As your business grows, CRM will become an important tool to manage customer interactions, nurture current customers and serve newly acquired customers. Unfortunately, many businesses leave this ‘profitable’ stone unturned. CRM is a company-wide business strategy that tackles all client-facing departments and much more. When implemented correctly, CRM is effective in bringing synergy to people, processes, and technology to increase profitability, and reduce operational costs. The benefits of managing customer relationships include:

The nuts and bolts of CRM (preferably web-based) help businesses leverage, store, organize and rollup business process including sales, marketing, customer service and technical support. This forward facing system enables businesses to identify top prospects, manage the sales cycle more efficiently, launch effective marketing campaigns and handle support issues that arise. The goal is to run lean and mean – with more efficiency and productivity. Therefore, if this is an area that you don’t yet outsource to a third-party a simple web-based solution can make life much easier and reduce the costs of marketing and client services all together.

Web-based CRM platforms can be costly, lack a user-friendly interface and even make the process appear more daunting than it really is. While many larger enterprises opt for Salesforce.com – if you don’t have a dedicated and trained sales force this may not be the best option. After researching, utilizing and comparing over 20 online web-based solutions – there is one that has my business for life. The user-friendly interface, clean design and ease of workflow and prospect management makes GlassCubes a force to be reckoned with. Busy entrepreneurs would rather not be bogged down with systems that have extraneous learning curves or too many unnecessary bells and whistles. While each stage of business may call for a different or more complex solution, this UK based company is actually true to their unique selling points:

If you aren’t in love with GlassCubes, there are other solutions such as SalesForce, Landslide, Zoho, Worketc, NetSuite and others that may fit the bill. No matter how large or small your business, it is important to find a dependable CRM system to fully leverage and manage your client-facing departments. A good CRM system will save time, money and headaches in the long run.