5 Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Choosing CRM

When you choose CRM, this system is created to preserve the good relationship with your customers. If your business is very small, you can run business and tap all the client’s info without much effort, then you really can maintain them on a spreadsheet. In such cases, you really don’t need a CRM System. If you have a huge customer database, you definitely need to choose a CRM system in your work. This is because you’d need to track their complete communication history. But before you buy a CRM system, you need to ask yourself a few simple questions.

Q1) WHY DO I NEED TO CHOOSE CRM?

This is the dominant question, which you should ask yourself before how to choose CRM and how starting using the CRM. You are the one who knows your customers, and you’d recognize if the customer database has increased beyond your manual managing capabilities. The idea is to use whatever tools you can to maximize the value to the customers. For medium and large organizations, a CRM project might be a little complex. This is because they might have suggestions from various departments, who want to use the CRM system.

Q2) WHAT’S MY BUDGET FOR THE NEW CRM?

CRM is like an investment. Thoughtful and hard preparation would support successful implementation. Budgeting is a part of this preparation too. One important thing is to classify your demands in 2 categories, such as “must-have” and “good to have”. This would help you to identify the features that are necessary for you most of all. Different costs involved how to choose CRM and  in some CRM Implementation are:

• Hardware and licensing costs
• Software licensing cost
• Annual maintenance cost / Support and maintenance cost
• Project management costs.

Q3) WHO IS GOING TO USE THE CRM

It’s important to identify the key users, who will exactly use the CRM. The success of implementation is mostly depended on this. It is advisable to anybody who chooses CRM and who is starting the CRM project to start requiring the minimum number of users. Later, you can increase the licenses based on user’s flexibility.

Q4) WHAT OUTCOME DO I EXPECT?

When you choose CRM the primary outcomes you expect, need to be documented, for example:

• I am implementing CRM for sales department with a goal of increasing revenues. Revenue was ‘X’ last year, current year’s revenue is ‘X+x’, next year’s revenue should be ‘X+2x’.
• I am implementing CRM for the marketing department to improve campaign response rates.
• I am implementing CRM for customer service department to improve customer satisfaction.
• I am implementing CRM for product support department to improve customer retention.

Q5) HOW DO I CHOOSE A CRM VENDOR?

When you choose CRM,  you should identify the right CRM vendor. These are the things you need to evaluate:

1. Type of merchant

Look at merchants who have solutions, which could solve your business problem. Check if the merchant has a solution, which can fit all sorts of business.

1. Automation capabilities

It’s important to identify the extent of process automation so that the core team can concentrate on much more than just doing repetitive tasks.

1. Integration flexibility

For better usage, CRM systems need to be integrated with other systems. It is also important to evaluate the integration capabilities of the CRM. This includes the number of ready-to-use integrations, which are already available in the store, the API documentation, and integration with other standard systems.

1. Free trial / assisted demo

Take some time and request an assisted demo from the vendor. This’ll help you understand the system, and its usage better. Also request your vendor to allow access to the system for a trial period, so that you can understand how complex or simple the system really is.  

1. Service and support SLA’s

Ask what the training modes are, and how many free training sessions will be provided. Check for some training material or training videos. Check for Support SLA’s and if the support is available during your business hours. Check if the vendor has your preferred channel for support.   Choosing the correct CRM for your business is an important thing.  Following the above steps will get you to make sure you dedicate enough time to the research process to find the best CRM tool for your organization. You want to be sure you choose the best system for your business, as the right CRM will be instrumental in the growth of your company.