What is a CRM Software (Buyer's Guide)?

"Better interaction with customers will lead to better growth in business."

Having trouble managing your customers? Or starting a new customer-benefit product to manage your pipeline? That's where CRM comes into the picture.

Almost 80% of every business leverages the power of CRM and the remaining 20% that do not use CRM face difficulties coordinating with customers and managing their data onboard. 

If you are in the 20% category, it's time to move your business from those old Excel spreadsheets and switch to CRM to avoid manual updations.

Adopting a CRM system will allow you to manage your data in an organized format. CRM software facilitates data management by binding all that information together and provides a valuable ability to communicate with customers.

Willing to know more about CRM features? In this blog, we will discuss everything about CRM systems and help you understand CRM software solutions. 

What is CRM?

CRM stands for "Customer Relationship Management. The main objective of CRM is to help companies to build and grow customer relationships by analyzing their data across the customer life cycle.

Now the question arises, how will CRM lead your business in managing customer relationships?

CRM is a business strategy to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It's an organized approach to increase sales, improve customer service, and increase profitability.

By adopting CRM, you can easily manage and track the essential data of your customers. The more you get attached to the CRM system, the more it will create new customer relationships.

What types of organizations can benefit from CRM?

A good CRM tool works with those organizations that want to reduce manual labor and are looking to streamline their business. CRM not only plays a good role in managing large-scale organization data but is also advantageous in small and medium-sized organizations.

If you consider the customer scenario that creates the necessity to opt for CRM, you will analyze this 360-degree customer view.  It allows you to track all customer touchpoints into a single digital profile.

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CRM tools have tremendous benefits which will help you to find reasonable software solutions. Some of them are listed below:

• Boost customer loyalty.
• Improve customer retention- and revenue generation.
• Improve company communication.
• Optimize your marketing efforts.
• Gain valuable business insights.

What does a CRM system do?

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The CRM system is like a vein of every business paradigm. It covers many aspects that every business should have, like a centralized system for everything. Some of them are discussed below-

• Store customer information and prospect data. 
• Track all the customer interactions and coordinate with the marketing person.
• Maintain relationships with customers and help businesses to grow.
• By adopting CRM, you can quickly figure out every customer's past details and current persona. It also allows you to maintain a good interaction in a personalized manner and create up-to-date relevancy.
• Take follow-up of emails sent, meetings, presentations delivered, add notes, schedule follow-ups, and plan the following steps to ensure opportunities should be awakened and never missed.
• Cross-selling and upselling opportunities become more apparent too.
• Automate calls, manage leads, send personalized emails all with the help of the right real estate CRM.

Why is CRM software essential?

The importance of CRM cannot be overstated as there are many reasons to adopt CRM software solutions. All you need to do is understand the trends and personalize your system according to the needs of your existing and potential customers. No matter what industry you're in or what size your company is, having custom CRM software is very beneficial if you have users or clients. Apart from CRM software, a task management software is also usually used to organize the working process.

Every company spends a lot of time replying to emails, but with the help of a good CRM tool, it becomes more accessible. 

Some well-known tools for CRM are HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM, Freshworks CRM, Insightly CRM, Pipedrive CRM. You may use one of these or choose the one you will find better for your management.

Now let's get some bifurcations about why a CRM system is always essential for an organization.

Easily accessible information

The CRM system provides less effort to track any information about the customer as it allows for every bit of a detailed view. It also simplifies the process of which customers can be profitable and which are not.

Provides separation for the business

CRM system offers break according to the type of business customers do conveniently with their location. So account managers can quickly locate them and get in better touch, which helps focus and concentrate on each customer separately.

Helps to find new customers

CRM system not only facilitates existing customers but is also helpful in obtaining new customers. The process starts with bifurcating a customer and listing all the essential details into the 'Opportunity of Business.'

Requires less paperwork

The CRM system is very cost-effective. It needs significantly less paper and manual work, which requires lesser staff to manage, and more secondary resources indulge in it.

Lesser time required

CRM system is a centralized system that reduces processing time and increases productivity.

How do businesses get benefitted from CRM?

