New to the world of CRM and wondering what it's all about?

Customer Relationship Management: What it is and Why it's Useful?

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Customer relationship management software helps businesses manage their customer relationships.  Managing a great relationship with a customer for long-term retention and greater revenue is harder than it may seem.

CRM helps businesses build strong relationships with customers that, in turn, create loyalty and customer retention. Since customer loyalty affects a company's revenue, this software is a management strategy that results in increased profits for a business.

CRM software can enable you to import a contact list, segment data, assign calls, generate new leads from website forms, and acquire a broad view of CRM activities via reports and dashboards.

How small businesses can benefit from free CRM?

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Without the pressure of committing money, you can take your time learning a free CRM software version. You’ll be able to find out which features are most useful to you before settling on a vendor.

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What to consider when choosing free CRM software

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CRM software keeps track of your contacts—both their personal and business information. It lets you give each one a persona based on your contact history and the deals you're building and negotiating.  For example, if you have an event-based business you could classify each contact in your list as either previously attended or never attended allowing you to be more specific with your email communication.

More advanced platforms pack extra functionality in areas like project management, marketing, help desk and content management.

What to look for in CRM for Small Businesses

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CRM software is an absolute necessity for small businesses. These tools enable you to track the status of leads and ensure proper relationship management, prioritising based on their location in the sales funnel and behaviours toward making a conversion.

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What to look out for:

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Easy to Navigate & Use

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Using your CRM system should be as easy as using your email. It should also make repetitive actions easier to carry out, such as adding new contacts to a list should be fast and headache free.

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Segmentation Opportunities

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Customer segmentation is when you put your customer base into different categories such as; demographics, purchase history, or other similar groups that are relevant to your business. This is one of the most important marketing tools at your disposal because it allows you to better understand your target audience.

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Reporting & Analytics

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CRM analytics refers to the process of interpreting the data within your CRM software to uncover valuable insights that should steer business decisions.

Evaluate performance and activity information by visually presenting sales, marketing, and customer service data stored within the CRM system to internal or external clients. Reports like sales forecasts and analysis of leads and pipelines offer insights into what's working and what needs improvement

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Best Free CRM for Small Businesses

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Since there are lots of CRM systems for small businesses, we’ve put together this list of free software that we personal rate. CRM spans across all price ranges and many come with varying features. Whether you’re a startup or a small business moving to a new system, there are loads of benefits in trying a free option to make sure it fits your needs without taking any financial risks.

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Business Tech Service’s top picks for the best free CRM solutions for your small business

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HubSpot

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Excellent for growing teams that want marketing tools and content management capabilities in a CRM for free. HubSpot is a marketing, sales, and service platform that helps companies to attract visitors, convert leads and close and retain customers.

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Bitrix24

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Ideal free software option for businesses that want to manage projects and sales on one platform. This all-in-one free platform allows you to manage your team and run your sales, Bitrix24 is designed to be seamlessly integrated into all your business processes.

Freshsales

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Best free CRM software for small businesses overall; great for sales teams needing a free solution with a built-in phone system.  Get a complete view of your customer’s interactions to deliver personalised experiences. Leverage data to drive revenue and improve seller effectiveness by streamlining your sales process.

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Enjoyed this quick read? Here at Business Tech Service we spend our time researching, testing and reviewing software suitable for small businesses to save you time. These are impartial opinions and reviews are designed to help, support and guide. Read our other blogs for support across websites, email marketing, SEO and much more.

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