As a small business owner, you likely feel like you’re juggling a million things at once. Between managing your staff, keeping customers happy, and actually growing your business, there never seem to be enough hours in the day.
It’s no secret that many small teams take on responsibilities beyond their job titles. The office manager handles billing, the sales rep responds to customer service emails, and the business owner tries to keep it all straight in a messy spreadsheet.
What if there was a better way? One centralized software to lighten your load, improve organization, and help provide better service to your customers in one fell swoop? Enter Townsquare Interactive’s customer relationship management (CRM) software, a part of their business management platform.
This article will explain the many CRM integration benefits you can expect for small businesses.
Understanding CRM Integration
CRM software helps businesses manage relationships and interactions with both potential and existing customers. It’s an invaluable organizational tool that compiles each client’s communications, personal details, purchase history, and more into one centralized database.
Without integration in place, CRM data lives separately from your website. You must manually transfer any new customer information gathered online into your CRM system. And you might reference customer history in the CRM when communicating via your website or email. But there’s no automatic syncing between systems.
CRM integration means connecting your CRM software with the other tools you use. Like your website, for example. This is usually done in one of two ways:
- Baking the CRM right into your website from the get-go (Townsquare Interactive can help with that!)
- Using a third-party tool like Zapier to connect your CRM and website
8 Benefits of Website and CRM Integration For Small Businesses
While paying developers or apps costs extra, integrating your website and CRM provides ample benefits that make the investment worthwhile for most SMBs. Let’s explore those perks for both your business and your customers.
More Customer Data
Today’s market revolves around the customer experience (CX). Research shows that nearly 75% of consumers will spend more money for good CX. Gathering customer data helps you tailor communications and marketing to each client’s preferences and behaviors. Sending targeted emails based on interests, offering personalized product recommendations, or providing product walkthroughs are just three examples.
A CRM with website integration allows you to compile even more data points in one spot. You can track website behaviors, purchase history, email open rates, and real-time interactions. For a florist, this information might include favorite flower types, occasion spending averages, seasonality trends, and more. Segment customers based on these data points for highly tailored outreach.
Integrated Billing
The online checkout process is often a pain point for customers. Complicated payment flows lead many to abandon purchases altogether. Syncing customer data from your CRM to auto-populate billing details on your website streamlines buying. This improved buying experience increases conversion rates.
Bonus: Townsquare Interactive’s platform lets you accept credit cards right on your website. It’s all integrated. So it looks professional and trustworthy to your customers.
Easy Appointment Booking
Service businesses know the headaches around managing customer appointments. Missed bookings, double-booked slots, and confusing paper trails. Our platform lets customers book appointments directly on your website, which then automatically syncs with your CRM calendar.
Consolidating this information in one spot mitigates scheduling mishaps and provides data to improve operations. For instance, you can track which services customers book online to adjust staff scheduling. Or identify peak booking times and run promotions to fill slower periods. The possibilities are endless.
Connected Marketing
We all know marketing is essential for growth. But it can be a lot to manage. Especially when you’re trying to run campaigns across multiple channels. With CRM and website integration, you can collect new email subscribers from website lead magnets. These are automatically sent to your CRM mailing lists.
Let’s say you’ve got a lead magnet on your site, like a free e-book or a discount code. When someone signs up, their info gets zapped right to your CRM. From there, you can segment this customer data based on preferences and history to create targeted email and SMS campaigns.
Our software also includes:
- Drag-and-drop email builders.
- Customizable templates.
- The ability to schedule and automate campaigns.
Thus, you can reach your customers easily without starting from scratch each time.
Better Customer Service
Research shows that 90% of customers expect businesses to respond to questions immediately. For 60% of them, that means 10 minutes or less. Don’t keep them waiting! Our integrated inbox provides real-time notifications when customers contact you online. Respond instantly, regardless of location, to provide exemplary service.
The system also compiles every prior interaction with each client in one spot for reference. Give personalized service backed by purchase history and communications data. And don’t stress about security. We prioritize data protection. Rest assured your sensitive CRM and customer data remains safe as well.
Automation Capabilities
Automating repetitive tasks is another way to work smarter, not harder. Set up workflows like sending confirmation emails when customers sign up for your email list on your website. Or automatically enroll purchasers of certain products into buyer rewards programs.
Workflows also nurture leads by scheduling follow-up tasks, such as sending info packets or discount codes to those who’ve shown interest but haven’t yet bought.
Lead Management
Don’t let another potential customer fall through the cracks again. Our CRM tracks every lead and allows you to prioritize follow-up accordingly. Segment contacts by interaction level to differentiate new leads from hot, warm, or cold leads based on activity.
Tools like lead scoring help identify the most promising prospects. Strategic lead management ensures you focus energy where it’s most likely to drive sales.
Improved Team Communication
While customers reap many direct benefits, connecting your platforms also helps with team communication and having them work better together. All staff can access real-time customer data and sync calendars instantly within the CRM.
Begin Your Website CRM Integration Today
In summary, integrating your website and CRM platform connects the dots for both you and your customers. It provides operational efficiency through centralization, automation, and organization. But it also allows you to better personalize your offerings to meet the needs of each client.
At Townsquare Interactive, we specialize in connecting platforms like your website and CRM to streamline processes and help small businesses succeed. See what a connected online presence can do for your small business – contact us today!