CRM for small business: Choosing the right solution

A customer relationship management (CRM) system is an essential tool for managing a company’s interactions with current and potential clients, including sales calls, marketing emails, and customer service requests. Its main purpose is to provide a unified picture of how a business works with each client, enabling it to identify problems, build stronger relationships, and ultimately fuel growth.

Many small business owners are unsure about how a CRM can benefit them or what features will deliver the best results. With some platforms now offering advanced functions such as AI (artificial intelligence), it can be tricky to make the right choice.

The simple truth is that CRMs can benefit any size of company, and they’re particularly useful for small businesses that need to do more with less. According to our research, 53% of SMB leaders are struggling with inconsistent data across the tools in their business. Consolidating systems and leveraging advanced technology, such as agentic AI, can help solve those problems.

In this guide, we’ll explain how a CRM can work in a small business setting, share the signs that a CRM could benefit your business, and give you a list of functions to look for when choosing a platform.

• How does a CRM work in a small business?
• Transform your small business with a CRM
• How The Grout Guy fueled 40% year-on-year growth with Salesforce
• 9 signs your small business needs a CRM
• The CRM features that matter most for small businesses
• Why Salesforce CRM is the perfect fit for small businesses
• Nurture customer relationships to build long-term growth
• FAQs

A CRM system helps your small business consolidate data about your customers, including how and where they first got in contact, what products they’re using, what they might be interested in, and how you’re communicating with them. CRMs are equally suitable for B2B and B2C business models.

CRMs can be on-premises, cloud-based, or a combination of both. Given the large amounts of data involved, many small and medium-sized businesses opt for a cloud-based CRM, as it’s easier to manage, can be more cost-effective, and is easier to scale as your business grows.

In terms of functions, an increasing number of small business CRM systems offer powerful automation tools to streamline the sales process, and this technology is advancing at a rapid rate. Agentic AI, for example, can improve customer service levels while also helping you follow up on marketing campaigns, improving your overall return on investment (ROI).

It’s easy to get swept up in features and functions, but the main focus of CRM is people. Effective customer relationship management is about organising all the information related to your current and potential customers, ensuring you keep them happy, and setting your team up to do what they do best.

CRM platforms do much more than track current and prospective customers. They also offer a range of features designed to streamline a small business’s processes. Here are some common benefits small business owners see after implementing a CRM:

Teams become more organised because a CRM centralises key customer details, like phone numbers, addresses, and billing information. Sales teams can use contact management to follow prospects through the sales cycle, from initial engagement to purchase. Marketing teams can use it to assess the impact of current campaigns and improve future efforts.

Our latest State of Sales report reveals that sales reps spend 60% of their time on non-selling tasks like hunting for the right pitch deck, manually entering notes into their applications, or chasing down internal approvals. CRMs that include agentic AI and other automation let sales teams get back to the work that matters most, like focusing on closing deals.

We’re in the era of personalised customer marketing, and it’s not the exclusive domain of huge organisations. A CRM can help your small business manage and automate marketing drip campaigns, provide insights into clients’ customer journeys, and track the performance of social media campaigns. You can also use data from your CRM to develop strategies around upselling, cross-selling, and recommending products based on purchase history.

Features such as first-contact resolution, contact tracking, and call recording can help you tailor responses to each client and boost overall customer service. Since the information on each of your customers sits in one central location, your customer support agents can quickly see previous interactions and act accordingly.

Implementing a CRM solution can help you reduce the operational costs of your small business. For example, by storing customer data in a cloud-based CRM, you can reduce or even eliminate reliance on expensive local servers. It also saves your sales team from getting bogged down in less-productive admin work.

The Grout Guy started as a one-man operation servicing customers in Western Australia. Like many small businesses, the company’s ‘system’ for tracking client interactions started with a simple notepad and progressed to a patchwork of technology-based tools.

Rather than streamlining processes, the growing tech stack only increased the manual workload. The dispatchers who were needed to manage tedious, multi-day work orders quickly outnumbered technicians in the field. The Grout Guy sought a CRM solution to help the company automate high-volume tasks and empower dispatchers and field technicians to better serve their clients.

With Agentforce Field Service at the centre, Salesforce implemented a CRM that helped The Grout Guy transform into a tech-driven business. Now the company’s sales team can quickly respond to incoming leads, book consultations, and create quotes, even when on the road.

