Best Personal CRM

Most people distinguish between their professional and personal lives by drawing a distinct line between them. However, there are occasions when the tools you use in your professional life, such as a day planner and an address book, can be beneficial to you in your personal life, or vice versa.

Some of the fundamentals of customer relationship management, sometimes known as CRM software, may already be familiar to you. Do you have access to your own personal CRM as well? The use of a personal CRM platform can be beneficial for both the growth of your business and the development of the connections that are most important to you.

What Is a Personal Customer Relationship Management System?

CRM, as we mentioned in the introduction, is an abbreviation for customer relationship management. This refers to software that you use for contact management, customer nurturing, sales and marketing, and maintaining a centralized record of previous exchanges. Leads, future customers, and other professional contacts are all included in your CRM’s contact list.

Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in customer relationship management (CRM) for personal usage. This is referred to as a personal customer relationship management (CRM) solution. Many of the characteristics you are familiar with and enjoy in your professional customer relationship management system can be used to CRM for personal connections. You may also make advantage of these features to help you grow your own small business.

Why You Should Use a Personal Customer Relationship Management System?

You already spend so much time in your CRM software for work-related duties that you can’t conceive using it for personal tasks as well as work-related tasks. It just seems like overkill. It’s possible that you’re on the following list of people who would gain the most from having a personal CRM, therefore you should reconsider your strategy. Here’s a rundown of the list:

• You’re a start-up company or a self-employed individual trying to grow and extend your business or profession.
• You participate in numerous conferences, expos, and networking events, and you always have a pocketful of business cards in your possession.
• You have numerous friends, but you don’t get to spend as much time with them as you would want.
• You have a large family that is spread across the country and the world, and you find it difficult to keep in touch with everyone.
• You have a lot of activities on your schedule that you want to attend, but you end up missing a lot of them because of scheduling problems.

Let’s take a closer look at the items on that list one more time.

Small companies and self-employed persons are among the most vulnerable groups in society. According to data from the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy published in Forbes in 2018, the vast majority of small firms will survive their crucial first year of operation. Only 20% of businesses fail, but if you don’t put in your best effort on your own or in your small business, you could find yourself in that group. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a must.

Networking

This goes hand in hand with keeping track of the contacts you make while attending the various events you attend. Traveling across the country to attend trade shows and conventions is not an inexpensive endeavor. Yes, you can get package offers, but you’ll still have to pay for your own airfare, hotel, and tickets to the actual event itself.

As a result of the contacts you may make at the convention, you may be able to recuperate some of your trip expenses by establishing new business relationships. Unless, of course, you don’t have a software program for scanning in and making the most of the massive pile of business cards you’ve amassed over time. At that point, you’re more or less squandering your time and money.

a large group of friends or family members

You’re simply one person with 24 hours in a day, just like everyone else, and you don’t have any special abilities. Despite this, it becomes increasingly difficult to see certain of your friends and family due to your personal and professional obligations. You make an effort to set aside some time for them a few times a year, but even this does not always work out as planned.

The importance of maintaining communication throughout the time between visits cannot be overstated. This will assist you in maintaining your relationship till you can spend more time together. A CRM that is tailored to your needs can help you connect more deeply with friends and family, allowing you to feel more connected to everyone.

Events that were not attended

You’re really busy, and as a result, you completely forget about your friend’s birthday celebration. After all, it happens to everyone, doesn’t it? As a result, the first offense is considered to be forgiven. That is, until you forget their next birthday, and then the one after that as well. As a result, your friend will most likely have a significant problem with you, and with good reason.

Ignoring important events like this is embarrassing, and it gives the impression that your life is completely out of control. It is no longer necessary to operate in this manner.

The Advantages of Using Personal Customer Relationship Management

If the information above isn’t enough to persuade you to give this CRM a shot, consider the following impressive features of the software.

Time that has been saved

As previously said, we only have 24 hours in a day, seven days a week. While some people go through each day feeling that there is never enough time, others are able to manage their time more effectively than they do.

One significant distinction between those who have more time and those who have less time is that the former group makes use of customer relationship management software (CRM). In the same way that software saves you time in a professional situation, it can also save you time in your personal life.

If you want to make your life easier later on, you can tag and apply filters to your contacts. The answer is yes, this will need an initial time commitment. Nonetheless, the labeled and filtered information will not only make it easier to find who you are looking for, but it will also help to keep your lists more organized without the need for manual intervention.

All of your communications in one convenient location

You’ve probably tried reading through your old text conversations with a friend or business colleague in order to find a specific message. You begin with good intentions, scrolling a few pages until you notice a social network notification pop up on your screen. Perhaps it’s an email or even a text message from a friend or family member who has sent you something.

Before you know it, you’ve diverted your attention away from your text records and have completely forgotten why you were trying to find them in the first place.

You would as well not have wasted your time in that manner, wouldn’t you? Your customer relationship management system (CRM) may consolidate all of your conversations with friends, family, and business connections into a one location. This applies to phone call records, text messages, emails, and even postings and comments on social media platforms.

