Efficiently Using CRM For SaaS Businesses

Once the SaaS startups are out of their initial phase and gain some sort of stability, they are posed with new practical challenges. This includes, team management, customer support, communication breakdowns and many other organizational challenges which can be deeply overwhelming. Apart from these barriers, new businesses also face the issue of small budgets.

There are many Customer Relationship Management Software which can greatly facilitate businesses in all the above mentioned problems and as a result, SaaS businesses are able to function smoothly. Conversely, new businesses cannot afford these expensive CRM solutions. It also does not make sense for a SaaS startup to tie a large portion of their budget into CRM services, of which they probably won’t even use all the features.

In such situations, softwares like SubscriptionFlow come in handy, because they essentially provide all the services and integrations other CRM softwares do but for a very budget friendly price.

Keep reading ahead to understand how SaaS startups can use CRM features to deliver a frictionless experience to subscribers.

Understanding Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management, CRM for short, refers to all practices utilized by businesses to manage the interactions of customers with their business. It aims to improve customer retention by delivering an impeccable customer experience. It places customers at the center of all operations and focuses on building a better relationship with them by extensively collecting and then analyzing customer information.

In recent years, like everything else, there has been a trend towards automation and as a result many CRM softwares have become important parts of SaaS business operations. However, as mentioned above, for new SaaS businesses a full-blown CRM system is not required if other CRM solutions for SaaS enterprises are explored. Some common components of CRM are listed below.

Increased Automation: Most daily functions of businesses are repetitive tasks and after a while it gets very tedious to do them again and again. This is a huge problem because it can become very difficult to do over and over. One example of this is the Thank You email that has to be sent after a payment is made. CRM automation can allow better management of customers by allowing businesses to do this automatically without any human intervention.
Integrative Solutions: SaaS businesses have alot of needs and require many other platforms to smooth out their day-to-day functioning. Again, it would be a very tedious task to login into all these platforms thus an easier solution is integration. With integration, both the customers and the enterprise are able to have access to all the required platforms with a simple login.
Data Storage: It is a famous saying that knowledge is power, and in today’s business world this holds very true because the key to success is the access to customer data. CRM can help organize the vast amount of customer information neatly, which can then be used to optimize the given service.

Using CRM For Subscription Businesses

The most prominent feature of SaaS subscription businesses is that the success of their enterprise is greatly predicated on their ability to deliver a good customer experience. If a customer does not feel satisfied with the service they are being provided then they will fail to see the value in a business. This will give rise to churn and give a bad reputation to your business.

Thus, it is important for SaaS businesses to implement measures that improve customer experience. This will influence the customers to renew their subscriptions and stay with your business for the long haul. It will also help businesses in gaining new customers through word of mouth.

Below is the list of ways that efficient CRM can help SaaS subscription businesses.

Accuracy: One of the biggest advantages of automation is that it ensures accuracy. Manual work is prone to many errors due to the involvement of the human aspect. Even a single wrong digit can snowball to cause huge problems for a company. There are many stages in SaaS subscription billing. They include invoice generation, billing, payments, renewals, updates and much more. Efficient CRM systems not only facilitate the execution of these stages but they also help store the data regarding all of these processes against the name of every customer. This neatly organized information can then be used easily for analysis and optimization.
Greater Personalization: With growing competition in every SaaS industry, giving increased personalization can become a great competitive advantage for businesses. Customers today demand the service to be tailored to their exact need and with an ever expanding customer base there are alot of people to cater to. However, CRM can solve this problem by storing customer data which gives key insights into the preference of customers. The data can tell what features they use more and what type of volume they are consuming.
By taking this usage data, companies can then set up pricing plans and billing terms that give the most value to customers. This will also give an aura of fairness to customers because they will see that they are not being charged fairly according to their needs. This will also contribute to the long term customer satisfaction and retention.
Efficient Sales Process: It is very important to streamline sales processes for SaaS businesses. With a good CRM solution, the entire sales process can be spelt out for employees and all the repetitive tasks can be automated. These processes can also be easily updated when the need arises for a few tweaks here and there.

CRM systems make sure that no tasks are neglected or any important detail is neglected. As a result, this frees up the core team to focus on much important strategic decisions related to a business. The overall benefit is that the everyday operation becomes much smoother and everything runs swimmingly.

To Sum Up

If your business is out of the initial hanger and on the runway to success then this is the right time to introduce CRM solutions. Before full comminiting to a full-blown CRM software and tying up your investment in it, explore your options. Proper CRM management will award increased agility to your business and take away the tediousness out of it.