Choose the right CRM for you

CRM software can organize and record the institutional knowledge all businesses maintain about their customers. Employees might use a spreadsheet to pass on information about past sales or share email threads that show a customer has been a loyal patron.

But how to choose the best CRM software for you?

How to choose the best CRM software

Price can be a significant factor when evaluating CRM software but that analysis should focus on more than just the upfront costs. Most packages offer per-user pricing but check what’s included in that price. Training can eat up a chunk of the budget as can upgrades and ongoing support. Consider how much it would cost to integrate the software with existing systems and whether or not you would need additional equipment. That mobile implementation looks slick on the vendor’s website but will it still look that slick once you’ve designed the CRM forms your business will use every day? Does it mean the sales or customer service teams need new smartphones?

As CRM software has grown more sophisticated, it’s branched out into many different directions. There are plenty of options for implementing your CRM Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or for deploying it on-premises using your own server. You can look for the software which has deep hooks into social networking platforms so you can record customer interactions on Facebook or Twitter, or you can choose a platform that integrates with your phone system if capturing call information is more important to you. Look closely at your business processes, discuss with employees what they need and want, contrast that with your bottom line, and you’ll quickly have an accurate picture of the right CRM software for you.

It’s tempting to forgo this homework and simply pay for one of the big, all-inclusive CRM software packages just to have access to every feature you might need now or in the future. But that approach will almost certainly wind up costing you more in both time and money, while probably delivering less flexibility than you’d expect. That’s because these large CRM software packages are often platforms rather than tools, meaning those myriad features they advertise are really the product of integrating with a host of third-party solution providers, not options you can simply turn on. Third-party integration means not only added licensing dollars but also new integration costs.

A better approach is to understand how your employees have to use the software as well as how they want to use it. Think about what tools your team is currently using and what processes they follow. Figure out how those tasks map to the CRM software you’re evaluating. Consider what some of the most common tasks are. For example, if the users have to dig through menus and submenus every single time they want to log a call or email, the tool will actually complicate their jobs instead of simplifying them. Form a small group of users who understand these day-to-day issues to help you in your evaluation. You don’t want to impose a tool that actually makes key tasks more difficult or complex just so you can pay a premium for features those same employees may never touch.

Also, remember that new technologies, while slick, aren’t automatically pervasive. For example, social media is a hot technology for interacting with customers but that doesn’t mean email is dead. Most customers still expect to interact with you via email, and an email can still capture much more data than a Facebook post or a tweet can. Understand how your company interacts with customers over email and make sure your CRM software acts as a complement to that relationship, not a hindrance. CRM software should automatically capture data from email interactions, not force your employees to manually enter email data. Similarly, integrating your CRM software into your email platform means that entering the customer’s name or ID in one platform automatically brings up data from the other.

Take the time to properly evaluate the mobile app; this should be considered a separate app, not just as a mobile “capability.” Mobile devices are an entirely different breed from desktops or notebooks. Employees use them differently and software renders on them differently, and that means business processes that involve them will behave differently. Make sure your CRM software of choice can support the mobile device platform your team uses and carefully evaluate what the app can do. Some apps offer a read-only view of your sales pipeline or contacts so that you can look up the relevant information while out and about. Those apps won’t let you make updates until you get back to a computer. Others offer a seamless experience, letting you do everything you would do on a mobile device that you would with a computer (but usually presenting tools and features differently, which can be difficult for some users to get used to).

 

Finally we recommend Microsoft dynamics customer service CRM.