5 Things To Consider When Choosing The Right CRM

There is no doubt about it that a great CRM system is a necessity for any growing business.

There is no escaping todays need for a great CRM in a business today, the challenge of course is selecting the one that fits best – and there are lots of choice. The right customer relationship management (CRM) system can supercharge your small business. It does this by intelligently storing, managing customer and prospect information, it can help your marketing team find new customers faster by boosting your lead volume and increase your sales team’s ability to close deals.

We have put together some key questions you have to ask yourself as you begin the journey.

What is your budget?

This question is always a great one to lead with, this can discount many vendors from selection. For a small business it may not be practical to invest in £500+ per user per month licensing model for an advanced enterprise CRM as many of the features may not benefit the business in the same way it would a multinational organisation.

What software do you want to integrate with the CRM?

This is a key area of focus with our customers, this should be your single source of truth for contacts for your business. It must connect the dots within your business, information captured in system A must be stored in system B. You want a CRM so it can streamline your overall business operations, not be yet another system to be managed. Think about what systems you use for advertising, email marketing, accounting, ERP and even your website. All these systems are an opportunity for human error and duplicate data entry, then find a tool which integrates with as many as possible, where it doesn’t natively integrate you can create your own integrations (with a little help).

Who in your business is going to use CRM? How many users will you need?

Majority of CRM systems use a user based licensing model, so the total volume of users will drive cost, which will impact the budget planned for a CRM. Some businesses may only want the sales team to have access to the CRM whereas others may want the whole business to have access, to increase overall contact visibility.

What processes and workflows are missing and need to added?

The introduction of a CRM can encourage the use of a Sales Process and can help the business deliver a consistent sales experience. Once data is being captured it adds the ability to automate tasks it could not before, such as advertising campaigns to get new contact details and then send marketing emails to these contacts. Maybe you need to automate your follow up process or just remind the team that actions are outstanding, this is an uphill struggle when using excel.

What are the most inefficient processes in your business and what do you want to improve with a CRM system?

We help business to identify these as part of the systemisation journey we take them on. A great CRM with the right integrations will enable a business to remove many processes all together. At this point it becomes incredibly easy to see why using a CRM is the right choice for any business of any size. The investment of time to select and configure the right one gives a business an amazing foundation to grow.

Conclusion

This is not an exhaustive list of questions, however it shows some simple questions to ask yourself when going out searching for that vendor. We take a systematic approach to selecting tools for our customers and a CRM is no different. This is a key tool when we look at the overall systemisation of a business. Make sure you know what you want before you begin, or at least consider speaking to an expert to help guide you on this journey, else you risk being drowned in options and investing large amounts of times in vendor demonstrations.

Here is a great video answering what is a CRM

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