How To Choose The Right CRM for Your Business?

When it comes to CRM tools, or customer relationship management tools, there are a lot of choices out there. There may be a lot of factors you want to consider, such as cost and security. But the most important thing is that it fits into your overall business process. That means that it should be easy for employees who work with customers to use and easily integrate with other systems such as accounting software or email servers. When evaluating different CRMs, think about what features are most important for your business and how often you'll need them—both now and in the future—and do a cost-benefit analysis before signing any contracts or purchasing subscriptions.

Know how your CRM fits into your overall business process.

As you start to look at CRM options, it's important to consider how they fit into your overall business process. What processes do you need to automate and why? Does it make sense for your sales team to use their CRM in a different way than, say, marketing or customer service? Here are some questions that may help guide this exercise:

• How does the CRM improve upon what we’re already doing manually through email or Excel spreadsheets?

• How will this new technology make my team more efficient and effective in their day-to-day activities—and where will it fall short? Is there an easy workaround that won't require much extra time or effort on our part?

• Are there any pain points with our current system—for example, is it too hard for people who aren't tech savvy (or even just not very good at technology) to use it effectively? If so, how can I ensure that all members of my team feel comfortable using the new platform once implemented as part of their daily workflow?

Learn more about SetSchedule's Free CRM Technology: SetSchedule CRM

Don't be afraid to ask your sales team what they think.

The most important part of choosing a CRM is to talk with your sales team. Ask them what they like and don't like about their current CRM. Ask them how they use it and what features could be improved upon. Also, ask them for suggestions for future development because you never know when those ideas might come in handy!

Consider which features you want in a CRM.

When choosing a CRM, you're going to want to look at what features are important to your business.

Here are some key things to consider:

• What functionality do I need? This can be broken down into three broad categories: core functionality (such as sales pipeline management), customer service and support, and integration with other apps in my business. The core functionality is likely the most important feature for most businesses—these tools will help you organize your team’s workflows from start to finish. Look for CRMs that offer customizable fields and dashboards so that you can track data in a way that makes sense for your company's processes. You should also consider whether the CRM allows customers to sign up easily on their own—if they have any difficulty signing up on their own, it could negatively impact the user experience of your app or website. Finally, check out reviews online before making a purchase! It's always a good practice when shopping around and not just relying solely on word-of-mouth recommendations from friends who might not be using similar products themselves (and thus not necessarily know what works best).

Create your Free SetSchedule account to utilize SetSchedule's CRM. 

Do a cost-benefit analysis.

To do a cost-benefit analysis, you need to define how much money you will save or make by doing the project. The amount you will spend on the CRM is an expense and should be included in your calculation.

If it's not clear how much time and effort your team will save by using the CRM, take into account how long it would take them to do their job manually (or even with a spreadsheet). This can help illustrate how much time they are spending on tasks that could be automated with the right software.

Look at the customer's security, support, and other services that come with the CRM.

Security is an important factor in choosing a CRM. The CRM should offer encryption and password protection to keep your data safe from hackers. It should also have a backup service that ensures your data is secure even if the server crashes or becomes inaccessible for some reason.

Support is another important factor to consider when choosing a CRM. You want to be sure you can get help if you need it—not just during business hours but 24/7 as well. Customer service representatives should be able to respond quickly, either by phone or email if they’re unavailable due to time constraints or workloads later on down the road (i.e., "out of office" messages). Finally: Think about whether there will be any hidden costs once you sign up for the service—such as additional fees depending on how many users are logged into one account. These kinds of things could end up costing way more than expected!

Think about how you want to use it in the future as well as today.

When choosing a CRM, it's important to remember that the software will be evolving alongside your business.

If you're not sure exactly what type of CRM fits your needs today, start by thinking about how you want to use it in the future as well as today. This is an especially important consideration if you have multiple departments or teams involved with sales and marketing (or any other department where data collection is key).

If after considering all these factors—from cost to reports to implementation speed and ease—you are still unsure which option best suits your needs, don't worry! We’ve put together some resources that can help guide your decision-making process:

• Talk with colleagues who have used different types of CRMs before or ask them for their input before buying anything new. You might find out that some features from one vendor would work better than others for certain types of jobs at specific times during the year (like holidays). The best way to learn about how others may have solved similar problems is by talking directly with those closest on hand who've already been there before!

Make sure you have the right data points before signing a contract on any CRM.

It’s important to know what you want from a CRM before you start looking for one. You can't make an informed decision without knowing what you need, which is why I recommend making your own list of “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves” before even thinking about the various features that exist within each system.