Accurate Guide to Selecting the Best CRM Software for Your Business

CRM software, also known as customer relationship management software, is a crucial tool that helps small and large businesses to streamline processes and build robust and long-lasting relationships with their new as well as existing customers. A customer relationship management system not only automates the manual processes of managing customer data but also helps you accelerate sales processes besides managing your business documents, transactions, and proposals, seamlessly.

Nevertheless, choosing the best CRM software is no small feat as the market is currently flooded with hundreds of CRM solutions having countless impressive features. Since the overall success of your business depends on an efficient CRM solution, choosing the right CRM software requires a thorough understanding of what CRM is. It also calls for a lot of research on your part so that you can make informed buying decisions. In this post, we will shed light on the nitty-gritty of picking the best CRM software to make your task easier. 

Key Factors to Keep in Mind

When you invest in a CRM system, make sure you utilize its features to the fullest to get full value out of your CRM software. Therefore, when searching for the best CRM software, you should keep the following three factors in mind:

• Understand your CRM requirements to identify what features and functionalities you need;
• Pick a CRM solution that saves time and serves your business objectives;
• The CRM tool should be customizable, scalable, secure, and easy to use;
• It should offer integration with third-party vendor solutions; and  
• The price of the CRM software fits your budget.

What Features Should You Look for?

Pick a CRM software solution that complements your business requirements and offers useful features that would add massive value to your business. Therefore, before making the final purchase, ensure the CRM solution you are planning to purchase offers the following features.

• Contact Management– for storing, managing, and organizing contact information
• Account Management– for accumulating and analyzing customer data seamlessly
• Sales Process Automation– for automating and systematizing various sales functionalities
• Reporting Features– for generating real-time reports on market trends, customers’ buying habits, sales activity, sales funnel, etc.
• Mobile Access– the best CRM software comes with a mobile version compatible with Android and iOS devices to allow you and your team to access CRM functions on the go
• Lead Management– for tracking, targeting, capturing, and managing high-quality leads
• Campaign Management– for creating multi-channel campaigns, estimating the cost of campaigns, and real-time monitoring of the campaigns so that you can measure their efficacy
• Email Tracking– for sending bulk emails, tracking if your target customers have opened your emails/links, and setting automatic follow-up emails
• Social Media Management– for interacting directly with customers, creating customer engagement, and gaining actionable insights about your customers from their interactions on social media.
• Call Center Integration– for fortifying your inbound and outbound calling processes
• Analytical Features– to get useful insights into your sales and marketing activities.

Price Model

Price is a crucial consideration when it comes to purchasing CRM software. Using a free version of CRM software may not be a wise decision as it may fail to meet your business needs and prove disastrous to your business. Therefore, before purchasing CRM software, make sure you understand the pricing models offered by different vendors. 

Different CRM solutions come with different pricing models to suit your requirements. Some vendors structure their pricing models in a way to make it look like they are charging less overall, whereas they end up charging extra hidden fees in addition to the regular price. Thus, you need to understand what services would be offered by the vendor for the price you are paying. The best way is to make use of price comparison tools available on various software review websites for comparing the prices of the best CRM solutions before making the final purchase.

Try Before You Buy

Before purchasing a CRM solution, find out if the vendor offers a free demo or trial period so that you can get a clear picture of the software and explore its intuitive features. A free trial period also helps you and your team to comprehend if the software is easy to use and if it will cater to your business requirements. In case the software’s performance disappoints you, you may cancel your free trial at any time and try out a better software.

Bottomline

The only high-performance CRM software can make you productive and keep you and your team on the same page. Therefore, if you want to scale your business, investing in an intelligent CRM tool should be your next top priority. We hope the guidelines cited above will help you pick the best CRM software available in the market so that you can maintain strong client relationships and take your business to new levels of success.