CRM is a approach that helps businesses improve relationship with the existing customers and acquire new customers faster. CRM Software is an integrated suite of cloud applications that collects, stores and manages the customer data. It is a centralised platform to manage customer interactions, prioritise activities and build relationships , thereby enhancing customer Interaction. In a Nutshell, CRM tool creates a simple user interface for a collection of data that helps businesses recognise and communicate with customers in a scalable way. Ultimately , CRM solution is a game changing piece of technology for every industry under the umbrella – Be it a start-up, or a small and medium business and even enterprise organisations.

WHO CAN USE CRM?

A simple answer to this question would be to say , “Any business with customers would use CRM” — but it is not always straight forward like that.

Here are some type of businesses that would benefit from using a customer relationship management (CRM) Software:

• Any Businesses that have a sales team: CRM helps streamline the entire sales cycle, which results in closing deals in your sales pipeline and helping everyone in the team to reach targets faster. Since order processing and preparing quotes is automated in CRM, sales teams are able to reduce production costs and increase sales revenue.

• Any Business that use marketing: A good CRM solution can use the sales information from the customer data to effectively tune the marketing campaign. CRM software provides insight into your customers and target audience, thereby allowing you to improve marketing campaigns to target likely conversions.

• Any Business that create estimates and invoices: With built-in invoicing tool, CRM allows you to create quality estimates which later can be converted into an invoice. You needn’t switch between apps to complete tasks — Your CRM has it ALL.

• Any Businesses whose mantra is “Customers are our priority” : Using CRM can help businesses prioritise the customer needs and preferences. CRM helps many businesses gain new customers, improve customer relationship, resolve their cases and thereby creating positive customer experiences which is key towards growing your business.

• Any Businesses that thrives to be effective and efficient :Investing in CRM today saves you lot of time, money and effort. CRM lets your business grow efficiently in multiple areas, be it e- mailing a case, click to call functionality, Project management , Advanced product management, Detailed view on customers and prospects, leads scoring, integrated marketing and sales automation. CRM is a solution that any business needs to cut down costs and maximise profits.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF CRM?

How to Choose a CRM?

Choosing the right CRM that best suits your business needs, that is aligned with your budget and priorities is very important. Various aspects such as pricing, features , applications, integrations , one’s own business objectives must be considered before committing to a particular vendor.

To choose a CRM , you need to follow these five essential steps listed below :

1. Know your business Objectives and Goals:

To find the best CRM, business should list down the objectives and analyse the pain points that you want your CRM to address. Identify the goals based on your past performance, also think about tools to achieve those goals. For Example, If your business goal is to increase the sales efficiency, then look for a CRM with sales forecasting tools. Defining your CRM strategy is very important.

2. Consult with your teams and Departments:

Each department in business such as marketing, sales, accounting and support will have different requirements and expectations from a CRM system. You need to choose a CRM with all the essential tools that your team demands. For the CRM system to work seamlessly , you need to gather inputs from teams and departments while making a decision. “Pay for what you use” CRMs are widely available.

3. List all the features that you need:

Once having determined the goals and receiving feedback from the teams, the next important step is to decide upon the features that you need in a CRM software. Create two sets of features : Essential features and Desirable features. Choose the CRM that offers the features you are looking for. Also remember, there are two areas you don’t want to compromise on : Data security and Customer Support. Your CRM provider should include features to keep your data safe. It must also have reliable customer support that’s accessible across channels.

Some of the common CRM features would include the following:

Customer Management: This stores all your customer related data in one place, allowing quick access to your customer details.

Contact Management: This lets you to keep track of all the contacts in a centralised place, Storing all the information about your contacts is a must have feature in CRM.

Leads and Opportunities Management: Provides access to assess and nurture the active leads and increases the chance of converting them into customers.

Sales Pipeline:This lets you have a outline on the sales process and tracks which stage a lead is currently in.You can also look out for CRM with Industry specific features you need that can eliminate the other CRM solutions without further ado.

