5 Factors to Consider Before Choosing a CRM Solution‍

In modern business, where everything is consumer-centric, you need a tool to manage customers’ rising expectations. A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software is a centralized system that bridges the gap between your team members while creating a memorable experience for your customers.

In the past decade, the CRM solution has been recognized by almost every industry. Around 87% of marketers found CRM as a primary reason for improving their sales. It is probably why 91% of companies with more than 11 employees are using CRM software.

But does choosing any CRM software help you improve your business? 

If you want to survive the competitive space in the industry, there are various facets to consider before you come to any conclusion. 

There is an array of CRM solutions on the market, and each is designed to address a specific need. For example:

• Boost lead generation
• Get access to a 360-degree contact view
• Build powerful sales reporting
• Automate functionalities
• Easily view all consumer insights
• Increase conversion

You must be clear about what your company needs and which feature can resolve your issue. Apart from defining your needs, there are many other things you need to consider.

Below are some of the carefully chosen factors that will help you make the right decision.

Here are five major factors to consider before choosing a CRM solution:

 

1- Look For A Software That Centralizes All Customer Data

The most important feature of any CRM software is its power to help users analyze and understand their client base. For this, the CRM software must provide a unified view of the customer's data. 

Apart from necessary contact information, the tool should store all instances of contact the customers made with the company. It could be phone calls by customers, calls initiated by the business, email communication, and chat communication.

You can also expect the database to store the details of the customer's all kinds of engagements, including the number of pages visited on the company's website, opening emails, direct marketing email, and purchase history.

In-depth customer data are essential in creating customer segmentation, leading nurturing, building sales and marketing effectiveness, and discovering other business opportunities.

Salesforce is an AI-based tool programmed that acts as the repository for all customer data in your company. It captures all the information needed to improve your sales.

In this image, you can see how Salesforce provides a complete view of customer data and contact history.

 

2- Find A Solution With Automated Key Features

CRM has an amazing quality of automating repetitive tasks. For example, performing lead scoring to prioritize customers and sending out regular emails to clients.

With proper setting, you can take the maximum benefit from this time-saving feature in various ways. For instance, after a potential customer fills up a contact form on your site, the tool will automatically forward the message to the right sales representative or department.

Similarly, after a sales representative receives a message, the tool will automatically acknowledge the message by sending a pre-set response. 

The tool will automatically send a follow-up message to the customers within a set time if they don't respond to your mail or message.

In the same manner, the tool will keep track of a sales representative, making calls or sending messages to any contact.

On the employee front, it automatically reports to the supervisor or upper management when a representative completes a task.

When you are looking for a CRM solution, it must be able to simplify challenging sales tasks, like order processing, order tracking and inventory control.

 

3- Look For Third-Party App Support 

The CRM solution you choose should be compatible with the software you use and easy to implement. For example, you might be using accounting software, email marketing software, or electronic signature services. Your CRM software should support integration to such third-party tools. There are many options such as Keap, but you can look for more efficient Keap alternatives also depending on your requirements.

You will save time and resources. With the third-party integrations feature, you can have the following benefits:

• You don’t have to enter data manually as you can automatically sync order information and sales with your accounting software and POS system.
• You will not have to switch between CRM software and the email client as you can run it straight from different email clients like Outlook or Gmail. 
• You can choose anyone between email marketing software or CRM software to create email lists and launch email marketing campaigns.
• You can integrate with Dropbox, Box.com and other popular cloud backup storage services to create backup and sync data. 

 

4- Select A Platform With Robust Communication and Collaboration Support 

If your entire team has the contact history of each customer, it will make client communication and follow-ups a lot easier. Various CRM providers offer collaboration features, allowing you to communicate with other team members to share relevant information and address customer issues right away.

You can combine CRM's communication tools with its segmentation and customer life cycle capabilities in some cases. This way, you will be able to deliver personalized messaging to customers for better responses.

For example, the collaboration feature from Zendesk allows the team to deliver fast, personalized responses on any channel from a single and unified interface. 

Personalized messaging significantly improves response rates. Hence, it will lift sales performance and make marketing tactics such as lead nurturing even more effective. 

 

5- Check For Social CRM Capabilities

The purpose of CRM software is to reduce your effort and time consumption in handling every task and improve customer satisfaction rating.

Nowadays, every brand is active on social media as a part of the necessary marketing activity. A CRM solution with built-in social media monitoring features can minimize your burden and make it more effective. 

CRM tool provides a centralized platform to monitor the company's social accounts. So, your marketing team doesn't have to switch platforms frequently and can save time. 

The feature also assists you in engaging customers in a two-way conversation. Here is how the software can perform social media tasks for you:

• It performs social listening to spot people talking about your brand.
• Provides a stack of new information relevant to customer behaviour.
• Collects customer insights into comments, shares and mentions your brand receives on different social channels.
• Determines your actual customers.
• Helps to manage everyday social tasks like posting to your social media accounts.

A CRM with social media capabilities is necessary if you want to uplift your social media brand. You can easily witness people engaging in communication with your brand, start conversing with them and then provide brand advocates.

 

Conclusion

The right CRM solution can significantly improve your productivity, efficiency, and revenue growth. Choosing the appropriate one for your business is not easy because today's CRM applications are extensive and contain a vast array of capabilities. 

Therefore, you need to carefully examine your business needs and the factors mentioned above before deciding. Besides, what is mentioned above, do not forget to check their pricing model for hidden costs. Also, ensure all the features are covered in the selected plan. 

Spending a little more time researching the right application will make your investment worthwhile.