Do you need a CRM? 7 Signs That You Need One

Do I need a CRM?

This question is asked a lot. After all, CRMs are both incredibly popular and useful for many businesses.

And if you’ve never used a CRM before, you might not even know how having one could help your business.

Today we’ll break down 7 signs that say that you might need a CRM for your business.

What is a CRM?

In case you need a refresher on the basics, let’s review what CRMs are.

While the letters CRM stand for Customer Relationship Management, when referring to a CRM most people mean a CRM platform or solution.

CRMs help you collect, store and use customer data to boost the operations of your business. From customer support to marketing to sales.

Want to know more? Read our guide on what a CRM is and how it can help your business.

Do you need a CRM?

Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of things. Here are 7 signs that say your business needs a CRM.

1. You have a lot of customers

The more customers you have, the harder it becomes to keep track of all their data.

This includes their contact info, purchase history and more.

A CRM will help you collect all this data in a central location so you don’t lose any customer data inside a messy inbox or misplaced notepad.

2. You need more than one person to have access to data

As your business grows, you might need more and more people to have access to customer data.

Maybe your customer support staff needs access to contact information, or your marketing team, or your sales reps.

With a CRM, everyone across your company can access your customer data. Some CRMs will allow you to assign permissions as to who can see and edit certain data.

3. You want to actually USE your customer data

So you have your customer’s contact information. But are you actually using it to grow your business?

A CRM can help you use this data to improve your customer support efforts. Marketing teams can use this data to send marketing emails to specific subsets of customers.

Sales teams can use this data to identify high-priority customers who might be ready for an upsell.

Remember, customer data can be incredibly valuable when used right. Just because you’re collecting and storing this data, it doesn’t mean you’re actually using it and unlocking its value.

4. You want to access your data from anywhere

Remote work is becoming more and more common each year. As a result, you might want to access your data from home or while on-the-go.

Maybe a cold is keeping you home for the week. That shouldn’t stop you from being able to access your customer data.

A cloud-based CRM will let you log in from any device and be able to access all your customer data in a snap. All you need is an internet connection.

5. You want to spend less time collecting and entering data

This is a big one. Modern CRMs will significantly reduce the time you spend collecting and entering data into your customer database.

When implemented correctly, your CRM will automatically collect and store all of your customers’ data. That way, you can spend more time on more valuable tasks for your business.

6. You want to see data insights about your customer base

The collection and storage of all this customer data allow CRMs to unlock critical insights about your customer base.

How many of your customers have purchased from you more than once? How many of them live in the state of New York? How many of them only buy from you when you offer a discount?

A modern CRM can provide all these key insights about your customer base and their purchasing behavior. Allowing you to make more informed (and therefore better) decisions about your business.

7. You care about the accuracy of your customer data

A central CRM platform will allow your entire organization to always have access to the most accurate and up-to-date customer information possible.

Picture this scenario: a customer calls your customer support line since they are running with a product issue. During the call, the customer lets the support rep know that they have changed their email address.

With a CRM, the support rep can update this email address immediately, now the entire company has up-to-date information about the customer.

When a sales rep pulls up their customer file to contact them about a potential upsell, they will see their new email address rather than the old inactive one.

Closing Thoughts

As you can see, a CRM can help your business in multiple different ways.

In fact, there are multiple advantages to CRMs that we haven’t covered in this article.If you’re looking for a CRM solution, try out Moment, our fully-featured CRM solution with live chat, email and browser recording integrations.