If an average person were asked to name a tool which can help collate, segregate, and analyze data, a majority would say Excel. The current user base of this platform is somewhere between 1.1 to 1.5 billion, which is a testament to its robust functionalities.
As a business owner, you too are probably using spreadsheets to store your data. You would have probably created dozens of different sheets to store different information, such as sales data, customer information, forecasts, etc. In the early days of your business, this system will suffice since there are limited team members who must update sheets for the few deals that you are closing.
But what will happen as your teams keep growing, become more compartmentalized in their work, and as your operations expand? It will result in complete chaos and mismanagement.
Here are some of Excel’s limitations which will lead to this:
- The fate of your data is completely dependent on manual efforts. Your sheets will reflect data accurately only if your teams regularly update them. 71% of sales reps agree that large portions of their day are wasted in such manual data entries.
- Multiple users cannot simultaneously read and write data on Excel. Inter-team collaboration is a must for efficient data management, and this limitation will harm your business health as your team expands.
- There is no scope for attachments. Corresponding documents for every bit of data, such as invoices, personal documents, quotations etc. must be separately stored and accessed.
- It simply stores your customer data but does not enable you to gain a better understanding of your customers using the data. It cannot draw parallels between your customer’s requirements and your product offerings, in a way that allows you to personalize your approach.
Granted that Excel is a very powerful tool. But it is not the best fit for the specific requirements of growing businesses. The primary task for an SMB is to build a solid customer base by offering top-notch services and closing more and more deals. This must be done with limited resources, since the teams are typically small sized. They need something more than Excel; they need an all-in-one tool that satisfies their needs and helps them achieve their desired outcome. Enter CRM!
What is CRM?
Before we move on to explaining why you need CRM, it is essential to explain what it actually is. It stands for Customer Relationship Management, and it helps you serve your customers better and foster strong business relations with them. However, this is just one of the many aspects that CRM takes care of. It helps in the end-to-end management of all your business operations, right from the stage when you get an incoming lead to the stage of deal closure. Business owners are now increasingly realizing the importance of this software and are adopting CRM within 5 years of commencement of business.
CRM’s Advantages over Excel
We have already gone over the areas in which Excel falls short in aligning with the requirements of SMBs. Ler us now explore how CRM not only resolves all of Excel’s limitations, but also has other advantages over it:
1.Effective Lead Management:
Leads are potential sales opportunities. Growing businesses cannot afford to let any incoming lead slip through the cracks, and CRM prevents this from happening. It auto captures leads from various sources and directly places them at the top of your funnel. You can segregate the leads to identify the ones that have more potential to make a sale, and focus efforts on those. This is not possible in Excel, wherein every lead would have to be manually entered with the high risk of some getting missed out.
2.Pipeline Management:
It is easy to use Excel to track the exact status of a handful of deals. But when your ongoing deal number increases, this approach is problematic. CRMs have robust pipeline management features, which tells you the real-time status of every deal’s stages. You can also set specific actions required against every stage, such as sending a document, creating a quote, etc. Furthermore, you can create multiple and customizable pipelines that reflect your business processes.
3.Task Automation:
The biggest advantage of CRM is that it takes over all redundant and time-consuming tasks for your teams. Spreadsheets will only allow you to note down that a call must be made, or an email must be sent to a particular customer on a particular date. Sales CRM Software takes this a step further and automatically executes the actions that you have noted down. This reduces the risk of manual errors and helps your teams focus solely on selling.
4.Team Collaboration:
CRM helps your isolated departments to work together. It breaks down silos and opens lines for communication and data sharing between teams. Tasks can be delegated from within the software and their progress can be tracked. Excel does not have any features to enable collaboration.
5.Integrations:
A CRM can be synced with all other applications and software in your technology stack. Its functions get expanded, as you can integrate applications for emailing, call management, E-commerce, social media, etc. with the system. Hence, all your operations and data can be managed through a single platform. This is not possible in Excel, which is ideally suited only for data storage.
Conclusion
There are hence numerous pressing reasons why growing businesses need CRM over Excel. CRM has diverse use cases and can optimize almost all your operations. Despite its efficiency, Excel cannot help in other major operations besides data management.
Since SMBs too are now investing in CRMs, many players have emerged with software that suits their needs and budget. Kylas, Less Annoying CRM, Zoho Bigin, or Leadsquared are some viable options to consider. These can set you on a path of exponential success and provide valuable returns on your investment.