Choosing an enterprise CRM is an important decision. There are many criteria to consider, and it's not easy to find the right software for your needs. In this blog post, we'll give you some CRM selection criteria to consider for 2023 . We'll also look at the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of CRM available on the market. So, without further ado, let's take a look at how to choose the right CRM.
What is a CRM and what is it used for?
CRM, or customer relationship management, is a strategy that companies use to track customer relationships from pre-sales to post-sales. A CRM system is software that stores information about customers' and prospects' interactions with employees.
Marketing and sales touchpoints - including e-mail, telephone, website, live chat and social media - are closely tracked. This provides employees with detailed context on a customer's activity.
So, with a CRM, no more wasting time tracking down customer information. You enter the age of organization. It positively forces you to be structured and to centralize all information about a customer or prospect.
Secondly, CRM saves a lot of time when it comes to technical tasks. It often incorporates functions for matching or sorting information, which are much easier to do than with an Excel spreadsheet.
It is much easier, for example, to find all the customers who :
are between March 2021 and January 2022,
have placed an order of more than CHF 1,000 (but less than CHF 1,500),
have come to know you through Facebook, in particular through your Facebook Ads campaign,
and are based in Geneva.
Finally, CRMs naturally open up new opportunities. CRM publishers' core business is lead generation. Their aim is to provide a tool that is truly adapted to the latest trends.
Without further ado, let's take a look at its main advantages.
The benefits of CRM for businesses
The advantage of having a CRM system is having a central database for all customer information. Because a company's most valuable and important asset is its customer base.
Here are the 5 main benefits of CRM integration:
Customer data management. By organizing all prospect and customer information in one place, then automating data entry, CRM software makes the sales process run smoothly.
Sales reports. A CRM tracks quota attainment and activity metrics such as e-mails sent, calls made, meetings booked, opportunities created and transactions closed.
Accurate sales forecasts. A CRM system generates an accurate sales funnel, making it easier to forecast future sales and effectively manage your team's pipeline.
Customer segmentation. By segmenting prospects according to parameters such as location, transaction size or closing date, you can identify specific regions or sectors in which to sell, and compare your average selling price and sales cycle.
Scaling up a sales process. A reproducible sales process is essential for testing new sales moves and strategies. Without the information stored in a CRM, you risk shooting in the dark. To spot patterns and trends in effective and ineffective sales behavior, you need this data. Otherwise, you won't be able to develop your team or your business effectively.
Now you're thinking, that's all well and good, but how do I know if my company needs a CRM? We answer that question in the following section
How do I know if my company needs a CRM?
There are a few situations in which a CRM is not necessarily useful.
For example, if you work alone and only need 2 or 3 customers a year to make a living, a CRM is not mandatory.
This is the case for :
A technical expert (computer scientist, for example) who finds long-term assignments without too much difficulty and is content to prospect for opportunities,
Or a tax lawyer who works on mergers and acquisitions for 1-2 years on a full-time basis, and whose address book can provide him with work for the next 10 years.
But these are very special, even rare, cases.
That's why most companies need a CRM!
The questions you should ask yourself when assessing your need for a CRM system are as follows:
Have you ever found yourself unable to remember a prospect's name?
Do you regularly spend several minutes looking for a prospect's contact details?
Is managing your data becoming difficult?
Do several people in your company contact customers or prospects?
Do your customers often interact with more than one member of your team?
Do you need a better way to measure the productivity of your sales team?
If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions, your company could benefit from benefit from a CRM system. Adopting one sooner rather than later will help you avoid frustration and future headaches.
By now, you know that a CRM tool is essential for managing your company's customer relationships. Now let's get to the heart of the matter: how do you choose the right CRM?
Criteria to consider when choosing a CRM solution
There are many CRMs to choose from, and many seem similar to each other. In reality, choosing the best one depends on your objectives.
To help you, ask yourself these questions:
Why do we invest in CRM?
What operational business challenges do we face?
What processes are we missing that we should be implementing?
How many people will use CRM?
How much customer information do we have?
What other software do we use with which CRM should be integrated?
What budget do we have?
The biggest mistake many first-time CRM buyers make is evaluating suppliers before deciding on their own objectives. By focusing on suppliers, you end up reverse-engineering their offerings to define your needs, rather than focusing on areas of real business value to your company. For example, a mobile CRM may seem state-of-the-art, but if you're only running an on-site internal sales team, it may not be the best solution.
If multiple solutions are really similar, we recommend :
Contact the supplier and review your list of requirements with a sales representative.
Read product reviews and ask your peers which system they use.
Compare prices and focus on the features you need.
If in doubt, call in the professionals. LANEfor example, can help you not only to find the most suitable solution on the market for your company, but also to implement it in an optimal and integrated way, while training the people involved.
Small business owners buying a CRM for the first time often underestimate the number of features they need.
What's more, using a system that's too complex means you'll have to invest even more in configuration and customization. This can be both wasteful and unnecessary when your challenges can be solved using less robust systems like these "CRMs".
In the next section, we'll look at the features you need to know about if you're an SME.
SMEs: which features are essential when choosing a CRM?
The CRM selection criteria are as follows:
Contact management. CRM systems provide a searchable database to store information on customers, prospects and relevant documents.
Pipeline management and sales forecasting. Your CRM should make it easy to visualize your entire sales pipeline and move offers from one stage of the sales process to another. No more mental calculations about what's coming to an end this month.
