Every business needs to have a way to track sales and customer data. Modern Customer Relationship Management software tools can help you accomplish these tasks, but they can also be used to streamline your entire business. For this reason, it’s vitally important that you choose the right software which can help you achieve all of your business goals. We are going to give you a detailed explanation on how to choose the right CRM for your business.
1. Define your goals
You may have heard that CRM software is suitable for pretty much any business, but if you have no idea why you are implementing it, you can be in for a world of trouble. The truth is that CRM software can give you powerful tools and access to large amounts of data, but it is up to you what you’ll be able to achieve with them. The first step you need to take is to define what problems you are trying to solve with CRM and which goals you want to accomplish.
CRM can be used to:
- Organize and track leads. Every company is constantly trying to find ways to increase its customer base. CRM can help you with that, but you’ll also be able to sort leads by priority or by market demographics.
- Measure customer behavior. Track not only what your customers are purchasing but also how they are interacting with your website and your employees.
- Automate time-consuming operations. No one wants to spend unnecessary time on data entry. CRM can help you automate mundane tasks and help generate and send large numbers of emails.
- Share information between team members. Your employees will be able to access all the information they need without having to wait on other teammates to pass the files along.
- Generate specialized reports. Different teams might require only specific data in their reports. CRM will let them select only the stats they need to monitor and compare and generate individualized data reports.
2. Know which data you’ll track
Once you have clearly defined your goals, it should be pretty obvious which metrics are important. However, you should still communicate with your various teams and get their input on what relevant KPIs they would like to monitor. If you narrow down the scope of what data you are looking at, it will be easier to choose the right CRM for your business.
3. Get everyone on board
Some team members might have difficulty adapting, or they may simply be resistant to change. Employees in the sales department tend to be particularly hesitant to adopt CRM software since they can feel threatened by the level of automation that CRM can provide. However, you need to train them and explain that automation is there for their benefit. They can use it to streamline or completely take over mundane tasks like data entry. This frees up time for your sales team to do what they do best, and that’s build relationships with clients.
Train your employees to use CRM to connect with clients since they will have all the information they need at their fingertips. Instead of fearing that the software will take over their jobs, you need to show them that it’s only there to empower them. Employees will also be more likely to adopt the CRM software if you ask for their feedback while choosing the software your company will use.
Bring everyone on board when choosing CRM software for your business.
4. Document how you currently measure product quality
Since CRM is a powerful and comprehensive data tool, you can also use it to monitor the quality of your products. However, first, you’ll need to have an accurately documented process of how you currently monitor and maintain the quality of your products. Determine which metrics are important to keep the quality of your service or product on a high level. Choose the right CRM for your business, and it can help you focus only on the important data without wasting time and resources. You’ll be able to deliver a quality product to your customers and monitor their responses and satisfaction. Fortunately, CRM software can also help you deal with customer complaints and catch any problems in your production process in time.
5. Consider any specific needs
Your company may have specific needs that can influence your choice of software. Consider if you require the following:
- Mobility. If many of your employees are working on-site, they may need to use the CRM software through phones or tablet devices.
- Other software. What other systems is your company currently using? Ideally, you’ll want something that can integrate well with other tools or your website or something that can replace all of the functionality they previously provided. Adopting new CRM tools could be an excellent time to redesign and launch a new website.
- Cloud or on-premise. The type of deployment can depend on the level of your technical expertise. However, you also need to consider if you have the capacity to physically host the system at your location.
- SEO. You can use CRM to coordinate and measure your SEO efforts, and you’ll get feedback on what has a good ROI and what isn’t working.
6. Ask for a demo
Most companies who offer CRM software will be glad to give you a demo and let you test out their product. Make the most of the demonstration, and try to use as many different features as you can. See how well the software can adapt to your needs and how it solves the current problems you are facing. Don’t just assume that everything will work fine and skip the demonstration. Instead, you should dedicate a lot of time to finding the software’s weaknesses and discovering any issues while you are still demoing it.
In conclusion
As you can see, you might not need the best or most powerful tool on the market. To choose the right CRM for your business, you just need to find something that suits your company’s goals. Instead of going through every available toolkit, start by determining your business priorities, and then find a CRM package that manages to do that while still staying on budget.