Maybe you’re a new business that’s growing fast. Maybe your business is already established, and you want to scale. Or maybe you’re running a well-established company that just needs a bit of a refresh behind the scenes.
Whatever your situation, customer relationship management (CRM) software can be the companion you need to get your business to the next level. In the case studies below, you’ll see how real small and medium-sized businesses used CRM tools to solve key challenges - like messy customer data, slow follow-ups, and disconnected teams - and came out stronger on the other side.
1. Papeloja – Grew Revenue by 800% with Keap CRM
The Problem
Nuno Silva, founder of the specialty paper company Papeloja, faced challenges after moving his business online during the pandemic. His contacts were scattered in multiple places, and he found it hard to find the information he needed.
To make things worse, he’d be chatting with a customer on social media without realizing they’d already been emailing back and forth. It was getting chaotic, and Silva knew he needed a better system, fast.
CRM Solution
While searching for a way to organize his data, Silva decided that a combination of CRM and marketing automation was what he needed. His first CRM was too complex and not user-friendly. Then he tried Keap and found it was much easier to use.
Here’s how Papeloja was able to organize company data and provide a better experience for their customers using Keap CRM:
Stored and Organized Customer Data
With Keap, Papeloja had a central location to store all their contacts and customer records. As a result, employees were able to access information for every single contact, including their contact info and how they interact with the company’s emails and marketing campaigns.
Automated Follow-Ups with Customers
Once Keap had given Silva’s business some structure and organization, he was ready to hit the gas and start growing. Keap’s sales and marketing automation was a game-changer that allowed him to store contacts, leave notes, and send follow-up emails in a fraction of the time. For Papeloja, it was like adding another member to the team.
Improved Communication with Lifecycle Automation
After setting up some basic automations, Silva stopped being so reactive and started thinking in terms of systems and processes. He used lifecycle marketing to help qualify leads, personalize messages, and take his customer experience to a new level.
The Results
After implementing Keap CRM, Nuno saw an impressive 800% revenue increase within a few short months, partially by shifting focus to online sales during the pandemic.
Read the full story at Keap.
2. Make Influence - Saved $300K While Scaling Overseas
The Problem
Make Influence, a Denmark-based agency connecting brands and influencers, was scaling quickly and wanted to grow into new markets using their existing team. The problem was that their tech stack was made up of disconnected tools and systems, which made it hard to grow.
They were gathering lots of data, but it was scattered and hard to find. Not having a single source of truth was holding back their marketing, sales, and success efforts, which ultimately stalled their growth.
CRM Solution
Make Influence first tried using Pipedrive and ActiveCampaign, but they couldn’t get all their data to display in one place. They needed a growth-friendly solution to help them scale. One of their funders, Vaekstfonden, came across the HubSpot for Startups program and realized they could get a more powerful CRM with startup-friendly pricing and specialized customer support.
Here’s how Make Influence used HubSpot to increase leads, accelerate sales, and streamline customer service as their company scaled:
Building a Sales Pipeline
Make Influence decided to go “all in” with HubSpot and used their startup discount to get access to the Pro versions of several tools (called “Hubs.”) Their first course of action was to build out their sales pipelines in the Sales Hub, which tracks deals, sales activities, and team performance.
This provided a much better idea of where each deal stood, rather than guessing. The move also improved their revenue forecasting. It gave them a much clearer idea of how much money they were likely to make in the future and when.
Syncing Data
Next, Make Influence wanted to synchronize data transfer between all the different Hubs. In other words, they made sure all parts of their business, sales, marketing, customer support, operations, and website, were all speaking the same language. That meant creating standardized data fields so that each property could be accurately transferred without creating duplicates, inconsistencies, or migration issues.
With HubSpot’s data sync, Make Influence could automatically connect data across all teams. This allowed them to track every customer interaction in one place, from the first marketing email to a sales call or support ticket.
Website Migration
Their next line of action was to migrate their website to the HubSpot CMS Hub, a CMS designed to integrate with HubSpot’s CRM and marketing tools. Moving all of their forms and web pages to a central hub allowed them to collect more first-party data about their customers, which they used to improve the customer experience.
Integrating Their Own Platform
Finally, Make Influence connected the HubSpot CRM to their proprietary Make Influence app. This allowed them to import every bit of data from their app into the HubSpot CRM and provided deep, proprietary insights to all their teams. For a company that claims “data is king,” democratizing customer data with HubSpot was a huge win.
Results
HubSpot’s integrations and automation tools allowed Make Influence to optimize their operations, expand into new markets, and grow revenue. Here’s what they accomplished:
- Expanded to Six Different European Countries: Make Influence used HubSpot’s integrations, automations, and data sync capabilities to expand into new markets without relying on manual research or inefficient cold calling.
- Increased Prices By 6x: Using HubSpot as a single source of truth allowed Make Influence to nail down their ideal customers, create better product-market fit, and close bigger deals.
- Reduced Customer Acquisition Cost By 50%: The efficiencies created by HubSpot helped Make Influence pull back on paid ads and create a stronger inbound funnel that dramatically reduced their Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).
