How do you know when to change to CRM?

2 Oct 2017

There are a lot of businesses out there that are using spreadsheets, generic or bespoke contact managers, or even real paper files (I know!) to manage the details of their customers, prospects, and other vital company information.

And that’s great, if it works for you.

Too often, however, people use these method because it’s “how it’s always been done” rather than because it actually works for their business.

Which is a terrible reason to do anything. But then, how do you know if a CRM would do anything more for you than that shared spreadsheet?

Over my many years, I’ve learnt a few tell-tell signs that a business has grown to the point that they just need to change to a CRM. That whatever method they were using before just isn’t cutting the mustard anymore.

Admin Time is Adding Up

You spend longer trying to find out what someone bought and when you last heard from them than you do actually composing the email to see if they are getting on ok.

CRM systems are great for giving you easy access to related information, including past Invoices, Emails, Activities, and other pertinent business data.

Two People Call the Same Prospect

It’s a sales manager’s worst nightmare: two of his or her team end up calling the same exact prospect because they weren’t working off the exact same list. This prospect suddenly has this image of your company as disorganised, even if it was just an honest mistake.

By using an automated round robin or a manual assignment of new Leads, a CRM system can make sure that this won’t happen again.

All You Need is List (is that so hard?)

My final big red flag that signals that your business may just need to change over to a CRM is one of those headaches that every managers encounters at least once. You ask for a list of current customers…not a difficult request, but no one seems to have one.

Or rather, everyone has one, but no one’s list is the same.

One of the big wins with a CRM system is that everything is in one place. All the information is updated in everyone’s view at the same time. So getting a list of all your customers just takes a couple of clicks.

Business will have all sorts of reasons that made them start looking to change from an existing process or method to a CRM system. I’ve just highlighted a few of the ones I hear over and over again.

Regardless of the reason you’re looking around, the important thing to find out is whether the system you are researching will fit your business’ needs. And if you’re thinking that OpenCRM sounds like it could be the system for you, why not give our team a call, they’ll be happy to chat with you about why you’re looking, what you need, and how you want to proceed.