No such thing as FREE, but with National Transaction, Customer Relationship Management Software can be! Take advantage of technology and use it for your business success.
What is CRM? Customer relationship management is a system for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers. It often involves using technology to organize, automate and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service and technical support.
Free CRM comes in two categories: FREE, but limited, and OPEN SOURCE.
Free, but limited versions – set caps on the amount of free users, contacts, storage, extra features, or some combination.
Open source – offers an unlimited, fully functional CRM to users, is extremely customizable. Most open source CRM companies also offer a preconfigured version and/or installation and support for a price.
There are a whole host of affordable CRM options you should be considering even though not free, may be the perfect fit for your organization.
Each CRM system is different and each one will serve some companies better than others. CRM is a category that’s very rich in free and open source programs.
Why is the value of CRM great for Merchants?
It allows you to register your leads and contacts. You need some basic categories to make your data efficient so that you can implement your CRM strategy to fulfill their needs. With a CRM you can store and manage hundreds of clients and let a computer system handle the task of memory and recall.
You can track all customer interaction – A customer relations management system put all the pertinent client information in one central location that was easy to update and easy to see when other’s updated. All communication can be kept in one spot, nothing gets lost and you can now see and share with the rest of your team. This history builds a long-time relationship. Emails should be in your system, and not in each person’s mailbox.
Every time you make a call, send an email, or contact that customer or prospect you can update your CRM with their current status.
It reveals possibilities. Most companies keep their current supplier until they are ignored. That’s why keeping them alive and kicking in your CRM database is so important. And if you have an opt-in newsletter or a great seminar plan, their business might be yours for the next quarter.
It makes your most valuable asset – the customer data – remain. People change jobs. Have you ever experienced someone leaving you, and nothing is left behind? The pipeline wasn’t up to date. The contacts wasn’t updated. The important contacts wasn’t registered – because all relevant information was stored locally. Don’t let it happen. Customer relations systems help keep all conversations in one place and make it easy for you to quickly look back in time and see how things have progressed. See for yourself the progression of a client and their communication as well as your company’s notes and responses. You’ll be able to save more customers from leaving by catching something you would have otherwise missed, and you can learn from your history.
