The Business Bulletin
How essential is a CRM for your business? Ideally a CRM is something you would implement when you’re starting out in business when you have a limited amount of data to input to set it all up. However, when you start out the costs of software and affordability of administration are a big consideration, and most entrepreneurs have an opposition to doing administration themselves (well I know I do!).
Therefore, you start as we did with
The way we were working to name a
paper systems complemented with
few of the pain points.
spreadsheets. This system worked fine for us at the start while client
■ All technicians’ service sheets
numbers were small. As the numbers
used were in book form and
built however, relying on memory and
we had 7 different types of
spreadsheets more and more ,you start
forms dependant on the
to realise you do not have a system you
service being carried out
can expand your business with. At some point a decision has to be made: are you going to invest in some software to help do the work for you? We concluded not doing this would result in the business growing ahead of the implementation of the sufficient systems to fulfil increased demand. The problems this can lead to is a decline in service levels and demotivation of staff, this is to be avoided at all costs as you will lose your early momentum of driving your business out of its infancy stage.
■ We would wait for the return of the paperwork sheets to assess any technicians’ recommendations and to invoice the client. The sheets were generally coming back on a weekly basis. This delayed invoicing and client’s recommendations being dealt with in a timely manner ■ All completed sheets were then filed
Issue 7 – Operations and Resources | 43
