Today, you are probably at home, sheltering in place. That’s a good thing. You are helping your fellow citizens and keeping yourself safe and healthy at the same time.
But your small business still needs to move forward:
- Customers still need you and your services
- You still need to find and cultivate new leads
- Your past customers still need to hear from you.
While there is plenty of news and social media that can completely fill up your days, this is also a great time to work ON your business.
When this is all over, things will come back bigger and better than before. So now is the perfect time to prepare for good times ahead.
Your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool is your best friend and will help you through these strange times.
Here are 4 ways your CRM system for small businesses can help:
1. Take this time to (finally) learn what your CRM can do.
OK, so you already have a CRM. But are you using it to its fullest extent? Your CRM is an important tool in your business – after all it has all of your customer information in it. What could be more important than that?
This is a great time to dig in and see what all your CRM can do. Most CRMs will help you find new customers, follow up with past customers and help you better serve the customers you are working with today.
If you are only using your CRM as a simple Rolodex to look up your customer’s addresses and phone numbers, this would be a great time to really start leveraging this important tool. Watch training videos, read knowledge-base articles, or better yet, pick up the phone and call support and ask for help.
If you don’t like your CRM, or need to upgrade – take this time to do some homework. I recommend you start your search with allclients.com
2. Use this time to get organized.
How many times have you said: “I really need to get organized – but I just can’t find the time”. OK, well now you have nothing BUT time. So let’s get you organized! Do this:
- Gather up all of your contacts from all of your sources: Gmail, Post-it notes, old outlook accounts, excel files, etc… and make sure ALL of your contacts are in your CRM database.
- Build categories, flags, sources and custom fields so you can better sort and segment your data, giving you better visibility into your customer base.
- Go through all of your contacts: update outdated information, delete old contacts, recategorize, and reorganize so your CRM data is more meaningful to you.
This exercise should be done on a regular basis, but many people skip it for a lack of time. Now is a great time!
3. Don’t be afraid to continue (or start) marketing.
In many cases, your customers need your products and services, now more than ever. Don’t stop your marketing efforts thinking you are doing the world a favor.
Your CRM can help you build and launch landing pages, email campaigns and more. Continue to send out your autoresponders and continue to let your automated workflows run. Continue with pay-per-click and Facebook marketing. People are online in record numbers and many are looking for what you have to offer.
If you haven’t used your CRM for pre-sale marketing, now is the perfect time to build this into your arsenal. Study what your CRM can do, and use it to its full potential.
4. Stay in touch with your past customers.
You did a great job for your past customers and they still want to hear from you. Perhaps they need your help again, or maybe they have friends and family that they can send your way. In any case, staying in touch with past customers is always a smart business practice.
Your CRM is perfectly equipped to help you reach out and contact your past customers. You can do this with email, text messages, or with a handwritten note or personal call.
All that info is in your CRM database and with email and text messages, your CRM can do all the heavy lifting for you.
We are living in unprecedented times, for sure. But once you have done all you can to keep yourself and those around you safe, it’s a fantastic time to be working ON your business.
If you don’t have a CRM, or your CRM is too confusing, or if you just want to upgrade to the best CRM available today for small businesses, click here to start your AllClients Free trial.
