Is customer relationship management feasible for a small business?

Customer relationship management is the acquisition, storage and analysis of customer information. Customer relationship management is very feasible for a small business, but the degree of difficulty can vary. Looking at the three parts of Customer Relationship Management we can see why certain types of small businesses have more or less trouble making customer relationship management feasible:

ACQUISITION : How are you going to attract new customers? Do you want rapid growth? If so you need to have an aggressive plan. Naturally more aggressive plans mean more time, money and effort. If your wide-span growth plan includes costly advertising, hiring of a marketing firm, and using your capital solely on the acquisition of customers, than you probably need to find other scaled down methods of managing your customer relationships. On the other hand, if you are planning on running a less aggressive type of business and don't need as much hype to get the kind of customers you are interested in, very simple tactics like word-of-mouth advertising or referrals may suit your needs just fine.

STORAGE : Like the acquisition of customers you can decide that you need to take a more active or docile approach to the storage of information regarding customer data. Some companies rely so heavily on huge customer banks that additional software or employees are needed just to manage it. For example, if you are involved with transactions with hundreds of internet buyers a day you are going to need a more complex customer relationship management technique than if you deal with one or two larger purchases a week. Again, the feasibility of having a customer relationship management plan depends on the abilities of your small business to cope with the scope and scale of the information that will need to be stored.

ANALYSIS : Now that you have your information and have found a way to store it, you must also have a way to analyze what you have. What is the point in acquiring and storing customer information if you are never going to use it? The analysis of customer information provides valuable information into the type of market you are trying to target. For example, you may realize patterns or similarities between customers that will give you insight in to how to better appeal to them. If you discover that the majority of your customers are stay-at-home mothers, you would want to advertise in newspaper circulars or TV commercials. Likewise, if the majority of your customers are away from home all day, billboard, newspaper, or e-mail advertising may be better alternatives.

Here are some more detailed factors to consider when determining what kind of customer relationship management technique will be feasible for your business:

Staffing - Remember that as you broaden your scope you are only capable of doing so much. You may need to consider additional staff needed to handle the task of customer relationship management.

Sophistication (Resources) - Are you going to need software, consulting services, or extra money for marketing? Consider how sophisticated you want your customer relationship management to be. Sometimes for a small business large-scale thinking is not financially feasible.

Technological Requirements - Will you need special equipment to handle your customer relationship management technique? Do you have the technical knowledge to run the various programs available? If not, can you hire someone better suited to handle your anticipated technological requirements?

Implement a Project that is Right for Your Business - Above all the feasibility of managing customer relationships is going to depend on your ability to implement a project that is going to work for your small business. You may need to start with a very simple plan and then build your way up (as your resources grow) into a more sophisticated operation.

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