- Saved $300,000 Per Year on Staffing Costs: HubSpot helped Make Influence do more with less. They were able to reduce their sales team, increase productivity, and ultimately save big on staffing costs.
Read the full story at HubSpot.
3. Chargebee – Revolutionized Their Sales Process
The Problem
Chargebee, a seven-year-old SaaS company, was growing fast and needed to expand their sales and marketing team. But to grow smart, they needed to restructure their sales process and create a structure for segmenting leads.
CRM Solution
Chargbee was using Salesforce, but it turned out to be too complex for their needs. They were planning to grow from 30 to 90 salespeople in 12 months, and were looking for a solution that was easy to use. Chargebee eventually migrated to Freshsales because it was user-friendly and intuitive.
Here’s how Chargebee used Freshsales to enhance their sales processes:
Provided a 360-Degree View of Customers
Freshsales allowed Chargebee to gain a full view of all their customers, including how they initiated contact (chat, email, campaigns, etc.). The integration with Freshdesk also ensured their system would capture every interaction. This context gave sales agents a better understanding of their prospects and customers.
Better Cross-Team Collaboration
Freshsales CRM provided Chargebee with the features they needed to help their sales, marketing, and customer success teams work better together. Freshsales’ features allowed them to rank or score leads based on how likely they were to become customers. Teams could also communicate directly within the CRM, sharing notes or updates on specific leads or deals.
Reporting and Dashboards
Freshsales’ reporting dashboards were revolutionary for Chargebee. Prior to Freshsales, they weren’t able to measure simple things like conversion rates or deal progression.
The Results
Thanks to Freshsales’ intuitive interface and robust features, Chargebee was able to adopt a more customer-centric approach to business. Here are the results:
- A 10x scale in their sales team over two years.
- Enhanced lead prioritization and faster response times.
- Better collaboration thanks to the ability for teams to communicate through the CRM.
Read the full story at SmallBizCRM.
4. Marketing Consultant — Grew Revenue by 25% and Saved 20 Hours Each Month
The Problem
Hayley Evans, an independent marketing consultant based in Arkansas, knew that relationships were the heart of her business and wanted to provide an amazing client experience. That meant removing friction from the booking process and making it as easy as possible for new and existing clients to schedule meetings without the back-and-forth emails.
CRM Solution
Evans had already been using HoneyBook CRM for the past two years to manage her invoices, so adopting HoneyBook Lead Forms was a natural choice.
Here’s how Haley Evans used HoneyBook to enhance and scale her lead capture process:
Customization in Less Time
Prior to lead forms, Evans was working with a developer and spending five to six hours building custom forms and landing pages to capture prospective clients. But with HoneyBook, she was able to cut that down to one to two hours.
Collecting Payment Upfront
HoneyBook’s lead forms also came with an added bonus: they allowed Evans to collect payment upfront. This not only protected her from getting stiffed, but it also helped her get paid faster and eliminated the task of prompting clients for their first payment. Plus, requiring payment upfront ensured that only serious clients completed the form, which filtered out non-committal inquiries.
Increased Conversion Rates
Thanks to the simplicity of lead forms, 100% of new leads who submit Hayley’s lead form become paying clients. She was also able to create automated reminders for meetings and upcoming payments.
The Results
Thanks to HoneyBook, Hayley was able to dramatically reduce her need for web developers and save hours each month on administrative work. Here are the results:
- 25% increase in monthly recurring revenue
- 100% rate conversion with new leads
- 20 hours saved per month
Read the full story at Honeybook.
5. Paperbell – Created Personalized Experiences For Clients
The Problem
Laura Roeder is a serial entrepreneur who started Paperbell, a platform designed for business coaches. Having run several businesses in the past, she started Paperbell with a growth-first mindset and wanted to have the right tools in place from day one.
CRM Solution
Roeder had been using MailChimp for years, but wanted something more sophisticated. She already had a strong background in digital marketing, so she knew ActiveCampaign was the right solution for her business.
Here’s how Roeder was able to scale Paperbell with the help of ActiveCampaign:
Enterprise-Level Automations
Custom automations and segmentation were the first features Roeder and her team used to build personalized customer journeys. Although ActiveCampaign is often thought of as an enterprise solution, Roeder found the automations to be surprisingly intuitive and easy to use.
(Learn more about how marketing automation works in 12 Marketing Automation Best Practices to Implement.)
A Single Source of Truth
ActiveCampaign quickly became the single source of truth for Roeder and her team. Right from within the CRM, they could find all their customer data, including initial contact, payment information, purchases, and much more.
Email Integrations
Email communication is central to Paperbell. So Roeder integrated Postmark, an ActiveCampaign product, enabling her to automate essential messages like booking confirmations and call reminders. This ensured fast, reliable delivery and a smoother experience for both coaches and clients, all without needing to build complex email infrastructure.
The Results
Roeder built her business on ActiveCampaign. After two years, these were the results:
- 22,000+ new contacts
- 10% monthly revenue growth directly influenced by automation
Read the full story at ActiveCampaign.