Reports and analyses. Sales managers can use their CRM to track their team's activity and revenue growth to guide team coaching and sales forecasting.
Process standardization. CRM helps standardize business processes with unified task lists, calendars, alerts and templates.
Of course, other CRM functions can also be included:
Email integration
Email tracking
Call recording
Interaction tracking
Software integration
Data enrichment and collection
Rankings
Mobile CRM
Don't hesitate to take a look at sites like G2Crowd, GetApp or Software Advice to be sure you're choosing the right CRM, or use the services of a consulting firm.
By now you're aware of the importance of a CRM for your sales team, and you also know how to choose one. Now it's time to find out what tools are available on the market, and what an expert can advise you.
Choose the CRMs we recommend for you
It's quite simple: there are hundreds of CRM tools available.
Now, there are fewer serious, professional CRM tools out there, but certainly a few dozen...
To make things easier, we've selected a few tools for you.
Hubspot sales Hub Hubspot Sales Hub: a powerful, easy-to-use sales CRM withcommitment sales tools, quote configuration functionality (CPQ) and robust sales analytics for growing teams. This CRM has an extensive ecosystem of application and solution partners to create an exceptional end-to-end customer experience.
Salesforce Salesforce CRM: highly appreciated by many users, this CRM is best suited to large companies who want to accelerate sales, automate tasks and make better decisions to grow their business faster. Salesforce CRM offers lead and contact management, sales opportunity management, workflow rules and automation, customizable reports and dashboards, and a mobile application.
ActiveCampaign ActiveCampaign: this is a highly integrated CRM that we recommend above all for those involved in e-commerce. The tool allows you to create automation based on the customer'scommitment . For example, sending e-mails, upsells, etc. Over 75% of ActiveCampaign's customers use its 850+ integrations, including Microsoft, Shopify, Square, Facebook and Salesforce.
Pipedrive Pipedrive: basic and very easy to use, this tool is ideal for small businesses that don't necessarily have a very large sales team. When you use Pipedrive, nothing falls through the cracks, so your team can spend less time filing and more time selling, with CRM software that's both agile and powerful.
Freshsales Freshsales: a CRM that also has great potential for e-commerce players. It integrates perfectly with Google. With a beautiful, modern, uncluttered design. You can also create WhatsApp campaigns, as well as quotes directly on the platform.
Is "made in Switzerland" important to you?
Honestly, it's not a question our customers ask very often. But it's in the air at the moment. Indeed, it's always interesting to favor Swiss companies, if you're a Swiss company of course. If you are, you should know that there are Swiss CRMs such as Bexio or InvestGlass.
As you've seen, there's a wide range of CRM tools available on the market. Choosing a CRM will depend on the size of your business and your objectives. If you'd like to find out more, our consultants will be happy to help.
It's now important to know what the CRM trend is for 2022.
The biggest CRM trend for 2022
If we have to make a global prediction for technology and CRM in 2022, it's that more companies will use technology to eradicate or automate what they don't want to manage. This while achieving better results on the tasks they do focus on.
The recipe for this is a powerful CRM, automated workflows where possible and a stack of connected applications where data moves freely between your applications.
If you're wondering, how big does your company need to be to have a CRM? ? The answer for 2022 is: a company with just one employee is big enough.
When you're managing contact details, juggling a busy pipeline and have customer data to track, you can benefit from using a CRM. These are familiar pain points for freelancers.
So, while not all organizations are ready for sophisticated stand-alone analytics platforms, more and more SMBs see CRM analytics as a must-have, not an asset.
To conclude on how to choose the right CRM
When you set out to develop your sales process, it's essential to have a CRM that can handle activities efficiently. Because competition in this market is fierce, and there are a multitude of different solutions offering similar functionality, the choices can be daunting.
But don't panic, the experts at LANE Digital Consulting can identify the one that will meet your company's specific needs and create buy-in among your entire sales team.
Summary in 3 questions:
CRM: what is it?
A CRM, or Customer Relationship Management system, is a software tool used by companies to manage their interactions with customers. The program stores customer information and automates certain processes linked to sales/marketing campaigns through various channels such as emailings, phone calls, etc.
Why have one?
Whether you sell a product, provide services or deal with customers of any kind, if your aim is to grow your business, you need a CRM. It's often said that it costs money, but generates benefits in return thanks to its effectiveness in building relationships with customers, which translate into sales leads and loyalty over time.
What are the advantages?
Here are 6 benefits of CRM to improve your customer relations:
Knowledge and infinite segmentation capacity;
Increased loyalty through better anticipation of needs;
Communication is not only faster, but also more secure, as there is no risk of data breach;
And finally, it creates an incredible relationship between companies that use it as their primary form or method of contact.
I'm ready to integrate HubSpot CRM into our team. What's the next step?
A common misconception about CRM systems is that they are clumsy, complicated and difficult to implement. But modern CRM systems no longer require the difficult configuration to which they were once accustomed. They are quick and intuitive to use, eliminate many manual administrative tasks and can be configured in a matter of minutes. Such is the case with HubSpot CRM.
However, if you'd like to use HubSpot CRM for the first time, or if you simply want to see what HubSpot, the experts at LANE can help. As a HubSpot partner company, we install and configure your CRM before training your teams in best practices.
Need some advice before you get started?
Make an appointment with our team to define your needs.