>CRM software is a necessity in companies where customer retention is key due to high acquisition costs (cell phone companies), where an involved sales and fulfillment process means customers can get lost in the shuffle (software, advertising, and other "consultative" sales), or in companies where it's important to be able to quickly pinpoint customer service issues (retailers, utilities).
Almost all companies can benefit from some form of Customer Relationship Management help--a local grocer who uses the reminders in his e-mail program to remember the birthdays and favorite products of his best customers is a CRM solution at its most basic--but the needs depend on the size of the company and the complexity of the sales process.
Any company that acquires and retains customers already has procedures and probably technological solutions in place to manage customer relationships. So, it is not a matter of "should I or should I not get CRM?" But, "What kind of CRM solution do I have, and what kind do I need?"
CRM solutions are available for businesses of all sizes-a small business might not have a big staff or complex sales cycles, but an owner who is wearing many hats at once might lose potential clients in the rush to serve current clients. Or, current client's needs might not be addressed in a timely fashion but the owner isn't always aware of this problem-until it's too late the customer goes elsewhere.
Small business often have employees scattered in different regional sales offices or on the road trying to drum up business-without the right technologies, keeping track of new customers could be more work than the order fulfillment itself.
A small business with an aggressive growth plan may want to invest for success early and make ramping up-in terms of quality and quantity of customers-as smooth and seamless as possible. Scalability is a term that's used to refer to how easy it is to integrate additional modules of a given CRM solution-and something small businesses with big plans should think about.
For medium-sized businesses, the solutions that worked at one time might not work now. Customers often "grow up" with the company and as the relationship deepens it may become more complex and harder to manage. Medium-sized businesses sometimes find that make-do CRM solutions are no longer solving business problems, but are creating
them. Weekly sales reports can only go so far in tracking the prospect pipeline of a sales force that is expanding into different time zones and even languages.
Mid-market companies face special challenges because management might not have the front-line understanding of customers that smaller businesses do, but don't have the resources to do exhaustive customer, data, and internal process surveys that larger companies are able to carry out before choosing a CRM solution. With the growth and
maturation of the CRM industry, many of the major providers have CRM products that meet the special needs of medium-sized businesses.
Large companies already have the most data about their customers, but the data probably resides in a number of different departments and in a number of different forms. Some information may even be conflicting or completely out-of-date. Most large companies already have some sort of CRM implementation, but with so many customer contact points, the consumer doesn't always get a unified, consistent message or a smooth experience.
Whereas in the past many companies have erred on the side of caution by favoring a piecemeal approach to CRM implementation, a robust company-wide implementation of CRM solutions is gaining popularity as CRM vendors are providing more reliable enterprise solutions.
Regardless of the size of the company or its product, any business that wants to get more insight into behavior and desires of its customers can usually gain from taking a hard look at current CRM practices. Technology, people, and processes can always be improved.
