SMALL BIZ BUZZ

BY BRENT LEARY

Which CRM Features Are Small

Businesses Not Taking Advantage of?
This year’s version of ‘ask the vendors’ examines what SMBs might be missing

I
’ V E U S E D M Y October columns the past couple founder of Copper (formerly ProsperWorks). “Today,
of years to pose questions to executives at some of that’s changed. Companies not only manage custom-
the leading CRM vendors serving small-business ers but a broad range of business relationships that are
customers. Two years ago I asked why CRM adop- not captured in a CRM. In this new era, every relation-
tion wasn’t higher. Last year I asked what small-business ship interaction and conversation needs to be captured
customers want from CRM vendors. So this year I wanted as companies shift to build lasting relationships and
to know what small-business customers repeat business.”
weren’t taking full advantage of when it Insightly chief marketing officer
comes to using CRM systems. Below are Tony Kavanaugh notes that SMBs need
some areas the executives cited, and why. to focus more on the “R” part of CRM.
ASK THE VENDORS “CRM deployments should treat sales
ACTUALLY USING CRM force automation as table stakes and
Even in 2018, we’re still seeing a major- focus on what it takes to make the buyer
ity of small businesses not using a CRM journey as frictionless and as fruitful as
application at all, according to Meredith Johnson, exec- possible. Relationship scoring and intelligence, sentiment
utive vice president and general manager of Salesforce and signal analytics, next-best-action recommendations,
Essentials and SMB. “Although SMBs seek to offer better project delivery, and AI-based advice at every step of the
customer experiences, only 33 percent of them are cur- buying journey are all key to this new imperative.”
rently using CRM tools. It’s unfortunate, because on
average, small businesses spend 23 percent of workdays BENEFITING MORE FROM INTEGRATED
manually inputting data. CRM can eliminate many DATA AND PLATFORMS
manual processes.” Integrated applications and platforms can greatly increase
ease of use and efficiency, but “I don’t think businesses
AUTOMATING IMPORTANT PROCESSES have fully recognized the benefits of having all of their
Speaking of eliminating manual processes, that’s another customer data on one platform and just how much further
area where SMBs must start taking full advantage of CRM, it extends the use of CRM,” says Vijay Sundaram, Zoho’s
according to Nimble founder Jon Ferrara. “Any CRM requir- chief strategy officer. “As CRM starts to unify business
ing end users to go to the CRM to use it and manually update information by going upstream into marketing processes,
conversation histories and contact information downstream into customer support, and cross-stream
is faulty at its core. Look for options that enable into finance, inventory, and invoicing processes, it will
“CRM HAS SEEN SOME users to be more effective at engaging customers transform what a business can learn about its customers.
ADOPTION ISSUES, and prospects by unifying contacts into a single Insights previously available only at a business-unit level
SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE system of record; enriching those records with will now be available at any segment level, or even at the
USERS DON’T WANT company and business insights; and empower- level of individual customers. Profitability and lifetime
TO PUT DATA INTO ing them to engage everywhere they work. value can be examined under any dimension captured by
THE SYSTEM.” Salesforce’s Johnson agrees. “Automat- CRM, like industry, geography, deal size, customer tenure,
ically keeping customer records up to date etc. That would be the Holy Grail for financial analysis.”
without tedious data entry by connecting a SugarCRM CEO Larry Augustin also thinks integrated
user’s email and calendar means small businesses spend data can help more SMBs succeed. “We find it surprising
less time on manual data entry and more time finding, that a lot of CRM users are not yet leveraging third-party
winning, and keeping customers.” data sources and services to augment the data in their
systems. CRM has seen some adoption issues, specifically
MANAGING RELATIONSHIPS INSTEAD OF DATA because users don’t want to put data into the system. And
Traditional CRM systems were built solely with the using data services does the heavily lifting for users, driv-
transactional sales team in mind, says Jon Lee, CEO and ing adoption in addition to enhanced productivity.”

38 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | OCTOBER 2018 www.destinationCRM.com


LEVERAGING AI TO KNOW MORE ABOUT CUSTOMERS
Augustin also points out the importance of good data to
artificial intelligence. “As AI and other insights-driven
approaches to CRM become more prevalent, we must
understand that we must first start with rich, deep—and
reliable!—data sets to gain meaningful insights.”
Infusionsoft CEO and cofounder Clate Mask agrees.
“AI and machine learning are enabling us to really under-
stand how users are benefiting from our products. Using
this data, we can then personalize and simplify the expe-
rience for our users—which in the end saves small busi-
nesses time as they are getting the benefits of the product
that best fits their specific needs.”
David Thompson, chief marketing officer of Fresh-
works, adds that “while AI has seemingly become the
nebulous answer to all questions about the future of sales
and marketing, it has real applications right now. We’re
starting to see our customers take advantage of AI-based
lead scoring, as an example, but we expect that adoption
will truly start to take off in the next year as the feature
proves its value. Qualifying leads continues to be thought
of as a manual process, and most automated approaches
to this point haven’t done the job. Customers should be
able to rely on their CRMs to be an intelligent partner,
SMALL BIZ BUZZ
and AI-based lead scoring is one area where they can see
immediate impact.”
TAKING ADVANTAGE OF TRAINING
AND BEST PRACTICES
Finally, maybe more small businesses would use CRM—
and use it to do more than the obvious things—if they
took advantage of the training and best-practices con-
tent available to them. Salesforce’s Johnson says that
“although 62 percent of SMBs feel they would benefit
from training that continually improves their operations,
there are many types of free training and resources avail-
able to them that they likely aren’t aware of. Free online
learning environments like Trailhead can help leaders and
their teams learn the technologies and strategies that they
need to be successful.”
These are just a few of the responses I could fit into this
year’s “ask the vendors” column. A big thank-you to all
of them for participating. Now I can start thinking about
what to ask them next year.
Brent Leary is cofounder of CRM Essentials, an Atlanta-based advisory firm focused
on small and midsize businesses. He is also the author of Barack 2.0: Social Media
Lessons for Small Businesses.

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