Why Contractors Need Customer Relationship Management Software
Gone are the days of excel spreadsheets, sticky notes and an outdated Rolodex of business cards. Not having a central hub for contact, customer, and project management can cost construction business owners time and money. Using a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, like Followup CRM, creates a one-stop system that organizes all the valuable data flowing in and out of your office, and helps you leverage that data for continued success.
You might think that a CRM tool is better suited for other industries, and most of the time—it's true. CRMs are not usually designed with construction crews in mind. But Followup CRM knows how differently you work because we're contractors too.
To see how Followup CRM can work for you, watch our video demo.
At A Glance Transparency for Construction Business Owners
Even the best managers don't always know who is dead weight on their team. Having organized data and leads for construction projects improves team efficiency, and allows you to see your sales team's individual deadlines, goals, outputs, conversion rates, and more to get a better picture of where your company stands. You can download our weekly sales meeting guide for tips on how to connect with your team and run sales meetings that improve your bottom line.
Reduce Paperwork and Streamline Processes
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Don't let the clutter on your desk reflect the clutter in your business. Going digital with your construction customer and project data management means access anywhere, anytime. There is no simple way to research trends or filter through your file cabinet, and losing a sheet of paper can sometimes mean losing a customer. Easily find information about a customer or the state of a project while away from your office by logging into Followup CRM on your mobile phone.
Having a web-based CRM means no long or costly installation and training. You can log in on your desktop, tablet, or smartphone and all your information is safely guarded in the cloud. Using a cloud CRM system to collect, save, analyze and utilize data means more time back on your schedule.
Manage Contacts for Construction Projects
Managing contacts is more than managing customers. Contacts are anyone and everyone that interact with your company. Storing and managing these contacts in a CRM help you:
- Differentiate between a regular contact and a high quality contact
- Safely store contact information
- Manage vendor information for your day-to-day operations
- Track potential partnerships
- Win bids by keeping track of bid forms and request for proposals (RFP)
- Know your history with each bidder
- Identify the decision-makers for a project
- Centralize all contact information, allowing your team to personalize communications
Non-customer contacts may play a big role in your contracting work, helping you score renovation projects and construction bids. Relationship building is an essential part of running a successful business, including contracting work. Keeping tabs on contact information in this way allows everyone on your team to personalize their interactions. Remembering to mention important details about a project or even personal touches like well wishes for a spouse can make the difference between a contact or customer choosing to do business with you, or someone else.
High Quality Customer Relationship Management for Contractors
How you manage customers can make or break a business. Keeping customer information in one, easy to use place means consistent and high quality interactions with prospective and current clients. Anticipating customer need is an excellent practice for any business owner, and using a CRM makes it simple. Followup CRM helps you help your customers with a clean interface to see all customizable client information on one page.
This streamlined process establishes credibility. Imagine misplacing the details of a project slated to start next week…while you're on the phone with the client. The lack of professionalism in an interaction like that is enough to permanently scare away some customers and erode trust in you and your crew to get the job done right.
There is also a value to storing customer information over a period of time. Pulling customer history lets you compare trends over years, or to determine which clients created most word-of-mouth buzz for your business.
While it's important to focus efforts to grow your business with hot leads and new clients, it’s vital to remember your loyal and longtime customers. Don't let growth for your contracting company create a downturn in customer satisfaction. Valued customers should feel just that--valued. A CRM captures all these moving parts to make one easy system for great customer relationship management.
Project Management Software for Contractors
Having incomplete project or bid information due to a lack of organization can lose opportunities, diminish the quality of work you provide, ruin your crew's morale, and will create much more room for error. How can you get the work done when you don't know what has been agreed upon?
Color coded information, charts, and graphs are some of the visual tools on Followup CRM you can use to keep projects on track. You, and your team, can see what's coming down the pipeline and what needs to be prioritized. Why risk your company's name on poor or lackluster project management? Find your projects, bids, tasks, deadlines, estimates, work orders and many more customizable options all in one convenient place. You'll never have to worry again if your sales team has the most updated excel sheet for a project.
The best thing a centralized system for project management offers is time. Spending time entering data into separate systems, searching for it, and analyzing it ends up being hours that add up to years. You can depend on one first-class platform to give all the information you need to know to grow.
Minimize the hassle, maximize your dollars. Find out more about Followup CRM and the construction and renovation trades we serve.