Contact List that is well-organized

Keeping your contact list structured is especially important if you’re using your CRM for a combination of professional and personal purposes. You wouldn’t want to unintentionally send an email to your new customer about your niece’s third birthday celebration this weekend, now would you? One, it would be incredibly embarrassing, and it would also have the potential to destroy that professional relationship in an instant.

We’re also fairly certain that your mother does not want to be privy to any of your communications with that executive whom you met at your most recent networking function. By using CRM to organize your contact list, you can avoid making these preventable mistakes. You can use the filters and categories stated above, or you can construct specific lists and keep contacts divided in this manner.

There is no one who gets lost in the shuffle.

Have you ever intended to send an email, but forgot to actually push the send button, resulting in the message being in your drafts folder? Perhaps you have a fleeting impulse to follow up with your relative about their anticipated invitation later in the day when you have more free time on your hands. Unfortunately, thoughts can be transitory in their existence. When you’re having a particularly hectic day, the notion may enter your mind and then disappear just as fast. You don’t realize you forgot to RSVP to the gathering until your cousin yells at you in a text message.

As soon as you have scheduled your tasks on your business and/or personal calendars, your CRM will give you reminders and notifications when a scheduled event is approaching. This assists you in remembering everyone in all aspects of your life without undermining relationships or destroying trust in your abilities

What You Can Do With a Personal Customer Relationship Management System?

The procedures and examples provided above demonstrated that it will only take you the best part of an afternoon to have your personal CRM up and running on a computer. Even though you will gain the maximum benefit from software rather on a spreadsheet because software provides the features we discussed before, a contacts management spreadsheet is an excellent place to start if you don’t already have one. It’s certainly preferable to doing nothing.

You’ll quickly discover that this form of CRM can be applied in a variety of situations. For example, when you first start your company, you may choose to hire employees by looking via your existing relationships. You will find it much easier to evaluate who is the best match for the position when everyone is assembled in one central spot. Once you’ve done that, all you have to do is send them an email or call them to find out whether they’re interested in the position.

It’s possible that you’re working for a firm that you don’t own and you’re looking to make a career change. Having all of your connections at the ready also makes it easier to locate those who might be able to introduce you to a lead or inform you of any employment openings that may become available.

The additional benefits of using a personal CRM that we’ve discussed throughout this post, such as staying in touch, never forgetting to follow up, and cultivating connections, are all excellent reasons to do so if you aren’t already.

The Characteristics of Personal Customer Relationship Management Software

Let’s take a closer look at some of the features that you might find most useful with your own personal customer relationship management software.

Journaling

Imagine you are having lunch with a buddy and they indicate that they want to introduce you to someone who may be able to assist you with your business endeavors. The diary feature of a personal CRM app allows you to swiftly jot down some notes while working on your project. This ensures that you do not overlook any important information about this contact that may be useful to you in the future, such as their name, email address, and phone number, among other things.

Journaling also allows you to keep track of your ideas and feelings as they arise throughout the course of a typical day. This information will come in handy later on, whether it’s for making a good first impression on a new acquaintance, brainstorming ideas for a project you’d like to start soon, or something else different.

Scanning of Business Cards

You were recently at a networking event, which you enjoyed. You were also quite busy, as you had collected a large number of business cards. You’d like to take advantage of the contacts you’ve made and get in touch with them. However, when you’re looking down at your desk and inputting someone’s email address from that vantage point, it’s simple to make a clerical error.

You therefore wind up sending the email to the incorrect address and are unlikely to receive a response. You write off the contact as a dead end in this case, even though they would have been willing to talk to you if the situation had been different. With the help of your customized program, you will never make another misdial or typo when phoning or emailing someone again.

Reminders

CRM reminders will also help you keep on top of your personal life, which will be impressive. Your program will notify you when you have a doctor’s appointment, a networking meeting, or your children’s soccer practice that you need to make it to.

In this way, your customer relationship management system (CRM) almost functions as a personal relationship manager. Your friends and family will be amazed at how well you manage to keep both your business and personal lives in such a seamless manner.

Revisions to the Communications

You remember having a conversation with your friend last week about going to the movies on Friday, but you can’t recall what time you promised to meet up. You’ll never have to guess who said what and when again if your CRM includes a communications review tool.

You may simply go back and look over your email or text message records that have been saved in your personal CRM system. Then you’ll quickly realize that you committed to go to the movies at 6:30 p.m. rather than 7 p.m. as you had originally planned.

Again, being on time helps to strengthen your personal relationships because you’re always on time. Additionally, you can avoid useless arguments with friends and family members over insignificant issues when it is possible to pull things up for examination.

Scheduling of Meetings

We’ve already discussed how a personal CRM may assist you in better managing the events in your calendar, but what if we told you that the software can do even more for you than that? Whenever a client requests some of your time or a friend requests to go out to lunch, you may plan meetings into your calendar by logging into your customer relationship management system.

Follow-ups

The ability to follow up is critical to the advancement of both your personal and business relationships. If you contact someone and don’t hear back from them for several days (or even a week), it’s always a good idea to follow up with them.

However, because there is no recent email from this individual in your inbox, you must sift through your sent folder in order to even remember to reach out to them once more. It’s understandable that you may find yourself forgetting to follow up on a regular basis, despite your best efforts.