There is only one way to ensure your Customer Relationship Management [CRM] tool satisfies those 3 requirements: you have to make sure your CRM is customized. Custom software is the best solution.
The Business Playing Field Is Not Level
Overall, big businesses hold many advantages over smaller businesses. The field tilts in favour of business businesses.
Big businesses, “enterprise businesses”, invest lots of money and lots of people’s time to get business processes right and have excellent business tools, including excellent CRM tools. Excellent tools help big businesses generate more revenue per employee than small and mid-sized businesses [SMBs]. Tied to this, big businesses can outbid smaller business, win projects, and still generate sufficient profitability and corporate sustainability. The playing field is not level and COVID-19 has further tilted the field in favour of big businesses.
The CRM Problem
Most CRM users at smaller businesses, are not pleased with their CRM tools. With all the complaints about CRM tools, it is not stretch to conclude many employees are not motivated to use their CRM tools and some employees are completely turned off by their company’s inability to correct persistent CRM problems.
A relatively small number of SMB people, including CEOs, are pleased with their CRM tools.
One acid test is to see if that is the situation – ask a CEO or most senior business development people how much time they spend using use their CRM tool.
Rather than bragging about their CRM tool to colleagues and prospective employees, many business leaders must keep silent on the topic of CRMs or worse, complain about annoyances like:
- “To be honest, our CRM is not user-friendly. It doesn’t mesh well with the image/branding we want at our company. It isn’t intuitive and doesn’t mesh well with the way we want to do business and communicate with colleagues and clients.”
- “We have struggled to work around features we do not want and will never use. I guess the new enhanced versions that vendors inject must bring new value to some people, but we are not receiving more value while prices are increasing. In fact, we think new features take us backwards, not ahead.”
- “We do not receive the high quality of customer service from CRM vendors that we provide to our customers. Our customers demand new monitoring data and reports and when it is possible, getting customized features and reposts is like pulling teeth.”
The CRM Solution
Leaders of SMBs want to gain advantage over their competitors.
Leaders of SMBs businesses want more sales.
Leaders of SMBs want customized reports that give them the information their know will help them keep track of their company’s business development activity.
The operations of most small businesses have become far more complicated than outsiders [and most insiders] would have guessed or expected:
- Clients and suppliers bring requests that must be satisfied. Success brings new demands and opportunities to create more value that can bring more profit.
- When dealt with efficiently and effectively, clients’ requests, challenges, and complications fuel SMBs growth and prosperity.
- To maximize client satisfaction and growth or profit, SMB systems, starting with CRMs need to fit the business needs of employees, clients, and suppliers and be adaptable…quickly and easily adaptable.
And, why not have your CRM enhance your people’s work performance.
Customized Customer relationship management tools are the best CRM solution.
Customer: someone who repeats habits … ideally buying from you!
Customize: something that fits customers’ needs … and your employee’s needs!
I am very fortunate. I know from firsthand experience how valuable customers are and how valuable a customized CRM can be.
In a future post, I will share more details about the customized CRM my son [our CTO] Jack built to serve our needs 12 years ago. We called our customized CRM tool, eCRMine©, which meant:
- e = electronic
- CRM = customer relationship management tool
- Mine = an amazing gold mine CRM-tool
For some millions of dollars, the big worldwide software companies build amazing gold mine CRM-tools for enterprise businesses. These tools allow enterprise businesses to accomplish a range of goals, including maximizing employee and customer experiences and remaining competitive in their industry sectors.
For SMBs, at least one smaller local software company – NeuStyle, can build an affordable customized CRM tool to amplify the performance of the most-important business you know – your business!