What Problems Does CRM Software Solve?
You’ve already seen how CRMs can solve a lot of different problems for businesses. Now let’s take a closer look at how a CRM can solve your business’s problems.
Here are some of the key areas where a CRM can help.
Disorganized Customer Data
A CRM will take all your customer data, organize it the way you want, and put it in one place that is always easy to access. A survey conducted by Resco found that 74% of users believe that CRM systems improve access to customer data. Another 64% believe this helps them build stronger relationships with their customers.
Here are some of the ways a CRM helps organize customer data:
- Maintains a centralized database for all your contact records.
- Keeps detailed contact records, including behavioral data and engagement history.
- Maps information to standard fields such as first name, last name, and full name.
Poor Communication and Follow-up
Research shows that nearly one-third of customers expect a response within one hour. A CRM lets you create and send emails quickly and automatically. You don’t have to worry about double responses or missed follow-ups.
A CRM can improve your communication speed and consistency by letting you:
- Send reminders for follow-up tasks and meetings.
- Send emails directly from the CRM using pre-made templates to save time and stay consistent.
- Track communications across multiple channels like email, social media, and chatbots.
Lack of Sales Pipeline Visibility
A CRM organizes all your active deals into one place so leadership can make more accurate, data-driven decisions. According to the 2024 State of CRM Report, 37% of sales professionals report that their CRM has significantly improved pipeline visibility throughout the customer journey.
Here are the main ways a CRM improves pipeline visibility:
- Tracks how deals progress and identifies bottlenecks at a glance by using drag-and-drop pipeline views.
- Updates contact and deal records in real time.
- Uses visual dashboards to summarize key metrics, organize them into digestible reports, and forecast revenue.
Inefficient Team Collaboration
Collaboration within sales teams can boost sales quota attainment by up to 21%, according to Pipedrive. But technological barriers can create data silos that make it hard to collaborate and align on priorities. By removing data silos and improving team visibility, a CRM makes it easier to collaborate and establish a feedback loop.
A CRM can improve team collaboration in three main ways:
- Gives all team members access to the same up-to-date contact details.
- Allows team members to add notes, track emails, log calls, and update activities within the CRM.
- Provides the entire team with a bird’s-eye view of how things are going through dashboards and deal pipelines.
Limited Customer Insights
Personalized interactions almost always beat generic messages. CRMs can assist by storing, organizing, and retrieving the data you need. But finding in-depth customer insights is difficult when all your data is spread out across different apps and spreadsheets.
A CRM can provide detailed customer information in the following ways:
- Stores detailed profiles for each customer, including demographics, firmographics, and behavioral data.
- Tracks how customers engage with different channels so you know if they respond better to SMS vs email, for example.
- Uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to predict the likelihood of a sale, churn, or repeat purchases so you can act accordingly.
Manual and Repetitive Tasks
Data shows that most sales reps spend nearly 70% of their time on non-revenue-generating activities like data entry, email responses, and scheduling meetings. By automating many simple tasks, a CRM system reduces manual workload that can hold sales and marketing teams back.
Here’s how a CRM can help streamline workflows and eliminate busywork:
- Automates data entry by capturing and logging new leads from your marketing campaigns.
- Automates repeatable tasks like routing leads or sending follow-up emails.
- Triggers complex, multi-step workflows such as sending a welcome email when a new contact is added and then creating a task for the sales team to follow up.
Low Customer Retention
According to data from Capterra, 75% of CRM users say CRMs help them understand their clients better, or even very well. This is why CRM software can also have a noticeable positive effect on customer retention rates.
Here are the main ways a CRM supports customer retention:
- Creates contact lists based on specific criteria and sends different emails to different groups.
- Triggers automated workflows to go off at the right moments. For example, sending a discount code to a customer you haven’t heard from in a while.
- Tracks analytics on customer behavior so you can pinpoint exactly where in the process you may be losing sales.
- CRMs like HubSpot or Freshworks integrate with support systems to track and resolve tickets easily.
Fragmented Marketing Efforts
The best marketing campaigns span across multiple channels. A CRM makes that possible for businesses of all sizes. A CRM can consolidate your tech stack and pull all of your marketing data (from email, social, media, ads, and more) into one location.
Here’s how it works:
- Consolidates performance data from multiple channels into one place to give you a single source of truth.
- Integrates with email platforms, ad networks, and other tools to serve as a central hub for your marketing efforts.
- Creates shared dashboards to align sales and marketing teams around common goals.
Final Thoughts
These CRM case studies show just how important the right platform can be to your business. But not all platforms are the same, and selecting the right CRM is crucial for your success.
Softailed makes choosing CRM software easy. Our CRM comparison tool lets you compare CRM software side by side to see which provider best suits your needs. It’s free to use, so give it a try and see which CRM you get paired up with. You should also check out our list of Best CRM Software for Small Businesses.
Check out how CRMs can help in other specific industries in our lists of Best Insurance CRM Software Platforms, Best CRMs for Law Firms, and Best Construction CRM Software.