4. Research the best CRM available in the market:

Having in hand all the interdepartmental outputs and list of features, you are all set to look out for the best CRM that will suit your business needs. There are different ways to research for, either you can surf on the internet, or ask your peers / other business friends to know if they are using a CRM platform. You can also look for magazines and articles related to the CRM providers. Also, the best thing to do is to read reviews and testimonials related to CRM software providers.

5. Sign for free trial and Live demo sessions :

Most CRM providers offer free trial of their software to try it before purchasing. Also, some others provide demo sessions where they will give a complete overview of the product and its features. You can make use of the trial days to have a thorough sense of the product.

6. Pick the right CRM for you and set up Implementation:

Once having selected the right CRM for our business , the final step is to roll out implementation. CRM Implementation prompts you to do the following,

a) Assemble your CRM team

b) Establish the CRM goals and objectives

c) Identify the data that needs to be inputed and migrated

d) Define your CRM settings

e) Integrate third party apps

f) Test the new CRM environment

g) Train your teams

h) Measure CRM implementation

HOW CRM IS USEFUL FOR A BUSINESS ?

The CRM Software is designed to cater to the needs of business, regardless of its size and type. Start-ups, small and medium enterprises and large teams use Customer relationship management software for their growth and Profitability.

WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF CRM?

WHAT ARE THE COMMON MYTHS OF CRM ?

CRM is only for big businesses :

CRM is a necessity for any business today — especially the fast growing businesses. Apptivo, the top CRM software provides the right set of applications for the business of any size.

CRM is a fancy software :

Most of the CRM system cost are built for small and medium businesses providing flexible pricing and plans , empowering you to grow your business without missing out on your budget.

CRM is complex :

Businesses assume that CRM systems are complex and its difficult to implement CRM. Today cloud based CRM softwares , like Apptivo work out of the box. Apptivo allows for easy, simple and quick CRM system Implementation.

CRM is just a database :

A CRM is not just a contact management database. Today CRM combine multiple tools into a single platform such as leads, sales automation, marketing campaigns, emails, calls, chats and a lot more.

Maintaining a CRM takes a village :

The beauty of CRM actually makes it possible for a smaller team to wrangle a lot more data effectively.

THINKING WHAT TO DO NEXT ?

ARE YOU IN SEARCH OF A

GOOD CRM SOLUTION

FOR YOUR BUSINESS ?

BUILD YOUR BUSINESS WITH THE ALL – IN – ONE CRM SOLUTION

APPTIVO is a cloud based suite of Integrated applications for managing your contacts, sales , customer service, marketing in a single platform. Apptivo features 50+ integrated apps tailed to meet the business goals and requirements , regardless of type and size. Apptivo offers customer management, sales processes, marketing automation, invoicing, ticketing , project management , lead tracking and much more leaving its clients awestruck with its solutions world-wide.

APPTIVO PRICING AND PLANS

Apptivo offers tailor-made plans for each business size and you can select the plan that suits your business requirements. You can have a detailed Comparison of our pricing with the other CRM providers. Hop into our website and we have revealed a feature level comparison and an app level comparison, which might want you to choose Apptivo amongst other CRM Providers.

WHAT ARE Some of the KEY FEATURES OF APPTIVO ?

LEADS, CONTACTS & CUSTOMERS: Learn how to manage the contacts and customer data — all info in a centralised platform.

TASKS & APPOINTMENTS: You can Create events, reminders, schedule meetings and appointments with simple steps.

DATA MIGRATION: Migrate data from other CRMs, and easily import leads, contacts from CSV files.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Apptivo lets you Create a collaborative workspace to plan, track, and deliver the projects on time. Monitor the project performance with Milestones and Gantt Charts.

CASES: Apptivo lets you manage the cases, assign those cases and resolves cases according to the SLAs. You can Keep track of all open and closed tickets of customers.

SALES PIPELINE: Categorise the opportunities in sales funnel stages. Analyse the sales pipeline and close deals within less time and effort.

MARKETING CAMPAIGN: Launch targeted campaigns with Apptivo. You can track and measure the campaigns effectively.

EMAIL: Send and receive emails, options to send bulk emails, create your own email templates.

 

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