Operationally, many workflows have been automated, scheduling has been optimised, and field technicians are able to provide a more proactive and efficient service.

Our latest State of Sales report highlights the prevalence and impact of tech bloat. Two-thirds of sales teams report using an average of eight tools to close deals, and 42% of sales reps say they feel overwhelmed by them.

Meanwhile, sales teams using CRMs with agentic AI are discovering that many of those challenges are being resolved. With AI-based agents now capable of completing tasks like prospecting and creating call summaries, 85% of sales agents say it has freed them up to focus on connecting with customers.

If you’re unsure whether a CRM is right for your small business, here are nine signs that it’s time to make the switch.

SMBs are experiencing the same problems with tool sprawl as larger organisations. Our research shows that the average SMB uses seven different business applications , and 46% of SMB leaders say they feel overwhelmed by too many tools. This can cost business owners as much as 1.5 hours per day due to inefficient practices.

Given these challenges, consolidating technology into a single, integrated CRM is one of the most effective ways of improving efficiency. The results are demonstrated by the fact that 66% of growing SMBs have already implemented a consolidated technology suite .

In the early stages, a small business may be managing a relatively small number of clients and leads, making it easy to track their needs on a simple spreadsheet or even in handwritten notes.

However, as your small business grows and your client base becomes increasingly complex, so does your customer relationship management. That’s when a CRM starts to make a lot more sense. If your team is struggling to remember when a prospect last heard from you or where a lead is in the sales funnel, a CRM can make everything a lot more organised.

It’s hard to manage the customer experience if you don’t understand what conversations they’re having with your business. Did they talk to Dave in Sales or Anne in Accounting? When did they last contact you? This doesn’t just make your business appear unprofessional; it can also make life much more difficult for your team.

A CRM provides a single source of truth, allowing your entire team to track and manage interactions with your customers.

Fifty-seven per cent of sales professionals say the sales cycle is getting longer, which means your communication with prospects can also be extremely detailed.

By centralising customer data, a CRM allows your sales team to track the history and progress of each lead, ensuring that each opportunity is properly managed. The ability to continuously monitor and engage with leads in a strategic manner is key to successfully closing deals in longer sales cycles.

Remember, many sales reps feel overwhelmed by the number of tools they’re required to use, which can have a direct impact on sales, marketing, and customer service.

A small business CRM system can help you organise large amounts of customer data, allowing for a more efficient sales process, optimised marketing campaigns, and more personalised customer support.

Many small businesses run on ‘gut feel’ or ‘what worked last time’, but that approach can lead to missed opportunities. A CRM can collate large amounts of data and provide insightful reports, such as sales forecasts, customer trends, and marketing analytics.

With this data-led approach, you can base your decisions on facts rather than feelings. Plus, the predictive capabilities of artificial intelligence are allowing CRMs to provide even more insights.

Organisation is important for a growing business, as things only become more complex as you scale. That’s why it’s easier to have the right tools in place from the outset. If you’re targeting an aggressive growth strategy, a CRM can ensure you don’t find yourself firefighting problems 12 or 18 months down the road.

CRMs can also drive business growth in their own right. Some proven benefits of CRMs include:

• More productive sales teams
• A single view of the customer
• Actionable analytics and data
• Customer-centric automation
• Proactive customer service interactions
• Simplified collaboration, such as through Slack
• Increased productivity from built-in AI
• Integration with existing business applications
• Access to information from any location
• Scalability as your business grows
• Powerful, enterprise-level security

Most small business owners are aware of AI and other automation tools, but they aren’t sure how or where to begin with implementation. A CRM that incorporates autonomous and assistive agents, marketing automation, and workflow automation offers your small business a fast and highly effective way of incorporating these tools into your daily operations.

For example, AI sales agents can improve the efficiency of your sales team, and 94% of sales leaders who use agents say they’re essential for meeting business demands.

Alternatively, CRM workflow automation tools can help you streamline time-consuming tasks, such as organising customers’ information, sending out reminders, or cross-checking compliance requirements.

pay.com.au is an example of an Australian business that wanted to leverage automation as part of its growth strategy. They adopted Salesforce’s Data 360 and Agentforce solutions, which allowed them to improve customer experience and overall efficiency.

