Top 5 things to consider when choosing the right CRM for your business

The market is flooded with CRM options that claim to be the answer to all of your problems. Choosing the right CRM can be the difference between a profitable and not profitable business. Taking the right steps during the procurement process by keeping focused on what fits your business best and not what has the most bells and whistles will give you the best chance to achieve CRM success. The main things any business should look for in a CRM is that, it will increase efficiency and help manage prospect and customer relationships.
Remember, you usually get what you pay for.   With that in mind, here are the top 5 things to consider when choosing the right CRM for your business:   1. What are your goals?   Businesses have different goals, priorities and problems to solve. To make sure you are looking for the right solution to fit your business requirements, you need to ask yourself – Why are we implementing a CRM?   As a starting point ensure you should prioritise your goals to help choose the best solution as this will help define what is important to your business. As a starting point, here are the most popular goals we have come across:   – Improve productivity and efficiency – Manage communication and progression with prospects – Track and report on progression with prospects and sales – Manage and prioritise new leads – Track and report on lead sources to help allocate marketing budget – Automate marketing communications – Manage customer retention – Track customer retention – Improve internal communication – Manage team targets and goals   2. Will your employees actually want to use it?   You will very rarely come across a whole business using a CRM efficiently but you can definitely take some steps to ensure the majority of the business is on board. Speak with your teams to understand what is important to them before sourcing options for your CRM. There are plenty of options in the market, so there is a good chance you will find something that fits the needs of most of your teams while also aligning with your goals or vision for the business. If you have good management that share your vision, this will most likely mean that your teams requirements are already aligned with the holistic goals of the business.   Once a CRM is properly implemented, many of your staff will spend a lot of their time at work using it. For this reason, make sure you find a solution that meets the functionality requirements as well as having an appealing user interface and experience so that they don’t tire of using it too quickly.   There are many internal communication programs in the market today so ensure that the one you are currently using integrates with your CRM options or ensure that the options you are considering have strong internal communication features that your teams would be happy to move across to.   3. Does it have email and mobile integration?   Always choose an option that will set you up for the future. Options that don’t offer email or mobile integration features are not adapting to the state of business in today’s world. This will enable you to have staff off-site and on the road speaking with clients more often and significantly increasing your revenue instead of wasting valuable time completing admin work in the office.   4. What metrics are important to your business?   Make sure custom reporting is a key feature. This will ensure that you will have the ability to measure the numbers that drive your business and keep the doors open. Be aware though, a lot of CRM’s that allow for customisation are usually only really effective once the customisation has taken place. CRM customisation means extra fees going to developers who can build the required functionality into the platform. This is a whole conversation within itself because just like with CRMs, you usually get what you pay for with developers.   5. How secure is the platform?   Make sure your CRM of choice allows you to lock down your instance. High levels of security and hierarchy preferences give you the best protection from an attack both internally and externally. One of the main features you want to look for is the ability to restrict data and reporting to just the users who should have access to these features. Your customer data is your IP and your IP is your business so it is important to protect it as much as possible.   By following these 5 tips, you are on the right path to finding your preferred CRM to take your business from good to great!