The right Customer Relationship Management platform can truly transform your business. These powerful tools can boost your bottom line by helping you to optimize your strategies and workflows to close more deals and cultivate closer links with your customers and prospects.
With so many options out there, though, it can be difficult to choose the right CRM. Here’s a closer look at how to choose the right CRM but just before, let’s take a quick look at exactly what we mean by a CRM.
What is a CRM?
Put simply, a CRM can help you to collect and organize data that you have about your customers. It’s a pretty simple function, but the best CRM platforms can drive a lot of value throughout the process to help you delight and retain your customers.
The world’s top CRMs like Salesforce and Pipedrive make it easier for businesses to build better customer relations to improve cross-selling and upselling while reducing churn.
A lot of additional functionality can also optimize and streamline workflows to make your teams more efficient.
How to Choose the Right CRM System
Now that we have a better idea of what we mean by a CRM, let’s dive into the factors you’ll want to think about when choosing one. The weight of each factor will vary according to your business, but you’ll want to balance all of them.
Identify your needs
First things first, you’ll want to think carefully and identify the exact reasons that you’re thinking of choosing a CRM. The more accurately you can identify your needs, the easier you’ll find it to order your priorities and choose the CRM that’s right for you.
Let’s imagine that you recently adjusted your lead generation strategy, for instance. You might now find that you have lots and lots of customers that you need to organize using a CRM.
Deployment
This is often overlooked when it comes to choosing a CRM, but it is critical. The unique circumstances within your business might mean that you have to choose between a cloud-based or on-premise CRM.
You might have strict data privacy rules, for instance, which could mean that you have to install the CRM on your own servers. If that’s the case, this could limit the potential CRM options that you have available to you.
Existing tools
There’s a good chance that you and your team members use a unique blend of tools and software – is your new CRM going to play nice? The key CRMs out there offer a range of integrations that you will need to explore.
If you have an indispensable tool, for instance, you can’t afford to choose a CRM that won’t integrate with it.
Price
There are lots of CRM options out there and they vary greatly in terms of the packages and prices on offer. Salesforce is a more premium option, for instance, that offers a lot of tiers.
Hubspot, on the other hand, offers a robust free package that is often sufficient for many smaller businesses. This makes Hubspot a favorite among many businesses choosing their first CRM.
Number of users
Another big factor you’ll want to think about is the size of your team. CRMs will often charge per user – this could mean that some CRMs simply don’t make sense for you given the current size of your team.
You should try to find a tool that is aimed to help teams of your particular size. If not, you might find that you pay over the odds.
Functionality
At the end of the day, a CRM is a very useful tool – it’s got to work in the way that you want it to. You should make sure that your chosen CRM ticks your boxes and meets all of your needs in terms of functionality.
Some CRMs will offer showstopping features, for instance, that other CRMs might not yet have. That small feature could spell the difference between an amazing CRM or one that just falls short of your needs.
Scalability
It’s important that you find a CRM that can grow with you, too. While you might currently have a small team, you will want some room for growth – don’t get stuck with a CRM that you’ll outgrow.
The best CRM options are those that offer you lots of flexibility and potential for scalability. This feature will help you to reduce the chance of disruption that comes with changing platforms.
We hope that this piece helps you to find the CRM that is perfect for your needs – good luck!