When you’re investigating options for CRM software, there are a lot of details to keep track of. BusinessNewsDaily.com has published Sara Angeles‘ excellent collection of tips and advice that can help you get the best return on your CRM investment.
While customer relationship management (CRM) software began as a simple toolset for managing contacts, a contemporary, high quality CRM system can integrate data from sales, marketing, accounting, and various types of operational data. It can help you identify quality leads, nurture prospects, personalize the sales experience, and enhance customer support. And for many of these tasks, it can support your team with robust automation.
Costs
An immediate point of interest for any small or mid-sized company is the price tag. There is a variety of pricing models and a wide range of costs. In general, you’ll be able to find affordable options for the functionality matched to your business’s unique needs.
Needs
The three pillars of CRM are contact management, automation to support sales, and improved customer support. Any business that understands the value of these goals will be able to benefit from a CRM system. A database of your customers can bring new understanding of how you can reach out to them most effectively. And the same database can help you organize your partners, affiliates, and vendors. From this foundation, CRM tools can highlight info that is useful for sales, such as helping follow-up with prospects, creating customized sales quotes, and both tracking and forecasting sales perfomance. Each sale is best seen as a long-term relationship with the customer, and CRM software can help your team support customer success. With a centralized location for purchase histories, order information, and past interactions, your entire team can bring their expertise to bear on customer needs.
Features and Benefits
One of the best aspects of Ms. Angeles’ article is the collection of advice directly from small business people. The first group of suggestions focuses on key features to look for in a CRM package. A recurring theme is flexibility, and in the follow-up summary, a paragraph is devoted to this aspect of being customizable. The fact of the matter is that no product off-the-shelf will match your company’s unique processes, so planning on adapting the product to your needs is simply a realistic approach.
The second collection of tips and tricks from actual CRM customers concentrates on the benefits their businesses have received. From light manufacturing to wholesale distributors to professional services, these professionals each describe a positive change their CRM system has made. Time and money savings are mentioned first, but sales tools like email marketing are an example of the extra functionality a quality software package can bring.
Questions
As a bridge to the next step of exploring specific CRM options, the article concludes with nine questions you should discuss with vendors. These questions were suggested by other small business owners. Leveraging their experience can help you identify the CRM tool best fitted for your company, as well as prepare the way for the best deployment and ongoing customer relationship.
Suggestions and questions from those who have experience with shopping for software clearly give you an advantage. In the same way, getting testimonials about a specific product from current users can give you even better insight. At aACE Software, we’re pleased to share the 5-star ratings that our existing clients have used to rank our software on Capterra.com. Our goal is to earn each new customer’s high regard.
“I worked with Michael and his team at AGIS over a period of half a year to customize and implement their aACE Accounting/ERP/CRM solution for my business. Michael was able to quickly hone in on my company’s complicated business processes, clearly map them out, and optimize a solution that worked great for us. [aACE Software] helped us visualize our information in a way that we did not have available to us with our prior ERP/CRM system.” – Daniel Peleg, CFO & Director of Business Development, Peleg Group
