Small business

Effective CRM tools for small businesses are meant to help entrepreneurs stay on top of customer relationship needs.  This is very essential in the present competitive market not only for customer acquisition but also for customer retention.

Before moving to the top 3 CRMs for small business, let us see what a small business can expect from Customer Relationship Management software.

More profitability: Features of CRM such as lead management, order management, sales automation, etc helps businesses in streamlining the entire business process. 

Minimized cost:  Sales and marketing costs can cause havoc on the company’s budget.  CRM can largely help in reducing costs and help improve the efficiency of the team.

Maintain relationship with customers: Integration with chatbots ensure that a customer is never left unattended at any given point. For developing businesses, leads are of major importance in defining their success.

Automating emails: In the case of email marketing campaigns, CRM software is considered the best tool for automating triggered emails, responding promptly to user inquiries and developing strategic campaigns based on analytic reports.

Moving to best CRM for small businesses, here are the best 3:

AGILE CRM

For small businesses, one of the most popular tools used for managing the customer accounts along with capabilities to perform sales and marketing is the Agile CRM. 

Launched by the Boston-based company Microsoft in 2020 in the United States, Agile CRM was designed with the aim of bridging the communication gap between customer support services and the use of automation tools needed in this field. 

It allows you to store contacts, create content for campaigns, design emails using templates and create campaigns for newsletters, social, eCommerce and more.

Agile CRM features a user-friendly interface that can be customized according to the needs of the company. With its help, small businesses can easily manage customer interactions in real-time and avoid mistakes that might lead to negative customer experiences.

Agile CRM is compatible with Android, iOS and the Web.

Price: $9.99/month/user

VTIGER CRM

Another integrated software that holds features for sales, marketing, inventory management, project management, social media integration, customer service and much more.  It proves to be affordable for small businesses giving 3600 processing system without having to invest in different applications.

Their marketing app lets you create aesthetic email templates & other email marketing functionalities. Their help desk feature is efficient with live chat, real-time metrics of performance and much more.

Software is compatible with Android, iOS and the Web.

Price: $30/month/user

ZOHO CRM

For growing companies, the scalability of the software is a big concern. Zoho is a flexible CRM with a choice of add-ons for growing enterprises. AI-powered tools along with deal management features make it popular in the market.

A feature like SalesSignals notifies personnel when a lead approaches through any of the diverse channels. SalesIQ offers live chat and a detailed analysis of user behavior. 

Zoho CRM is also compatible with Android, iOS and the Web.

Price: $12/month

In final words, the choice of CRM depends on the business operations, needs and scalability. Hope the answer is of some help to you in making a choice. 

The year 2020 will always be remembered as a year of big digital transformation, reforms, and uncertainty. While many homegrown businesses found an opportunity of a lifetime during COVID-19, other global players came to a standstill. 

Even though it has accelerated the growth of e-commerce by leaps and bounds, there are industries that took a big hit such as retail, technology, travel, ride-hailing, sport, health, luxury goods, and food ordering e-commerce business. The effects are so extensive that many brands have to shut their operations and online stores. 

Effects of the pandemic on e-commerce are as follows: 

Massive disruptions in the supply chain 

When the authorities enforced social distancing, everyone thought it was going to be a defining moment for e-commerce. But, almost 40% of sellers witnessed a decline because of disruption in the shipping, freight, production issues, and delays in fulfillment. 

Customers spending habits are changing

The uncertainty and squeezing economic growth have made people realize that finance should be managed. Doing so, they are now wary of spending money on clothes, phones, travel, furnishing, and more. On the flip side, it is affecting the sales of e-commerce retailers at an alarming rate. 

Diminishing consumer intent

To convert a prospect into a customer, the marketer has to put extra effort into all marketing channels. Like every human being, they are thinking more about survival – they indulge themselves more in the news and COVID-19 updates. 

The nature of the virus is contagious, so people are putting their safety first. They are hesitant about ordering anything from the e-commerce website – as the distribution process includes multiple people.

Travel and experience industry

Because of strict travel regulations and norms, people are spending more time at home by practicing self-isolation. As a result of that, it has left a significant dent in the travel and experience industry. 

Consumer behavior is changing, people only want to spend on essentials and personal care products now. But, as so many vaccines have reached stage-3 trials, there are chances that the world will soon see the normal days (we hope so). 

Unemployment is skyrocketing

With limited orders to serve and limited operational services, e-commerce companies across the globe have started laying off employees and practicing pay cuts. Social distancing has taken a toll on food delivery, cab-hailing, traveling, and fitness companies. 

What lies ahead?

Well, we all are staring at the future with great uncertainty, it’s difficult to decipher what the future holds for the businesses. It’s best to stay in contact with your customers, keep the advertising going, and pivot the business model as per the needs – try to find an opportunity in chaos.

Social media is a search engine itself that can largely procure benefits for your brand. Before I go any further, I will answer a basic question: What is Social Networking?

A Social Networking service is a mechanism that helps people communicate and share information instantly. 

However, social media is more than just communicating. It has striking advertising capabilities. 

Websites are limited in delivering two-way communication despite call supports or chatbots. With social media on the other hand businesses can achieve multi-channel communication where interaction is possible with every member of the community. 

In 2020, there are 1.69 billion active users on Facebook, 26.9 million on Instagram, and 330 million on Twitter. If Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were a country, they would surpass the world’s most populated country – China. Thus, it has the potential to extend your brand to the people who can be interested in your profile given its advanced demographics.

Here is how businesses can benefit from advertising on Social Media:

Brand Awareness: Social network is a great platform in creating brand awareness with an enormous user base. The most striking benefit is cost-effectiveness. Branding through offline marketing can hit hard on pockets. Along with that even, tracking performance is expensive and not as achievable. 

So, based on how businesses post content about the brand, its journey, manufacturing insights/videos (for manufacturers) it can successfully create trust and buzz amongst viewers. Social Media lets you acquire traffic outside your loyal client circle.

Elevate Conversion: Social media channels are popular for the different kinds of formats, for example, Twitter is popular for short text format limited to only 280 characters, Instagram was originally an image sharing platform, however, now it is highly optimized with features like IGTV long videos and reels for small videos. Similarly, Facebook that has acquired Instagram is largely adopted for advertising. With the business manager, Facebook makes campaigning easy to execute and monitor growth.

With interesting creatives, content and videos, businesses can publish adverts with embedded links to increase conversion rates of their product selling pages.

Paid Advertising: As mentioned earlier, Facebook has extensive support for cultivating and refining campaigns. This further helps you achieve brand recognition, conversions, leads, likes, follows and more. Setting detailed demographics, you can reach the right set of people that are likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

Customer Satisfaction: As we know, Social Media permits two-way communication. That means it allows your consumers to give you genuine reviews about their experience and give businesses as well a chance to ensure that prompt customer service is delivered. Most popular brands use Twitter for the purpose of connecting with their consumer base.

To conclude:

Online advertising is seen spiking over the years. Most large enterprises or popular brands preserve 30% of the advertising quota for online promotions. That explains in itself, the power of social media advertising.