Every organization that sustains sales, marketing, and customer service activities needs a structural management system to build up every aspect of its business. 

Data organized and contrasted by a CRM platform leads to better messaging and outreach for the customers. Furthermore, your teams can collaborate more and efficiently manage all the leads.

CRM systems always help to automate processes & workflows and support companies in engaging their customers more effectively.

Top 5 advantages of CRM

• CRM systems support businesses in engaging their customers.
• CRM systems help organizations achieve a grander scale and grow efficiently.
• CRM helps salespeople to sell more and sell faster.
• CRM system provides business anywhere like through mobile apps, web interface, and offline access. Mobile CRM is very beneficial as everyone can connect, make updates, and initiate follow-ups of events.
• CRM software uses cloud-based solution systems. It also helps to safeguard businesses by providing digitally transformed technologies and promotes future competitiveness.

Benchmarks for buying the best CRM product

Firstly evaluate CRM vendors and prepare your mind by following these key points.

• Budget of buying the CRM software solutions.
• Software that you want to integrate with a CRM system.
• Operational processes and workflows.
• The inefficient processes that you have and want an improvement by opting for a CRM system.
• Decide on CRM deployment - Cloud vs. On-premise.
• Ensure the system integrates with other applications, i.e., with Office 365 or a Google G-Suite integration.
• Always go through demonstration and a free trial as it is the best solution to start with a live(or online), personalized demonstration and then move into a free trial. For better understanding, always invite at least two vendors to compare better CRM offerings.
• Go through industry-specific vendors with local partners and their networks by going through other services except for CRM. You can also look after their certification status and the implementation services which they are providing.
• Make sure about the customization and training provided in the CRM software, as if your staff get a good workout with a variety of features, it will reflect on the company's growth.
• Be aware of user experience as if you are getting good results by using it, you can better coordinate with your users. For, e.g., you can ask the vendor to show you how many clicks it takes to perform a particular task. 

Different types of CRM software

To help you navigate the types of CRM software and their advantages, which will work for you while choosing the correct CRM applications-based software. Here are some listed CRM software applications for your knowledge.    

Operational CRMs

If you are looking to lead your sales process, then you can go with an operational CRM. It specifically covers three core areas- sales, marketing, and service. It allows delivering top-notch experiences to customers and works so nicely.

It works on three types of automation- sales force automation, marketing automation, and service automation.

SalesForce Automation

This tool mainly helps sales teams take care of some repetitive tasks and help them become more productive and better at closing deals. By enabling salesforce automation sales teams can spare more time on the fertile part of their selling job.

Marketing automation

Marketing automation is all about switching software to marketing aspects as many marketing departments automate repetitive tasks like email marketing, social media campaigns, ad campaigns. It helps to lead marketing automation campaigns and send specific content to the leads based on behavior and data.

Service Automation

Service automation allows you to integrate all domain and functionality tools into various automation layers to have better workflows. Its main advantage is that it reduces staff and work hours associated with providing a service.

Critical examples of companies that have adopted service automation and become successful are Uber and Netflix.

Analytical CRMs

Analytical CRM coordinates with operational and collaborative CRM tools. It efficiently manages all kinds of back-office operations. Analytical data can come from many different channels, like social media, phone calls, live chat, your company website, face-to-face convos, purchase records, and so on.

CRM helps in storing data in one place, which provides visibility on your computer base and preferences. It helps segment customers, predict trends, and plan your marketing and targeted sales strategies for the future.

Collaborative CRMs

Collaborative CRMs interlink different organizations with customer service and create a bandwidth of communication. It can include various company divisions such as marketing, sales, customer service, technical support, external customers, vendors, and distributors.

It simplifies workflow processes through organizational structure and hierarchies. A fully automated CRM system will maintain interaction between managers and supervisors to exchange ideas and concepts.

Parts of collaborative CRM

Interaction Management

• It is responsible for managing all the interconnections between the organization and its customers.
• Maintaining interaction through communication channels like email or phone calls or social media.
  
