficient is the system that you are going to use in helping you achieve that outcome? Remember how annoying working with an old and slow computer is? well a lot of CRM’s work similar to an old and slow computer when it comes time for you to look at your list.
Now imagine that you have to personally contact one of these clients. So you go to the drop-down menu bar to search.
How long do you think it would take a drop-down menu bar to populate 10,000 contacts? It would make the speed of one of those old computers that we were talking about look like a race car. Needless to say it will take a pretty long time. And since time equals money to every business owner that isn’t an option that most are willing to work with.
The above described issue happens very often actually. It is very common to have those problems when you are looking for your contacts, especially if you have a large data base.
The second important factor that you should consider when selecting the best CRM for your business is speed.
Now and days speed is everything. We want the fastest phones, fastest downloads, fastest computers and even select the lines that seem to be moving the fastest at the grocery store. We want things and we want them now. Again, this time factor being a valuable asset is something that we shouldn’t waste. Yet one of the major faults of CRMS out there is speed.
Think of an insurance agent who has thousands of clients and leads. This agent was given a lead to call a few days ago but due to this agent’s already busy schedule she couldn’t get to it on time. So now, after a busy morning, this agent has some free some time during lunch break to call this lead. But this time there is one slight problem.
What is the full name, address and phone number of this contact?
With most CRMS out their in the market you would have to input the customer’s name, phone number, and other pertinent information. Keep in mind that if one letter or number is off the search result will come back as negative.
The best Contact Management Software will allow you to search for your contact with minimal remembered information.
However with most Contact Management Software this is how your search activity will look like. You will have to type in the name “Carmen Bowen” in the name field, “355-655-5555″ in the phone number field, and “555 NW 3rd Street San Diego California 33336″ in the address column.
The fastest kind of Contact Management Software’s out in the market would allow you to search these contacts with very minimal effort. They would allow you to type in the information in just one field. So instead of typing in all that information in all those separate fields you should be able to type it into ONE single field. You wouldn’t need to type in all the above information, you would just be able to type in, for example, “Carmen Bowen California.” You will then have all the “Carmen Bowen’s” that live in California. Thus eliminating the need for you to constantly remember your contacts information by memory.
The last, but certainly not least, factor you should heavily consider when it comes to selecting the right Customer Management Software is the power behind the system. Just as the person looking to buy a sports car is looking for a lot of power within the engine, this too should also play as an important factor when selecting a CRM.
Remember that list of 10,000 clients that we spoke about? How long do you think it should take to import and organize a list of that magnitude? Few hours? Perhaps a full day? A great Contact Management Software should take no more than 5 minutes, even if you are using a slow computer. If any CRM takes more time than that then you are using the wrong CRM.
The best CRM that your business could have is one with super lighting speed to get the job done, exact and accurate efficiency and the power behind it to propel your business forward to new heights. Selecting a Contact Management Software is a very important decision. The last thing that you want is to be jumping from CRM to CRM in search of that golden nugget. Make sure that before your decide which CRM you are going to use that you run it by these guidelines.