In this presentation, you’ll learn about the essential features small businesses should look for in CRM software.

1. 1
The Essential
CRM Features Your
Small Business
Needs

2. 2
Introduction
In this presentation, you’ll learn about the essential features small businesses should look for
in CRM software.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
● Essential-for-All Features: These are key and indispensable functionalities that every business needs.
○ Contact management
○ Interaction tracking
○ Lead management
● Essential-for-Some Features: These functionalities become important based on your business type or size.
○ Email campaigns
○ Workflow automation
○ Forecasting/reporting/analytics

3. 3
Essential-for-All Feature: Contact
Management
● Creates a database of
customers’ contact
information.
● Helps build and maintain
customer relationships.
● Promotes your brand to
customers.
● Combines sales, marketing,
customer service and
customer communication
under one category.
● Manages relationships
easily with this combined
category.
Business Value to SMBs
● Implement contact
management across the
company; not just for sales
and marketing teams.
● Gartner1 notes that the lack
of organization-wide CRM
adoption results in short-
term gains only.
Our RecommendationWhat Is Contact Management?

4. 4
Essential-for-All Feature: Interaction Tracking
● Maintains detailed records
of all customer
communication.
● Uses this data to identify
improvement areas.
● Identifies patterns and
customizes offers as per
customer preferences.
● Helps you understand exact
customer requirements.
● Enables you to easily
customize offers to
customers.
● Allows businesses to avoid
spamming customers.
Business Value to SMBs
● Invest in a data analytics
solution to interpret
interaction data.
● Learn how to read this data
effectively instead of using
crude analysis.
Our RecommendationWhat Is Interaction Tracking?

5. 5
Essential-for-All Feature: Lead Management
● Stores possible leads in a
database for scoring.
● Helps identify leads that
are most likely to convert.
● Allows sales teams to
customize pitch to each
lead.
● Fosters a relationship with
valuable leads that
encourages conversion.
● Saves time and effort by
automatically scoring leads
instead of doing it
manually.
Business Value to SMBs
● Categorize your prospects
so that sales teams don’t
waste time on irrelevant
leads.
● Focus on relevant leads
only and build a
relationship with each
prospect.
Our RecommendationWhat Is Lead Management?

6. 6
Essential-for-Some Feature: Email Campaigns
● Helps create, launch and track
email campaigns for new
products.
● Allows you to promote your
brand directly to customers.
● Benefits customer-facing
businesses, such as retailers.
● Helps sustain relationships with a
large number of returning
customers as well as new ones.
When They’re UsefulWhat Are Email Campaigns?

7. 7
Essential-for-Some Feature: Workflow
Automation
● Works as a continuation of sales
force automation (SFA) services.
● Standardizes and automates
business processes, such as task
lists, calendars, alerts and
templates.
● Saves the sales team time spent
on repetitive tasks.
● Provides templates and quick
work processes for faster results.
When It’s UsefulWhat Is Workflow Automation?

8. 8
Essential-for-Some Feature:
Forecasting/Reporting/ Analytics
● Involves visually tracking and
aggregating data.
● Helps perform sophisticated
analysis on past performance and
productivity.
● Helps predict future trends based
on this analysis.
● Suits mature businesses that
have large amounts of data on
internal performance, sales and
customer behavior.
When It’s Useful
What Is Forecasting/Reporting/
Analytics?

9. 9
Sources 1. The Essential CRM Features Your Small Business Needs -
http://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/essential-crm-
features/
2. CRM Software Small Business Buyer Report – 2016 -
http://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/crm-trends-
2016/
3. The Eight Building Blocks of CRM: Overview, Gartner
(report accessible to Gartner clients only) -
https://www.gartner.com/document/3410722?ref=TypeA
headSearch&qid=ab5bdfe57ec9c839be8d0
9

10. 10
Additional
Resources
To further help you understand the landscape of CRM
software, we’ve created a number of detailed buyer guides.
Here’s a quick list you can check out:
By Application:
● Sales Force Automation Software
● Contact Management Software
● Small Business CRM Software
By Industry:
● Retail CRM Software
● Hotel CRM Software
● Banking CRM Software 10

11. 11
@CRMAdvice