Any business that is succeeding will tell you that the most important aspect to any successful business is your customer’s satisfaction level. In this day and age of instant information, every interaction you have with your customer is potentially advertising for you company. With that advertising is good or bad will depend on your customers experience when interacting with your business. To make sure that you are successfully tracking this information, you need a decent CRM package, and the best CRM software should be able to tell you not only where your business is succeeding, but also where there is room for improvement.

CRM stands for customer relationship management, and there are many different ways that your business interacts with your customers. From their initial inquiry, be it a phone call or a visit to the store, to a sale, and beyond to return sales, every step of the way should be tracked and monitored to ensure that you are providing the best product and/or service possible. Let’s face it, your competitors are all tracking this information as well, and if they are able to sculpt their business processes around the information their CRM software provides them, they will be one step further up the ladder than you.

The benefits of having a good CRM software package installed are many. Once you have an idea of your customer’s satisfaction levels, you will find it much easier to increase your sales. Your customer communications will ultimately direct you in which products or services are the most successful, allowing you to put more time and resources into those areas. Customers are impressed if you are able to have their history on hand when they call. If a customer calls about a particular product you supply, and you mention a previous sale they made, or a previous phone conversation you had with them, you will be giving them a sense of worth and a feeling of familiarity, ultimately leading to increased lead conversion. Happy customers also provide one of the best marketing tools you could hope to have in your arsenal – word of mouth. A happy customer will be more likely to recommend your business to their friends and family, saving you a packet in advertising and marketing expenses.


The best small business CRM software should have the following characteristics…

Importing and exporting of data – As good as any software package may be, there will always be times when you want to take the data out of the software package and do your own thing with it. The ability to easily export information to a spreadsheet so that you can do some of your own ad hoc reporting is a necessity. Also, if you have a separate contact management system, you will want to be able to easily import new customer information and update existing details.

Reporting – Depending on the size and nature of your business, there may be several different levels of reporting required. Your phone staff will need access to a list of calls that need to be returned, and a way of checking their progress during each day. Supervisors will need an overview of what communications have occurred during a given time frame, and management will need access to statistics that show them which areas need improving from a managerial perspective. Any of these reports should ideally be customisable to suit the needs of your individual business.

Interaction with existing email software – For most businesses, a large amount of their customer communications are taking place via email, and it’s imperative that your CRM software be able to link directly to your email software. Before purchasing, make sure that you can link directly to Outlook, Lotus Notes, or whatever email package your business currently uses.

Compatibility with other software – You will no doubt already have an office suite available with your business. For the majority of businesses this will be one of the versions of Microsoft Office, and you will obviously want your CRM software to be able to link into these programs. Whether you want to do bulk mail merges in your word processor, or create statistical graphs within your favorite spreadsheet program, the system should allow you to do so with the minimum amount of fuss.

Support – Make sure that whichever CRM software package you choose has adequate customer support. Ideally, there should be the option of talking to a live operator in the case of an emergency, with forums or help desks available for the less pressing enquiries.

Ease of use – With the introduction of any new software package there will always be a bit of a learning curve. It is important that this initial training period happens in a smooth manner. Help files are an important part of this process, and user documentation should lay out every screen of your software package. The user interface should be clean and uncluttered, with navigation options clearly labelled and wizards available wherever possible.

Whether you are looking for the best free CRM software, or are willing to pay some money for a more robust product, ensuring that the software you choose has the characteristics mentioned above will help you to determine that the software will keep your business running smoothly, and your customers will keep coming back for more.