If you have been running your business for any time at all, you are well aware of what CRM is in the role it plays in your business processes. Their customer is the most important part of your business, right alongside your own associates. Without your associates and your customers, there’s neither company nor a source of funding for said company, let alone a reason for the company to exist.
But, as your company grows, you find yourself having a lot more dated have to deal with, a lot more burials have to account for and so forth. This is where CRM software, especially sales CRM, comes in. It can spot patterns, a contract customer journeys, and all of this starts with the initial sales and conversion of a lead to a customer, obviously. This allows you to adapt to changing expectations of customers, spot flaws in your product or service via recurring patterns and customer complaints to support, a great many other things. If you don’t adapt, you will be out-competed and you will lose business at a very high rate given enough time.
But you already knew that, then you? Let’s talk about what to look for when it comes to a CRM solution. The first question you have to ask yourself is whether you want exclusive sales CRM platforms or to go with a general CRM solution that handles it all. For businesses of a small or medium-size, almost definitely the best choice would be an all-encompassing solution with a lot of customization features, scripting ability and interoperability with other business software.
Honestly, specialized CRM solutions are not actually that ideal, and they’re gradually becoming less and less popular.
So, after this, your next big question is whether or not to go with an old-fashioned local installation, something where you own the existing version lock stock and barrel, or do you want a modern software is a solution deployment? Granted browser interfaces can be annoying from time to time, but they are getting a lot better especially thanks to HTML 5, broadband Internet and better browsers all around. Recurring fees are also annoying, but if you actually compare the amount of money you pay for recurring fees with software as a service to the thousands of dollars for every single installation of a software implementation, software as a solution is much cheaper.
Some of the other advantages of software as a solution, especially for a CRM solution like sales CRM or an all-encompassing CRM implementation, include but are not limited to: not having to reinstall every time you change platforms or reinstall windows, platform agnosticism due to the browser implementation, continuous availability and greater customization.
You absolutely owe it to your business to upgrade your solutions to a proper CRM solution, especially one that includes strong sales CRM functionality. Just remember, always get a demo before you commit to any kind of business software, seeing it working in the field is the only way to know if it meets your specific needs and matches your business culture.
