Last Updated on February 1, 2023 by Guest
CRM, or customer relationship management systems, are invaluable no matter what business you’re in. They allow you to customize marketing materials to each customer, maximize lead conversion rates, and improve customer service. Yet, there are many different CRM tools, and it can be hard to determine which one is best for your business. Here are four things you should be looking for when picking a CRM for your organization.
Ease of Use
Your CRM system should be updated with every order, tech support call, and contact request form filled out. It should be mined for information to create carefully crafted marketing content and pulled up when the customer interfaces with your organization. This means the CRM tool should be easy for anyone and everyone in the organization to use.
They should be able to find information and update it almost instantly. Another question is how your team is going to be accessing the data. Will your employees want to access the data on smartphones? If this is the case, is it easy to do so?
A common oversight is how easy it is to migrate your existing data into the CRM system. Verify that you can export data out of your current CRM system into the new one, and determine if you could migrate your data from their system to another if you decide to change.
Integration
Ease of use doesn’t equal productivity if people endlessly re-enter data in the CRM system captured elsewhere. This is why the best CRM tool for your business is integrated with your other business software, whether it is email applications, your website, or other business software tools. Then you don’t lose time and clients as you bounce between business applications.
Note that integration with your word processing system isn’t enough. You want it to connect with your accounting software, HR software, website, e-commerce, marketing, and billing systems. Integration with revenue tracking allows your salespeople to determine the highest value customers to work to retain or measure their performance against department goals. Integration between online forms and CRM lead reports sent to marketing allows you to capitalize on hot leads and keep new customers. A CRM tool that improves communication between sales and marketing helps you sell more products and services while providing a higher level of service to clients.
Another way to evaluate the software is how easy it is for your customer to interface with the company through the CRM tool, whether they’re placing an order or seeking customer service. Zendesk and Freshdesk are regarded by many as the two best CRM tools in this aspect. Piesync explains which is better in their blog titled: ‘Zendesk vs. Freshdesk: the best customer support software?’ They explain which CRM tool is better if you want a consistent customer experience and an easy-to-use tool from the customer and customer support team’s perspective. They also explain who will benefit from each solution’s features and which ones are better if budget is a significant concern for you.
Security
CRM systems collect a massive amount of information on your customers. While information security features vary between tools, you must prioritize security. You can’t afford the damage to your reputation and bottom line when there is a data leak. At a minimum, ensure that sensitive data entered into CRM systems is appropriately encrypted and immediately. Cloud-based systems often provide better overall security since you don’t have dedicated IT staff to maintain it.
Your customers should be the center of your business. The best CRM systems for your business must provide value to the organization and customer if it is considered a success.
