If you run a small mom and pop shop do you really need to focus on customer relationship management? After all you know all the people who come and buy from you personally. Many have been shopping with you for ages. You can tell the number of children each of them has and even know their names. Why, your own children have been classmates for some of them. There is no one who knows their customers better than you know yours. So how does it make any sense getting an online CRM system for your business? After all if your customers want to contact you or vice versa all you have to do is talk to them when they come into the shop. Or in case it’s urgent pick up the telephone and give them a ring.
Like it or not the fact remains that your business is going to grow. What started out as a one man concern is already involving more than a couple of family members, not to mention the young high school kids who help out during the busy period. You have to admit that you are no longer running the shop entirely on your own. You have an informal team of sorts who helps you run the shop. With so many people pitching in there is a need to streamline all the customer data. It is needed to ensure that the company manages to provide that same level of customer satisfaction even when it grows.
People come to you because they trust you. They know that you will give them a good deal. There is always a percentage of the clientele who will wait till you are free to buy their products. They do not want to be taken care of by the support staff as they find it far more satisfying to deal with you personally. Did you ever wonder why this is so? They are not just being fussy, they are aware that no one in the shop knows the product range like you do. They are just making sure that they manage to get the best sales person to service them when they come to your shop. They know that you, as the owner, will make it an ideal sales experience for them.
The trick is to get all the people on your team to work like you do. This is where a CRM software can come in handy. You can store all the relevant details about your regular customers on the computer. That way if you are not on hand in the shop when an established customer comes in, the person manning the counter can pull up all the details about their preferences on the computer and help them. This will make it easier for the customers to be serviced with the right products. If they have any brand preferences you can make a note of that as well. It may seem a bother initially when you set up the system, but over a period of time as your staff gets used to handling it you will notice the level of customer satisfaction rising.
The author runs a small business from home, but finds using an online CRM a great help. Even a small business being run personally by the owner can reap great benefits in terms of customer satisfaction, retention and repeat sales by using a good web based CRM software. Check out KarmaCRM, one such software for free.