  

Channel Management

Channel management is all about satisfying customers, and optimizing their experiences occurs in each channel. Machine learning, AI, and data analytics can help you find out what your data means. You will be able to manage duties to various team managers and rationalize their duties.

It is the practice in which the vendor or supplier directs sales and marketing activities by actively involving and motivating other members of its channel distribution.

Tools for CRM

Choosing the best CRM tool to help you get deeper insights into your business activities is quite tricky as there are many CRM tools available right now. Here I have listed some majorly used CRM tools that you can prefer as per your requirements.

Salesforce CRM

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Salesforce is a cloud-based platform and the most widely used CRM software. It connects sales to service providers and finds selling opportunities throughout your business. This tool gives you an accurate view of your business strategies with comprehensive facts. If we talk about pricing, then it is starting from $25 per month.

Features of Salesforce CRM

• Contact management
• Lead management
• Einstein analytics
• Dynamic dashboards and custom reports
• Email integration with salesforce lightning
• Partner and channel management

HubSpot CRM

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The HubSpot CRM automates the task easier for professionals to maintain relationships with prospects while managing their funnel. HubSpot CRM tracks customer interactions automatically- whether they're on your website, in an email, across social media, or in a call.

It's a productive tool that syncs up with your inbox and makes the selling concept much more accessible and convenient. If we talk about the pricing, its monthly package starts at $35/month.

Features of HubSpot CRM

• Free CRM
• Landing pages
• List segmentation
• Email
• Workflows
• Paid ad tracking
• Social media integration and management
• Dashboards

Zoho CRM 

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Zoho CRM is the ultimate customer relationship management software that helps you manage sales, marketing, and support in one place. It also contains all business processes with features like marketing automation, sales pipeline management, analytics, and more. 

It lets you turn routine tasks into contests and watch your salespeople ultimately add the most notes or send the most emails. If we talk about pricing, then it starts from $15 user/month.

Features of Zoho CRM

• Salesforce automation
• Lead management
• Marketing automation
• Customer support
• Inventory management
• Reports and dashboards
• Google apps integration
• Multi currencies
• Workflow

Freshsales CRM

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Freshsales (formerly known as Freshworks) CRM is a tool that a high-growth, high-velocity sales team needs. It helps businesses to manage and nurture their leads. It has a built-in phone feature that enables you to make and receive calls. 

If we talk about pricing, then it provides paid plans from $29 per month.

Features of Freshsales CRM

• Improves sales productivity with automation
• Connect with your contacts across channels
• Close more deals in less time
• Make better decisions with AI
• Drill deep into your sales data
• Run your sales from your phone

Pipedrive CRM

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Pipedrive is the easy-to-use CRM tool that helps manage the sales pipeline and ensures that all the activities and conversations never get dropped. It has reverted the whole world from a bulky system to an easy-to-use solution.

If we talk about its pricing, then it starts from $12.50 user/month.

Features of Pipedrive CRM

• Custom columns and filters.
• Email templates
• Logging leads
• Revenue projection
• Smart contact data
• Customizable reports
• Workflow automation

Insightly CRM

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Insightly is a unified CRM tool with project and business management features. It is customized for any level of experience with first-time users as well as experts.

If we talk about pricing, then it starts from $29/month/user.

Features of Insightly CRM

• Lead routing for timely lead management
• Workflow automation
• Email management
• Relationship linking

Final thoughts

I hope you have become familiar with CRM, how it works, and why it is essential for your business by the end of this. If yes, you should now opt for CRM for better well-being with your customer relationship management.

A CRM system will give you deeper insights, boost customer satisfaction, and help you sell more. It is the quickest way to get in touch personally to reach out to every lead and convert them into happier customers. 

Choosing the right CRM software tool to fulfill all your requisite skills has become easier for you by going through all the above CRM tools. You can not consider them the best, but hopefully, they will work for you and annotate your management criteria far better.

No matter which software strategies you want to implement, CRM gives you consistency for managing your customer data and privacy. And in every business, the main priority is customer satisfaction, so go for a trial of CRM tools and let your business grow frequently.

Still, if you need any CRM-related advice, you can reach us.