Small Business Tricks to Maximize Customers Lists in Their CRM

There is an opinion that only large businesses, with complex processes and crowds of clients need a CRM system. So, this is a delusion. A CRM system will be useful for small businesses too. Today, we'll see how a simple bakery that, besides baguettes and cupcakes, makes birthday cakes to order, can benefit from a CRM system. Read on!

Table of Contents

• When Is It Time to Start Using a CRM?
• Detailed Customer Records
• Segmenting, Data Analysis, and Personalization
• Order Tracking and Planning
• Automation
• Conclusion

When Is It Time to Start Using a CRM?

When the business has just started, the clients are “a handful of people”, and relationships with them completely depend on you personally, you really can get by with a notepad and Excel. However, if you do not improve your tools, then as you grow, you will begin to notice problems.

Let's say, you run a bakery. At first you planned to sell only baguettes and cupcakes, and sometimes take orders for cakes. Everything was going well, but one day the phone rang. You answered the client’s questions about white chocolate birthday cakes, you promised to call back and forgot to take their contact. The lead was lost and the opportunity to sell was missed! Because you obviously can't cook a white chocolate birthday cake — you would have called back if you could. It doesn't seem to be a problem. But this isn't the first time such a situation has happened and it will probably happen again.

Further — more, some clients write on Facebook, some call based on your current customers’ advice, and some just drop by from the street. There are so many contacts that you save them here and there. As a result, when you need to inform the client that the cake is ready, you cannot find the phone number. (Probably, because the client is waiting for you on Facebook, but you forgot about it). And when you have a new cake with seasonal fruits, how are you going to inform your customers?

So, can a CRM help you cut through all the clutter and make your business more organized and profitable? Well, it can.

Detailed Customer Records

You shouldn't store your customer-related data on paper. And in Excel too. There is a CRM for this. Here, each client gets a record with detailed information — from name and phone number to the channel from which they came and links to their social media profiles. You can store in the records whatever — even their purchase history.

Thanks to automation, CRM can create client records itself without your help. You just need to integrate it with marketing channels — for example, with a form on your website. Thus you'll create a great neat client base. And most importantly, this database will always be safe. It won’t get lost like a piece of paper, it won’t corrupt like a file on an HDD, and the manager (you’ll have managers when you grow up, trust us) won’t steal it if you fire them.

Segmenting, Data Analysis, and Personalization

Having a neat database filled with detailed information about clients, you can segment customers according to various criteria — for example, by the channel from which the person came.

Imagine, you've made a couple of clicks in your CRM and found out that Instagram attracts more leads than a website. Then you need to put more emphasis on SMM. But what if leads that come from the site through a search engine place orders on premium birthday cakes more often than Instagram ones? Analyzing this data you can make data-driven decisions based on facts and numbers.

Yes, that's right, even a simple bakery can benefit greatly if you start analyzing the data. Remember we mentioned clients who order cakes several times a year? This is — a purchase pattern. Noticed that customers who buy birthday cakes for kids older than 7 years also frequently order cupcakes? And this is a purchase pattern too. Armed with this knowledge, you can ensure that you have enough ingredients in stock to meet the demands of the first group. As for the second group — create bundled offers or discounts on cupcakes when purchased with a birthday cake for kids. And by the way, here is where personalization comes in — when you have enough data, you can make personalized offers for individual clients.

Order Tracking and Planning

To avoid confusion about what stage your relationship with a client is at, use a sales funnel within your CRM. For example, one person is simply interested in your cakes (based on their inquiry you got from a chatbot), but has not yet placed an order. Another person has just placed an order and is expecting a finished cake this evening (oh, it's urgent, time to start cooking!). While the third and fourth ones consistently order premium birthday cakes several times a year on certain dates. All these people are at different stages of your sales funnel. With a CRM you can easily track this and nurture your relationships with them accordingly.

Automation

In a bakery, you can automate more than just dough kneading. We have already described how a CRM allows you to automate the building of a client database. But that's not all. With the help of a CRM, you can set up email marketing, SMS blasts, and much more.

For example, based on John’s purchase history which shows that in a week his son will turn 7 years old, and in two weeks his daughter will turn 5 years old, your CRM can send him an SMS with a special offer — to order a couple of cakes right now, but at a discount. Thus you will be sure that a loyal customer won't leave you this year.

Or, let's say you've come up with a new cake with seasonal fruits and want to tell all your customers about it — and CRM can help here too. After emails with a fruit cake promotion are sent, you can check how many were opened, how many were not, and how many weren’t received at all — that data will help you to keep your database neat and up-to-date.

Conclusion

A CRM system is a must for big companies with various departments and crowds of leads and customers. But for small businesses, such as a simple bakery, it will also be very helpful. A CRM system will let you keep your customer-related data in order; segment your customers, make decisions based on facts and not assumptions; and approach your customers in a personal way. With a CRM system, you will always know what stage of a sales funnel your clients are and what you need to do to satisfy them. And of course, a CRM allows you to automate routine tasks and marketing processes.

When choosing a CRM system, pay attention to these features:

• Ease of use — its interface should be simple enough so that even people who are far from technology, but talented in other areas, can fully use all the functionality they need.
• Collaboration — the software should allow your team members to work together with the same databases.
• Integration — the system should easily integrate with other marketing applications that you use. And, if necessary, allow you to integrate other applications using the API.

Our TruVISIBILITY CRM has all these advantages. It is the core of the TruVISIBILITY Suite — an all-in-one marketing software platform. This means that CRM integrates with other online marketing applications that make up the platform, so you can not only manage your customer data, but also create rule-based and AI-powered chatbots, build websites with blogs, and launch email marketing campaigns.

TruVISIBILITY CRM is extremely user-friendly, so your team won't spend much time on training. Plus, it allows them to work together through access to the same applications and databases.