Price comparison can be deceptive, as vendors often don’t provide like-for-like quotes. Plus, lower initial estimates may not create long-term value if some features are excluded. For a small business, à la carte pricing allows you to pay only for the features you need, but you should be mindful of the features you may want to add in the future and their cost implications.

Most CRM pricing is based on the number of leads or customers you can have stored in your database. This is known as a contact limit, and it can lead to much higher costs as your business grows. It’s worth asking how easy it is to switch plans or upgrade your CRM over time.

Eighty-one per cent of SMB leaders say they would spend more for technology that scales. Many CRM systems are designed with scalability in mind, but you should investigate how those you’re considering scale. For example, can it support adding more customers, employees, and data?

Scalability should allow your business to add new functionalities, integrate additional services, and increase the number of users without compromising performance.

Artificial intelligence within CRMs can encompass predictive analytics, generative AI, and autonomous agents. SMBs are embracing this technology, with 75% either already using it or currently experimenting with it . Of those SMBs already using AI, 90% say that it has improved efficiency.

Workflow management tools that provide task reminders, project tracking, and approval automation simplify your processes and ensure your teams can manage tasks and deadlines. For example, rather than manually changing a lead from prospect to customer status, workflow management tools can automate the process based on prerequisites or specified actions.

Bringing all customer data into a single unified platform is one of the key benefits of a CRM, so you should check that the system actually does this. Confirm that it draws information from sales, marketing, and any customer support interactions, as this will become critical as your business grows.

Mobile CRMs allow your team to manage their daily workflow from any device or location, but they need to be user-friendly and offer real value. Some areas to check include the ease of setup, the user interface, the availability of guided workflows, and integration capabilities.

Reporting and pipeline visibility ensure that you can monitor the entire sales process, including who owns an opportunity, what its value is, when it’s scheduled to close, and any next steps. Check whether the platform features automated alerts for key actions, as this can significantly improve efficiency.

The ability to integrate existing applications with your CRM, as well as how well those integrations work, will have a direct impact on how effective your CRM is. For example, communication tools should work seamlessly with the CRM platform, as any disconnects may mean your customer data is inaccurate.

Some CRMs offer integrated ecommerce features, such as chatbots, 360-degree customer journey tracking, customer reviews, and even the ability to launch or modify ecommerce pages. For a small business that relies on selling products online, these should be central to any discussions about a new CRM.

Every business is unique, so a CRM should be flexible enough to meet your needs. Modularity is a common approach that keeps costs manageable while allowing you to choose only those features you need. Some CRMs also offer deeper-level personalisation, such as customised sales reports or unique fields in your customer database.

To reduce the risk of data breaches, consider how and where your CRM data is stored. As we highlighted in our latest Small and Medium Business Trends Report, 84% of SMB leaders are confident in their ability to keep data secure, but less than half have implemented measures such as regular application updates, two-factor authentication, or even basic password protection.

Top cloud-based CRMs offer all of these features alongside advanced encryption and data backups, meaning they’ll give your security measures an immediate upgrade.

Small businesses need a CRM solution that’s cost-effective, flexible, and has adequate scope to scale as they grow. That’s where Salesforce’s small business solutions excel. Here are some of the key reasons:

• Pricing: Salesforce’s small business CRM systems are available as all-in-one suites or on a product-by-product basis, allowing you to tailor a solution to your exact needs and budget. Suites start with a free pack with two user licenses, or you can step up to a Starter or Pro level with affordable monthly per-user rates.
• Scalability: Our three small business suites allow you to choose a level that best fits your own needs. As you grow, you also have access to our enterprise-grade solutions, such as Sales Cloud Enterprise, Service Cloud Enterprise, and Marketing Cloud Next Growth Edition.
• Customisation: All small business suites, including the free edition, allow you to create customisable reports and dashboards.
• Artificial intelligence (AI): All Salesforce products include powerful, built-in AI that becomes progressively more comprehensive in each suite. Our professional services experts are also on hand to provide detailed guidance.
• Customer support: Anyone can access the Salesforce Help Portal at any time. Resources include self-help and documentation pages, along with chat or phone assistants. You can even retain a dedicated support team.
• Training: Trailhead is Salesforce’s innovative training platform that includes experiential learning, gamified progression, and content to suit all levels.