Typical problems of those who avoid CRMs:
- Has the account manager changed, and all the contacts you have developed have sunk into oblivion?
- Forgot to call the client on time and lost the contract?
- Do salespeople retell each customer’s story to new employees?
- Can’t say for sure which orders are already paid for, and which ones got stuck at the stage of quotation?
If all these issues sound familiar, your business needs CRM.
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What Is CRM And What Do You Eat It With?
Customer Relationship Management as a philosophy revolves around making clients more satisfied with the buying process. This approach is essential if the sales and marketing manager want this client to become a long-standing one.
The customer-sales manager relationship is based on bringing the most advantageous product to the former and profit to the selling company. Yet, the competition in the current market forces even big companies to fight over loyal customers.
Today, the customer is the center of all business philosophy, and the companies’ development pursues effective marketing and high-quality customer service.
Why Client Is The Center Of The Business Universe?
The demand for a product is formed by many factors. In general, this is based on the buyers who are willing and able to buy a given product at a given price.
This is where the work of the sales department begins. They need to kindle desire, create an opportunity, or convince a client that he should find an opportunity to get the product.
The Major Function Of A CRM System?
CRM-system is an instrument that helps sales and account managers work with clients. It allows organizing and planning this kind of work painlessly.
The system collects data about customers and interactions with them. A CRM system can monitor cold calls, mailings, track the state of affairs for each client. At the same time, the managers can add a summary of all conversations with customers into the system. All the data is available from cloud storage even in case of a power outage or server failure.
Benefits Of CRM Software
For The Sales Department
A huge plus here is that the system reduces unnecessary paperwork to zero. The employees’ work hours become more structured. They stop losing everyday tasks in a heap of memos and e-mails.
Another advantage of these systems worth noticing is the availability of all data for the department heads and trusted employees at any time, any place.
For The Customers
Customer satisfaction is the touchstone of every business. Efficient and pleasant communication with sales managers, in turn, is a touchstone of the customers’ satisfaction.
Though the customers do not use the CRM itself, they get a better service from the companies having it.
Why Standard CRMs Will Not Do?
The market offers a great variety of ready-made CRM solutions such as Bitrix, AMO, and others. And most of them look alike.
They do show high functionality. They do offer many integration options. They are pretty cheap and low-maintenance. Yet, choosing custom crm solutions would be a smart move for many reasons.
1. Neither Of The Existing CRMs Allows Creating A Customer’s Account
This solution has the potential to turn client service into something more. It’s better when the client and the seller work within a single space integrated into the ecosystem of the seller’s business.
2. Tailored Solution Works Better For Complex Commercial Proposals And Order Calculation
Unique or complex services stipulate generating intricate commercial proposals and unique methods for creating an order estimate. The do-all systems make these processes too complex, if not beyond understanding. Moreover, even two different business projects within the same company will have differences in the quotation template. Thus, a custom CRM could help save both time and effort on changing documents and templates.
3. Flexibility And Adaptation To New Realities
It is important to react quickly to the changes in sales trends. If such tools as CRM are lagging, the company loses efficiency and profit. Customized software offers more options for integration, refined feature set, and quick change of the system elements. It includes using any logic, document formats, or order calculation system.
4. Building Your Process Of Working With Leads
Each user creates a unique sales process. It is essential to be there on time when the customer is ready to buy. It is even more important to work closely with the client after he has already bought the product. A polite and timely response would make the customer stay loyal to the company.
Moreover, all solutions offering templates look alike. Marketing the services using templates is ten times harder than doing it for non-ordinary products. Research shows that original design increases brand awareness, engagement, and customer loyalty, so experts recommend developing CRM systems from scratch.
5. Control Over Every Step
This aspect is essential for the department heads. They need to control each stage and step of the project. For example, if a technician does not respond to an order within 24 hours, then send a notification to his boss. A basic CRM does not have these functions. Developers may add some features for an extra payment. Yet, it does not mean that they will work properly.
6. An Individual CRM Is Agile And Fast
It is important to notify users of key actions. At the same time, systems should not bombard them with unnecessary notifications. Otherwise, the person may stop taking any messages from you. It is necessary to give key notifications in the right dosage and at the right time.
Personal editions may use machine learning used for data collection and analysis. On top of it, this feature gives marketing managers new and powerful analytical tools.
It is vital to make information gathering as autonomous as possible. Manual input increases the risk of error or even system failure.
7. Ready-Made Solutions Give Little Time To Get To Know Them
Once integrated, the system impacts the work process of all sales, marketing, and production managers. Custom CRMs get into the company’s system gradually. Such a format gives the managers time and space to get used to the new methods.
Thus, tailored versions reduce the risk of errors as well as increase sales efficiency.
8. Non-Standard Solutions Have No Extra Stuff
Companies develop ready-made solutions for a wide range of users. So it’s pretty much like buying jeans in mass-market stores. Such products have to suit as many users as possible, so the developers create their product for a kind of midrange user.
It’s like selling a smartphone with a thousand preinstalled applications. One day a user may need some of them, but the chance of this happening is low. Meanwhile, these apps take up resources, space, and download updates. Such a phone would be most inconvenient and more expensive.
Narrow Focus Ts The Best Choice
How can we create great fashionable and jeans for a fashion model that would also suit a middle-aged carpenter? Funny as it sounds, this is what a non-custom CRM is.
So the developers of standard CRMs often abandon some target audiences in favor of the majority. A large number of options and functions results in a similarly large number of fields and icons on the user interface. Creating a tailored CRM is the best choice to control the business processes and secure continuous development.
If you are interested in even more business-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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