As a small business owner, customers are difficult to come by and if your effort is primarily spent attracting new customers it becomes doubly hard to retain the customers you already have due to a lack of sales/ support staff. A CRM system performs the function of multiple sales people and therefore multiplies your sales efforts. It also contains information required for anyone in your business to provide excellent customer service.  CRM has been in use over many years; in the early days it was only used by large to enterprise corporations. However, with the advent of cloud computing, several simplified and smart web based CRM solutions have come about for the small business user. One of these that I would recommend you to have a look at is DIMENSION CRM.

A happy customer will return time and again and display loyalty as you grow your business. Being able to retain your client base will increase your sales manifold. Your customer’s experience in dealing with you results in the formation of an opinion, if that opinion is a positive one, a sense of trust is formed and that customer is more likely to give you repeat business or referrals to friends and family. A negative experience will in most cases destroy the chance of repeat business and they are likely to tell people they know not to do business with you. Repeat customers enhance profitability; in a nutshell, great customer service translates into high customer retention, and retention is the key to expanding your business. Using CRM will ensure that your current and prospective clients are satisfactorily serviced and retained.

So let us see how a contact CRM helps with customer retention.

·         A CRMs main usefulness lies with its ability to assist with customer retention and fresh client acquisition. It handles both these aspects                     simultaneously (existing and potential customers)

·         Increases ROI and profitability through extraction of loyalty data

·         Enhances customer loyalty with collation of buying history along with query handling data

·         Pricing stability – a repeat customer will not expect reduced pricing as they know they are paying for quality customer service

·         Tracks client retention and acquisition costs

·         Works on best management practices

There is a huge range of customer relationship management solutions available on the market and you need to pick the right one for your business. Some CRM systems are built for large enterprises, are extremely complex, and will not suit a small to medium sized business. You need to be careful in your selection of a CRM system. Know what your business problems are, define best in class sales and customer services processes and then find a CRM system that will support your unique business needs.