The CRM spend keeps on rising. New product releases have resulted in a rather competitive CRM field with a vast array of vendors to choose from. Companies have increased investments in digital CRM technology to improve customer experience and drive business growth.According to a Gartner report, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software sales will only skyrocket and is expected to reach $36.5 billion by 2017.[1]
New data and analytics tools allow certain enterprises to differentiate themselves in the market. There have been new feature additions to the CRM to make it less hated by salespeople. What are these new add-ons? SoftwareHunt’s experts dig deep and bring the latest in CRM Technology exclusively to you in this article. Read on.
Clarity
There’s no point in buying a CRM If your employees don’t know how to use it or derive benefit from it. Thankfully for us, CRM has graciously uncluttered itself to where it no longer takes a rocket scientist to figure out its operations.
The software should be easy to use and implement. Research from ‘Inside CRM’ found that ‘ease of use’ was the most important feature for 55% of people, followed by ‘schedule management’ with 27% and ‘ability to get a clear snapshot’ with 18%.[2]
A complex CRM detracts from the features and make potential customers refrain from buying the product. They also frustrate a team and demotivate them from using the CRM. Firms have figured this out and are working to make their CRM as simple as possible.
As Daniel B. Scherer, CEO of Secure Health Inc., said, “… the truly critical features to look for in a CRM solution are tracking capabilities and simplicity.”
This brings us to the second point.
Tracking
CRM offers a comprehensive way to organise customers, partners, and prospective clients. Many CRMs nowadays are helping you track possible leads and help you to track your campaign at every stage of the sales pipeline.
With lead analytics, the company can track and gauge the interest of their prospects. They can then act accordingly and move in quickly on those with the highest probability of becoming a customer and not waste time on the disinterested leads. These insights can save you valuable resources and let you not ask your best salespersons to chase prospects with a low probability of agreeing with you.
Flexibility
A company shouldn’t have to change how it works just to fit a CRM into its day-to-day operations. However, that’s no reason to personally design a CRM tailor-made for your business by yourself.
CRM solutions are no longer static like they used to be. A vast majority are dynamic and customizable. If you have no support for the business processes, you haven’t gotten the full value out of the new purchase. CRM vendors have realised that the key to a successful CRM is to make it customisable so you don’t have to alternate between multiple vendors.
Social Integration
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are just some of the places where you can gather customer opinions about your company or to build the social profile of your prospects and customers. However, collection of data is not enough. You must put it into context. CRMs have integrated decision-making analytics to build their significance within a corporation.
During integration, CRM and social media go hand in hand. Also, thanks to simplicity, ease of integration couldn’t be more straightforward. Now you can assess the analytics and figure out how many people are talking about you or your company on the web. Once you get a better understanding of your customers, you can take steps to rectify problems and improve your services.
Cloud-Based CRM
CRM is all about entering data and storing it on a system. The location, device, and software shouldn’t matter. CRM becomes restrictive if you can only enter data from the office, and salespeople dislike a CRM with this aspect. Business is being done through multiple channels, so it would make sense for CRMs to follow suit. When we needed it most, Cloud has delivered.
Now, CRMs are increasing their ability to be accessed from remote locations through Cloud-based services. People can work and make changes to the data from home. Thanks to Cloud, the handicap of location has now been removed.
Mobile Usage
Where ‘remote access’ refers to being able to make changes to the CRM from different computer screens, ‘mobile access’ is the ability to view and edit the CRM on handheld devices.
There is no getting around the fact that salespeople on the move loath CRM. People on the Sales team want to call prospects, get meetings and close deals, not sit down in front of a computer doing data-entry.
CRM on mobile is especially important if the salespeople themselves are entering the information. A mobile CRM enables them to update the database on-the-go or during meetings with prospective clients. It ensures that information does not get lost or forgotten by the time the person has arrived back at the office.
Enterprises have realised that more and more business is being done through smartphones and have acted accordingly. They have strengthened mobile support and multi-channel support to make CRM simpler to use than ever.
Salespeople feel that CRM is more of a way to monitor sales as opposed to increasing sales themselves. Things don’t have to be that way. CRM should maximise revenue and profitability while building loyalty and customer satisfaction.
This is where SoftwareHunt comes in.
SoftwareHunt is an independent consultancy service (A.K.A your trusted software advisor) that will match you with the right software application instead of just promoting big brand products. Unbiased and understanding of your needs, we draw up the right specifications to complete the right list of software applications and vendors.
SoftwareHunt continuously evaluates new software products, to give you quick and accurate information you can make your decision with. We also negotiate with companies and hold them to their word. You could even get a discount on the software vendor suggested by us!
Your CRM software needs to be cost-efficient, simple to use, quickly deployable, and personalized with changing needs. Make sure that the CRM system you choose is compatible with all devices. We make sure that the software demo complies with the specifications drawn, allowing you to test for strengths and weaknesses before final commitment.
When searching for CRM, look no further than SoftwareHunt. Let SoftwareHunt do the hard work. You and your sales team rest easy.
Call us today for a discussion about your CRM needs. We guarantee that you’ll end up with a CRM that’s right for you. Happy hunting!
Visit us at www.softwarehunt.in or feel free to call us at 02233494500.
[1] http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3329317
[2] http://www.superoffice.com/blog/crm-charts/ ; http://www.insidecrm.com/
