Many SMBs Benefit from Adopting a CRM Solution

Five CRM Initiatives that Can Help You Build Better Customer Relations

Capterra, a free software solutions research firm, surveyed more than 500 businesses to find out more about who uses CRM software and how. Not entirely surprisingly, 52 percent of those responding said that they work for organizations with “less than $10 million in annual revenue.” This goes to show that when we think of customer relationship management (CRM), we should think about all sizes of companies—not just the enterprise.

The report continued to explain that SMBs are one of the fastest growth segments among CRM users. It also found that most companies reported to have adopted CRM software when they had between two and 500 employees—which puts the bulk of them in the SMB category when they began using the software. And two thirds of those surveyed had at least 100 customers when they embraced CRM.

So it seems appropriate that Wix.com, a cloud-based web development platform, is now offering its own CRM solution called MyAccount CRM. The platform is directed toward SMBs that need to better organize their business activities. MyAccount CRM allows them to do so with one simple online platform.

According to the company’s release information, the new solution was created to help SMBs automate and manage business processes including:

• Organizing and managing contacts
• Sending email campaigns
• Automating communications for new subscribers
• Managing products
• Reviewing website activity
• Administering website settings

MyAccount CRM allows SMB owners to set up customer contact lists through their own website, which can integrate with their existing contact lists. Through WixHive, the owners can use an API to see the actions of their website visitors and store that data to be accessed via other apps for analysis. The main Wix platform offers access to sales, bills and inventory data, which can be managed via the MyAccount CRM dashboard.

For SMBs, this can help them stay on top of their growing list of customers. Keeping customers in-the-know and happy with the company’s service is one key factor in the adoption of CRM solutions. Avishai Abrahami, Wix CEO, likes to think of the solution as part of the brain of the business:

“MyAccount is the central nervous system, coordinating numerous essential business elements in a single, unified setting. We’ve created an ecosystem where small business owners can seamlessly integrate their web creation with robust business applications and functionalities that help them manage and grow online.”  

According to SmallBizTrends, Wix says that since rollout, the CRM solution has collected and stored more than 164 million contacts.

Kim Mays has been editing and writing about IT since 1999. She currently tackles the topics of small to midsize business technology and introducing new tools for IT. Follow Kim on Google+ or Twitter.