Outgrowing Contact Management Software into CRM

on 29 Dec 07 by Dan

One of our customers for Leopard CRM is a small business who were outgrowing their contact management software.  Contact management software can be a great resource for small businesses in the early years.  Sometimes contact management is all you need, but you can outgrow it quite quickly.

The basic function of contact management software is to have a place to keep all of the contact information for each of your customers.  This can be information like name, address and phone number.  Other information about customers can be either stored in staff members brains, or some other creative way.  As the business expands, the methods can become even more creative as the limitations of contact management software are met.

The customer I mentioned was actually using some customised fields within their contact management software to track customer purchase history.  They would enter codes into a customised field when the customer purchased something from the business.  This creative method actually worked for quite some time, but eventually, they realised that a proper, fully featured CRM software system was needed.

Along with the contact management software, the business kept other information in spreadsheets, folders and word processing documents.  They had a big bookshelf in the middle of the office that held printouts of their customers sale information that everyone needed to reference.

By moving to Leopard CRM, the business was able to computerise customer sales information and expand the limited information that the contact management software allowed them to track.  This meant that staff could now access customer buying history with a few clicks of the mouse, as well as minimise data entry mistakes and expand their marketing opportunities.

Overall, this has meant that the business has gone on to the next level in size and revenue.  Although a simple contact management software solution can work for a small business, its limitations are soon felt, and without looking into alternatives like CRM software, the growth of the business could suffer.

Leopard CRM aims to bring businesses into the next level of growth in sales and efficiency.  Ask us how by contacting us at sales@leopardcrm.com.

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