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Running your business on a CRM provides the unique advantage of automation. According to Gartner research, 85% of consumers expect to deal with some form of AI (artificial intelligence or automation) from small and medium-sized businesses by 2020. Whether it comes via online lead capture, custom email sequences, text messaging, or streamlining your onboarding, with a good CRM you can leverage automation in dozens of ways to improve your business!
From legal to finance and every industry in between, there are plenty of hoops to jump through and challenges to solve when it comes to lead capture. Remember the stat we noted earlier about qualifying leads within the first hour? That study also pointed out that 25% of companies take over 24 hours to respond to a lead, and even more staggering – 24% never even follow up with new leads at all!
If you’re comfortable leaving that much money on the table, it’s clear your business isn’t running efficiently enough to service new leads. Growth will be nothing more than a pipe dream!
The great thing about Shape’s automation is that you can sync your lead capture tool with its software – be it on your Facebook, website, anywhere you get leads – and you’ll instantly import any new customer information into the system. Instantly, servicing new prospects becomes as easy as clicking a button.
Let’s say a new lead hits your website at 9 PM (many working people do their provider searches off the clock, after all). If the prospect happens to fill out your lead capture form, Shape will automatically pull in that prospect’s data and create a new customer profile instantly.
What’s great about this feature is you can automate the next step in your process and get the potential client relationship off on the right foot from the very first second. No more manual data entry, either!
Maybe your workflow has an automated “Thanks for reaching out!” response, or you send them an informative blog post about working with your firm – the options are endless, but whatever you choose will show the prospect that you take an active interest in their business.
Automation helps you deliver the high-touch client experience you want to be known for without investing tons of time!
The average business owner spends over 68% of their time on day-to-day admin (8), with a huge chunk of that time dedicated to email. Whether it’s following up on outstanding payments or contracts or thanking repeat customers for their business, the truth is that’s a lot of wasted time spent typing.
Instead of using just 32% of the time you have available on strategic business decisions, partnerships, and ideas that will help generate more revenue or growth, get back all that time through email automation.
If you research other CRMs out there, you’d be forgiven to fall for the trap that your business also needs a marketing automation tool in addition to a CRM. That couldn’t be further from the truth!
Although there are relatively affordable email marketing platforms with small feature sets, the average marketing automation software will set you back in the thousands per month. Most small and medium-sized businesses just don’t need that level of sophistication. They need a CRM that helps them service the client from intake to project conclusion.
The truth is, with the right CRM you can reap all the incredible benefits of email marketing without the heavy lifting and massive implementation costs. Drive more engagement with your business, build loyalty, provide transparency, and nurture prospects through a variety of customized campaigns in Shape!