Selecting the Best CRM for your Business
Selecting the best CRM tool for your business can be a challenging process. Get it right and your chance of success goes up significantly. CRM or Customer Relationship Management is essentially a business software that helps individuals and teams maximize their productivity by improving customer communications and marketing/sales/customer service effectiveness overall. Primarily, CRM is a system for recording and storing all customer-interaction information in one place.
To put it simply, CRM solutions offer a standardized method for both gathering and sharing customer data as well as improving the way your company markets, sells and supports customers. managing.
The best CRM software solutions available in market for selection
Unlike the past, where only the big companies could afford CRM software, today businesses of all sizes have access to affordable & easy to use CRM software options. In fact, we offer both Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CRM) and Power-CRM. Power-CRM is built on the Microsoft Power Platform (the same platform as Dynamics 365) and offers license subscriptions starting at $15/user/month SEE MORE
There are several other CRM software solutions available in the market today including Insightly, Zoho CRM, Freshsales, Pipedrive, and Salesforce that offer organizations traditional CRM functionality however one significant differentiator is the integration with Microsoft Office, Outlook and Office 365. This is an area that both Power-CRM and Microsoft Dynamics 365 stand apart from the competition. If your business uses these Microsoft products, you should look closely at Power-CRM and Dynamics 365. Selecting the best CRM by looking at the other tools being used in your business today.
Combining the components of customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), Microsoft Dynamics 365 also stands apart from competitive solutions. Microsoft Flow, PowerBI and Powerapps enable integration between Power-CRM/Dynamics 365 without the cost of custom development or 3rd party data tools that most other CRM providers require.
Ease of use is critical in any CRM solution. Dynamics 365 CRM comes with practical functionality that allows employees to be much more productive providing more in-depth insights into performance and client history. The Power-CRM solution takes it a step further and includes true sales process guidance. For example – it includes powerful functionality to assure every lead/prospect gets the proper follow up and attention –
Enforces a minimum required time for sales to follow up on a new lead
Automatically pre-schedules the follow-up cadence to assure every lead has 6-12 sales “touches”
Automatically updates the status of the lead/prospect based on sales activity
Sales professionals can focus on action vs analysis as Power-CRM guides them to leads/prospects that are due for follow up. Similar functionality is available in Power-CRM for opportunity and account management as well.
Why Invest in CRM?
Here are the top reasons why you should invest in a good CRM solution:
Important metrics & business insights
Data is one of the most valuable assets for any business but it is only useful if it is put in a format that allows users to easily understand and act on the information. Any number of spreadsheets or properly stacked email folders could not provide the deep analysis that a CRM can.
Improved customer service with CRM software
Selecting the best CRM solution helps in improving customer service by assuring that every customer inquiry is handled. It holds users accountable for proper follow-up and KPI’s such as time to initial response. It also helps users provide better support by displaying all the vital information on dashboards, such as customer preferences, purchase history, past interactions, and more.
Having information on the dashboards allows service representatives to appropriately answer queries and personalize their interaction.
Centralizes your customer and prospect data
One of the primary benefits of CRM is in centralizing customer information in one system for better visibility, improved marketing and better analysis, Better coordination of sales team activities.
The importance of CRM in sales cannot be overemphasized enough. Right from seamlessly managing team communications internally to keeping track of tasks performed by your teams, CRM software allows you to perform the sales activities based on best practices to help you improve sales effectiveness.
CRM improves customer engagement
A good CRM helps you provide a positive experience to your valuable customers every time they interact with your company/employees. This is possible due to the fact that CRM provides detailed information on each customer, thereby allowing the employees to engage with them effectively.
- We aligned with Microsoft and have 16 years of experience helping businesses plan, implement and support CRM solutions. Both Power-CRM and Dynamics 365 offer: A familiar and intuitive user interface that ranks highest in user adoption.
- Come with a host of powerful built-in tools like LinkedIn integration Relationship Assistant to improve productivity and efficiency and more.
- Both solutions offer flexible architecture, affordable pricing, and easy deployment options to suit the unique needs of businesses.
- Full integration with other Microsoft products, such as Office 365, Outlook, Office 365, Teams Power BI, Skype for Business, SharePoint, and more.
Data Security with a CRM Solution
Tracking essential customer data in spreadsheets, calendars, or email folders runs the risk of data loss (especially when employees depart the company). However, with a CRM solution, your data will be safe as it is stored in the cloud, replicated and prevents users from downloading data outside the system.
How to Choose the Best CRM? – Features to Look for in CRM software
Although the needs of different businesses vary, a strong customer relationship management software is one thing that every business needs invariably. Whether you need to monitor customer relationships, improve marketing or provide world-class support, CRM software is a must.
However, selecting the best CRM software from the sea of options available in the market is a challenging task for most businesses. While some CRM benefits are nice to have for businesses, others are absolutely essential.
Here are the top three essential features to look for while you’re researching CRM solutions for your business:
Integration
Seamless integration is one of the must-have features in any CRM software. The software you choose for your business needs to be easily integrated with the other tools used in your company like Outlook, MS Office, your accounting/ERP system, etc. Look for a CRM that integrates with the business software already in use today at your business.
Ease of use
The fact that your users aren’t software experts makes it absolutely essential that your CRM should be as user-friendly as possible. A robust CRM solution should have an intuitive design and interface so the employees can learn the system quickly and start using them easily.
Great Sales Functionality is Critical
We have ranked the top sales features based on feedback from real users. The 10 are:
- Lead/Prospect Management
- Sales Opportunity Management & Forecasting
- Account & Contact Management
- Activity Management
- Guided business processes for Lead-Opportunity-Account management
- Document Management built-in
- Microsoft Outlook Integration
- Mobile app
- Graphical dashboards with drill-down capabilities
- Easy to use
Steps for Selecting the Best CRM Software
The below steps are critical for a successful CRM implementation project:
- Proper requirements analysis
- Upfront planning to assure key steps in the project are managed well (user acceptance testing, training, support, etc.)
- Keep the Phase 1 scope manageable. Remember, users can only adopt so much at one time. You should focus on a few priority items in phase 1 that provide value to the users
- Proper training – we have built our training methodology over 16+ years. MORE INFO
- Adequate support at go-live
These are only a few of the tasks that have to be well executed to achieve success. Keep in mind that CRM failure rates are still above 50%, contact us and find out why and how we assure success with your project.
