Finding a good CRM for SME’s from hundreds of great options is a time consuming exercise. Let’s look some of the ideal features of a good CRM solution . Note that the right CRM for you need not include all these features. A CRM with fewer features may not be a bad choice in a specific context. In fact having too many features can be a problem. This list can be used as a reference point.
Customisable: Around 75% of CRM fail due to user adoption. Having too many data elements or too few can result in failure to use the CRM. Start with a simple imteface which requires only essential data to be captures rather than too much. As your needs change you can adapt the CRM to meet them. the user interface has turned into the vital part of any application. Hence check how proficient is the CRM in terms of customisation
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Campaign Management: Calculation of ROI has been the biggest challenge for SME’s. Through campaign management you can optimize the Marketing plan, calculate the ROI and manage campaigns in CRM. Open rates and conversion stats are very important to track. The CRM should give you these reports.
Auto Lead Capture: Leakage of leads is the major problem for any company with growing sales funnel. As per research, around 70% of leads generated by Marketing Team are rarely worked on by Sales Team. Auto Lead Capture automates the flow of leads from different sources like website, Just Dial, IndiaMart, Facebook, Twitter and more directly into CRM. Automatic flow of data into CRM prevents Lead leakage and Data entry time.
Lead Scoring & Event Tracking: Event tracking & Lead scoring adds an edge to your CRM. It tracks the number of times a lead visited your website, for how long, on which pages or opened an email. On each such event the CRM adds a score to lead. Lead scoring enables your team to focus on the most serious leads. In the age of digital marketing this feature is a must have.
Customisable Sales Process: Sales processes differ from organisation to organisation. We seen some organisations who do B2B2C(Business to Business to Consumer). In this competitive market, business strategies keep changing . This feature ensures that the whole team is working on a standard process laid down by Management.
Sales Forecasting: Prediction of Sales and Sales funnel is must for business to grow. It sets the expectation and map for the next business plan. Sales forecasting helps in predicting future sales to make informed business decisions.
Mobile CRM: This feature makes CRM accessible from mobile app or through mobile web based browser. It helps in real time activity tracking of your sales rep. For sales rep, it reduces the data entry work and increases the productive time.
Workflow Automation: Around 40% of productive time of sales reps is used in data entry. Workflow Automation automates processes and ensures that the flow of a activity or lead happens in a pre-defined manner without any lapses.
Email/SMS Notification: Follow up and reminders are the general feature of every CRM. You will never sit in front of CRM for the complete day but you need a medium to remind you about follow ups. Email/SMS notifications remind you or even can remind a customer about the meetings, follow-ups. It directly sends notification through SMS/Email to your mobile number or email address. All required team members stay in the loop automatically.
Click to Call: Inside Sales Rep/ Telesales Executives spend around 90 minutes a day in just dialing and maintaining the call log manually which can be avoided. Through Click to Call, you just have to click on telephone symbol in CRM and it will start the call (This requires a Cloud or IP Telephony system)
Support Ticket Management: Great customer service not only brings customer back but also a referral from a customer. Support Ticket Management provides insights about the product/service receiving more complaints or support request, which helps in setting up the improvement plan of product/service. It makes tracking of tickets easier and quicker. For service company, it gives great insights to cross-sell AMC(Annual Maintenance Contract) to clients.
Role/Module/Field Based Security: In Excel, it’s a cumbersome process to protect the data as per the role. In CRM, you can setup the visibility of records as per role assigned to the users. You can set the access to read/write/delete of different modules & fields.
Report/Dashboard Builder: Never buy a CRM which doesn’t have a Report/Dashboard Builder. Need for new reports keeps increasing with business. Reports and Dashboard builders provides the interface from where an end-user can create reports without coding/technical skills.
Data Export/Import: Your organisation’s growth and next move depends totally on the data. Data Export/Import allows you to export/import data from the CRM to CSV and PDF format.
Integration: The CRM should be API ready. API ‘s are used for seamless integration of CRM with any other application eg, with your ERP or Telephony system etc
Conculsion:
There are a lot more ideal features of good CRM eg. Field Force Automation, Document Management, Order Management, Quotation Management and more. Some CRM systems will handle this too while others may require to be integrated with an ERP.
If you’re not sure about which features are right for you, click here to use our advanced algorithm to map your business needs. Talk to us about your challenges / plans. We’ll assist you in defining your needs and finding the right CRM.
