We live in a customer-centric world. Marketers, salespeople and business owners must collect, organize, analyze, and utilize vast amounts of customer information to successfully compete and survive in today's market. A variety of customer relationship management (CRM) software is now available to help them do this.
Choosing the right CRM can be a challenge given your options, but you'll find that different CRMs are better suited to some tasks than others. Learning what each type does can help you choose the best software suite for your organization's needs.
Before we dive into the specifics, here are some mind-blowing statistics that convey the importance and impact of a CRM:
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is designed to help your business manage its relations with customers. It's mostly an interactive platform designed to collect, store, and manage data about customers and their interactions with your company.
A CRM...
Every CRM is unique. However, they all work by pooling the knowledge of many different people into one platform and making this information available to anyone who needs it.
CRMs gather and store information about prospects and customers from various touch-points with your business. These touch-points include contact forms, email and social media marketing, search engines, and more.
Today's CRMs include marketing automation, helping your customer service and sales teams automate routine tasks, and assign workflows as needed. They also have robust data collection and analysis functions and can provide valuable consumer insights.
Most CRMs share some key features, chief among them is the ability to store and analyze vast amounts of data on different aspects of your business:
Your CRM options fall into three broad categories:
CRMs in each of these categories offer a unique set of capabilities designed to improve specific areas of your business. Within each category, there are dozens to hundreds of CRM software to choose from, each focusing on a different bundle of capabilities.
Depending on the size of your organization and your needs, you may choose more than one CRM, with each one dedicated for specific teams, or a CRM that has features of all three types.
Any company that wants to manage its customers better can benefit from CRM.
A CRM is most useful to companies whose customers are typically involved in considered purchases. These customers have longer relationships with a company, which presents more opportunities for meaningful data collection and analysis.
Internally, CRMs are especially popular among sales, marketing, and customer service teams. However, anyone in a company can make valuable contributions to CRM.
There are nearly limitless benefits that can come from gathering more data about your customers and business to improve it.
CRMs offer a vast array of benefits that can transform your company, marketing and sales:
A CRM is an invaluable tool for today's marketers and sales team. A CRM...
One of the most common challenges businesses may face with a CRM is choosing the wrong one for their needs. Every CRM is different. While there are broad similarities across them, each will have a specific emphasis. Therefore, only a handful of options may be suitable for your particular needs.
Given their vast capabilities, under-utilization of a CRM is another common problem. As a best practice, at least one member of your team should become an expert in your chosen software.
However, the biggest problem with CRMs is not using one, making it imperative to adopt one if you haven't already.
CRMs are typically priced along a sliding scale, with lower-priced starter versions offering basic functionality while higher prices unlock more advanced capabilities. Some can be purchased for just a few dollars a month, while others are priced well into the thousands. Some also allow you to purchase a permanent license.
Most CRMs offer a monthly, quote-based, or single-payment pricing schedule with monthly or annual commitments. Some, such as HubSpot CRM, offer simplified versions for free. You can expect to pay more for a CRM depending on the level of performance you want from it and the size and maturity of your business.
Startup firms might not need all the features a monthly package offers. Instead, they might opt for a CRM that allows them to purchase capabilities piecemeal. On the other hand, some of the most advanced CRMs are sold on a quote basis and may be more expensive for larger/enterprise companies.
Choosing the right CRM for your specific business needs is vital. You don't want to overpay for capabilities your business doesn't need and can't afford. Thankfully, many introductory CRMs are available for free. You can use the trial periods for experimentation to find the right one.
Here are three of the top CRM systems on the market right now and their pricing schedules:
HubSpot's CRM is entirely free and includes a wide variety of features that help you manage contacts, automate simple processes, and produce reports. Unlike some other CRMs, their free version isn't a trial, never expires, and is fully functional.
HubSpot offers a variety of other software solutions that can integrate with their CRM. These include Marketing, Sales, Operations, Service, and CMS Hubs.
Salesforce is another popular CRM. Like HubSpot, Salesforce offers a wide array of other software applications that can integrate with its CRM and which are designed for specific use cases.
Freshsales by Freshworks is another popular CRM, with four different pricing tiers available for monthly or annual contract options. Like HubSpot, the Freshsales Sprout option is a fully-functional, free CRM that you can use for your business immediately.
A CRM can be a powerful tool for your business and is necessary to stay competitive in today's marketplace, where your ability to gather and harness customer data is more important than ever.
There is no one-size-fits-all CRM that works for every business. Successfully implementing your CRM is as important as choosing the right one, as it's only as effective as the salespeople and marketers who are using it. When applied to its full potential, a CRM is a driver of growth that can transform every aspect of your business.