How to Choose the Right CRM Software for Your Online Business Needs
Acquiring a new customer costs five to 25 times more than retaining an existing one. Customer relationships are one of the, if not the most important aspects of sustaining and growing a business.
A customer relationship management (CRM) software helps you interact with customers in ways likely to drive the most engagement and inspire loyalty. With businesses becoming hands-on in their approach as well as going digital, a CRM is simply the need of the hour.
In this guide, we walk you through picking the most suitable CRM system for your unique needs as a business — one that will both manage the many customer needs as well as nurture your relationships in the long run. Read on to know more.
Know your needs
79% of customers care more about the personalized experience they receive with a business over the customized marketing they’re targeted with. A whopping 84% are willing to spend more to receive a great experience.
CRMs for small business aspire to help you achieve exactly that — a valuable experience for your customers through extensive research and expert handling. However, to achieve that, you first need to identify your specific needs as a business.
If you’re just starting, your needs at the moment could be gathering quality leads and keeping them engaged with you. But for an established business, their top priority could be to manage the vast pool of customers to provide customized experiences.
Here are some common goals and objectives you can have with your CRM needs:
Automation of tasks to streamline workflow and have better clarity.
Provide a personalized experience to customers.
Manage customer data to serve them better.
Acquiring leads and keeping them engaged.
Re-engaging customers or nurturing relationships with them.
2. Convert the needs into the features to look for
Once you’ve laid out your specific needs as a business, use them as the blueprint to land the perfect CRM for you. Convert the needs you’ve listed into corresponding features in a CRM.
If your priority is to educate customers about your products and services better, look for CRMs that focus on customer engagement through various tools. These tools can convert text to video to create engaging educational content for customers.
Similarly, they can be tools to create easy questionnaires and survey forms for customers to engage with. The idea is to look for features that match your needs and help you create customer management the way you need it.
Here are the key features you should look for in CRMs based on your needs:
Overall usage — See what the CRM provides as a whole for the business. It is engagement, management, educational content, or a bit of everything.
Key features — The champion feature of the CRM should be the one that aligns with your top needs, such as contact management, tutorial creation, or lead generation.
Additional features — These could be specific features that aid your operations or generic features that help the overall workflow, such as ease of use, automation, and organizing.
3. Research about CRMs
The CRM market is rapidly expanding as the software solution becomes more and more needed in the corporate sector. There is a wide variety of CRMs available in the market today. This can overwhelm an entrepreneur when choosing the right one for your online business needs.
The most optimal approach in choosing the right system is to research CRMs on your own. There is a plethora of helpful information available that you can dig into to understand how a CRM system works and in what ways you need it to perform for your best interest.
As stated in the above points, having a baseline of your needs and the features that correspond to them ensures that you don’t get lost in the sea of resources when researching. You can use those pointers to narrow the research to the points that matter.
Here are the aspects you should look up to make informed decisions about choosing the right CRM:
Workflow automation — The CRM should help you form a coherent and easy-to-follow workflow through streamlining of tasks and automation of repeated tasks.
Customization — It should allow customization in various tasks to help you deliver a personalized and valuable experience to your customers.
Security — With your entire operations being digital as an online business, it’s of utmost importance that the CRM offers top-notch security.
Integration — The CRM should be able to work and integrate with third-party applications to create a singular seamless workflow.
Analytics reporting — It should be able to generate reports on the go to help you understand customer behavior and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.
4. Ask for help from similar businesses
76% of marketers consider a CRM important for the success of their overall marketing strategy. More and more businesses are opting to use CRMs, regardless of industry, scope, and nature of the business.
You should be able to find businesses in your industry or area that use CRM. Ask them about their experience with it and how it has helped them. The key here is to find similar businesses to talk to, and not any business.
Businesses in your industry will give you perspectives about how CRM helps them with tasks that most likely you also perform. Businesses in your area will help you understand CRM applications in local matters such as taxes etc.
Given below are some topics you can cover when discussing CRM usage with other businesses:
Their overall impression of the CRM they use.
How does the use of CRM impact their day-to-day tasks compared to when they didn’t use one?
The challenges faced while using a CRM.
What feature is the most used and which one is the least used?
What CRM would they recommend to you based on your needs?
5. Look for CRMs that offer ease of use
When choosing a CRM for your online business, it’s crucial to pick one that offers a learning curve for its users. This is because this will be your first time using a CRM, you simply can’t pick an advanced solution.
It needs to be beginner-friendly so that you can learn to use it at your own pace. Moreover, it will be useful in getting your employees accustomed to using it as well. To know if the CRM supports ease of use, check to see if it has the following:
Guides, tutorials, and how-tos on using the CRM and its different features.
Video or textual content that explains various features of the CRM.
Demos and trials that are available for it.
If the description or reviews mention its ease of use and beginner-friendliness.
Detailed steps on how to tailor the CRM for your specific needs.
Additionally, you can take steps on your own to learn about the CRM you end up picking and creating tutorials for your team. The tutorials can tend to your team’s unique way of working and how the CRM fits into it.
Once you master the use of CRM, you can upgrade to more advanced solutions as well. You’ll then have the luxury of choosing solutions that aren’t necessarily beginner-friendly.
6. Shortlist the most suitable options
While it’s tempting to keep exploring and taking note of several options that are available, the most ideal option to choose the right CRM for you would be to shortlist five to six options and compare them.
Asses them on different criteria such as:
Overall usage and performance
Features they offer
How they fit to your needs
Ease of use
If they fit in your budget or do you need to splurge on them
Additional features that may make them stand out
Pick the options that best suit your needs and evaluate them based on the criteria mentioned above. Limiting your options allows you to focus on the select few best options rather than searching for the best one endlessly and wasting your time and resources.
7. Take available demos and free trials
Don't be shy about taking the demos and free trials on CRMs if available. They help you check the working and compatibility of a CRM before you commit to it. They can prove crucial in the final choice you make about a CRM.
If a demo or free trial is not available for a software solution, contact the vendor and request one. Many vendors offer them on request instead of readily making them available.
Know what you need to pick the best CRM for your customer service needs
Customer relationships are the backbone of any business. CRMs help businesses cultivate positive relationships with their customers with management, organization, and workflow automation.
To pick the right CRM that caters to your specific needs as a business, you need to know what your requirements and challenges are. List them out and pick corresponding features in a CRM that provide solutions to those needs.
Research about CRMs to pick the most suitable options and deep dive into them by taking trials and demos. Narrow your options to the most suitable ones and pick the one that meets your needs the best.
Let us know in the comments how you think an entrepreneur can pick the right CRM for their online business.
