What Is a CRM, and Why Does Your Business Need One?

Whether you’re in real estate, legal, insurance, mortgage or any other number of industries battling for clients, you’ve probably reached the conclusion that competition online is tightening. Converting your prospects can be an uphill battle. Servicing existing clients takes up tons of bandwidth. Managing a staff requires patience. Using a multitude of apps and services is expensive.

A CRM makes business owners’ (and operators’) lives so much easier through powerful automation tools and workflows, which keep projects moving, improve transparency across organizations, and generate meaningful data reporting. With the details of the day-to-day handled, that leaves space for more strategic and significant business decisions to occur.

Ask Yourself –

How often have you lost out to another firm because you failed to follow up on a lead inquiry promptly?

How much time have you wasted this month doing repetitive client admin day in and day out?

How much money and labor have you squandered landing and servicing clients that were never even a good fit for your business in the first place?

Let’s not even get started on all the cumbersome aspects of getting your documents signed, managing marketing campaigns, client billing, communicating project statuses, managing employees, and the 50 other things you need be on top of as a business owner or manager. Just staying afloat requires a ton of work!

But you didn’t start or join your businesses just to survive. You want to thrive, don’t you?

The secret to lowering lead costs, boosting conversions, streamlining your sales process, managing your team, and improving client satisfaction isn’t actually a secret. A better business starts with three little letters that play a huge role in all successful businesses: CRM.

What’s a CRM?

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is the backbone of any great client-based business. With a CRM, you can bring all the disparate software tools you use under one, unified system.

Think of a CRM as a digital file cabinet where every client note, project status, or invoice is organized and never more than a click away. Instead of tabbing through endless spreadsheets, emails, or apps, you can fire up your CRM and get the information you need more efficiently than ever possible.

Why does my business need a CRM?

The key to growing or sustaining a successful business comes down to a few key components: Good market fit, great team, and the right tools. But the truth is, whether your product or service is compelling to the market is relatively secondary to your ability to convert and service the leads and customers you do get.

If you’re running a business and find that client details keep slipping through the cracks, leads aren’t converting as well as they should, or staying on top or projects is difficult, those are clear signs that you need a CRM. Consider these three elements of a well-oiled business that CRMs help provide:

Organization

CRMs are incredible for securely storing client data and documents in the cloud. The right CRM will allow you to create more efficient sales and on-boarding processes which means higher conversion rates and increased profits.

Firms using a CRM saw a 41% revenue increase
Without a CRM, 79% of client leads fail to convert

Automation

Automating frequent client tasks like getting documents signed or invoices paid means less manual labor, fewer mistakes, and quicker turnaround times.

CRMs gives businesses a 65% boost in sales quotas
Leads that are nurtured in the CRM convert 47% more than those not nurtured

Cooperation

The right CRM will help keep your team in sync collaborating on projects that move the needle for your business. With data reporting, task management, and user permissions, you can ensure your employees are servicing clients to the highest possible standards, which can mean more repeat of referral business for you.

Customer service can improve by 47% with CRM
Overall, 74% of businesses using CRM report better customer relationships

(1) Statistics from Super Office 2018 CRM study

What Kind of CRM Does My Business Need?

It’s no doubt that if you’ve run your business for some amount of time, you’ve already considered a CRM. Maybe you’re using one right now that you don’t particularly love.

You’ve also probably come to realize that every business has different needs from their CRM: There are the fancy Ferraris of the CRM world costing thousands of dollars a month (and even more to implement), and then there are the low-cost options with small feature sets and limited support designed for the solo owner.

So, when thinking of choosing a new CRM, which of these qualities matter most to you? It’s quite a list, but running a business in today’s competitive landscape requires such investments.

Ease of Use How much time will you need to invest to get started? How easy is it for your team?
Cost Is the CRM priced based on how many team members you actually have?
Automated Workflows Can the CRM automate everyday admin tasks that suck up your time?
Helps Boost Conversions Does the CRM have robust sales tools to make converting clients more efficient?
Improves Customer Satisfaction Does the CRM have tools to help you effectively nurture current client relationships?
Keep Data Safe On today’s internet, privacy and security are on your clients’ minds. Is your CRM going to help keep them at ease?
Keep Your Team in Sync Does the CRM have reporting tools, user permissions, and task management to keep your team motivated, in sync, and accountable?
In-Depth Reporting Does the CRM provide robust data reporting that allows you to dive deep on the effectiveness of lead channels, conversion rates, referrals, and more?
Integrations There may be some tools you can’t give up – will your CRM work alongside what you already have in your arsenal?
Payments Does your CRM offer contracts, fee agreements, online signatures, and billing to make getting paid as simple as clicking a button?

Are you wondering if there’s a CRM out there that does all of the above and more?

Let us take you on a test drive of Shape, the CRM trusted by over 15,000 users.

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