Focusing on your customers

Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, the key data and processes that any business needs to expand and grow their customer base. Whether it is capturing that data in an excel spreadsheet, or an Airtable base or even a formal CRM software tool, tracking relationships and interactions with your customers is crucial.

Customers could be defined as those paying for a good or service. But customers could also be any type of person or company that you are tracking in order to show your impact in a particular region or industry.

There are many CRM software options available in the marketplace. Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho, Insightly, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Oracle are just to name a few. Most of these tools come with different modules (sales, marketing, customer support) that you can “link” together and customize to your needs.

There are many other CRM software that focus on one particular audience - lawyers, real estate agents, marketers, etc.

Making a decision on which CRM to use can be hard and seem overwhelming. Here’s the steps we have found helpful when deciding on a new CRM tool.

• Take the time to define your high level requirements.

  • Set up listening sessions and ask your employees what their needs are. What workflows and processes are they doing all the time? What feature(s) do they not want to loose? What feature(s) would they like to see in a new system? Once this list is created, you’ll have a high-level checklist to compare the potential vendors against.

• Define what tools you would like to integrate with the CRM.

  • What existing software are you using today that captures the contact information of your customers? What tools are you using to tell your story or visualize your impact? Which tools need to be integrated when the CRM is launched? Could some of the tools be integrated in a later phase? Building this list of tools will give you another way to rank and compare the potential vendors.

• Reach out to CRM vendors and see demos of their capabilities.

  • Sales demos can be daunting, but so crucial in making sure the vendor understands your needs and you get a sense of what their tool offers. If you can, leverage the free trials and/or training sessions to learn more about the tool itself.

• Read case studies and talk to customers using the CRM currently.

  • Learning how others have implemented the tool can help you find scenarios you might not have thought of before. A robust customer community can be helpful when your technical support needs are limited. Networking with other users can help push forward features that are important as well as learn tricks and tips from each other.

• Figure out your budget and if you will need a software implementer or additional consulting help to configure and migrate your data.

  • Buying a new CRM and configuring it is just one piece of the puzzle. You need to transform workflow and processes as well which may require support from a software implement or consultant. Identifying potential workflow efficiencies can also help justify the initial cost of the CRM tool as well.

While the example above is around CRM software, the same steps can be applied to any new software procurement process. The upfront strategy and requirements building can help streamline the implementation and user adaptation of the software.

Reach out if you need help navigating the CRM marketplace or are looking for guidance on how to replace a legacy software system.