What to look for in new CRM

If you're trying to transition away from spreadsheets, have outgrown your current CRM or are just plain fed up with your existing system, then it’s time to look at alternative solutions!

With the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) coming into force this month, take the opportunity to review your data and processes and see what else is available.

Your CRM in not just your company data. It's a major asset to your business as it identifies the value of future and existing customers. This is particularly key when organisations seek investment, acquisitions and are forming new partnerships.

With so many solutions now available, the balance of function, budget and usability can be confusing and often overwhelming. To make sure you select the right CRM for your business, here are our top tips to help get you started. 

1. Champions
   Adoption is key to success. Identify the sales and marketing personnel who are most likely to buy into the project and they will do the hard work for you. Creating an efficient process that your team supports will help you to identify the CRM that will support this, rather than forcing a process to comply to software.
2. Simplicity
   A great CRM should be intuitive and simple to use. Do your planning first and lay out your main objectives before you go headlong into demos and free trials. This sounds like simple advice, but you’d be surprised how many organisations start off without a clear mission and launch straight into the sales cycle.
3. Expensive/unnecessary add-ons 
   Some CRMs can start out great, but when you come to try and do anything useful with it, you have to invest in expensive consultants, rocket scientists or add-ons. Expect to keep investing in your CRM tools to help feed it..
4. Scalability
   Pick a solution that is the right size for you and the system that you can grow into. What are your predictions for numbers of sales, pre-sales, post-sales and support people that are going to be using it?
5. Consistency
   With forward planning, you can avoid constantly tinkering with systems, adding or extracting fields. This means you will be able to see trends in your data and identify where you can find successes.
6. Integration
   Most CRMs should give you a joined up world of your online and offline assets including website, email, events.
7. Read the small print 
   Understand the terms of your contract so you don't get caught out with number of users, contacts etc. The devil's in the detail so read through this carefully!

We’ve been involved in many procurement exercises with CRM and used the very latest over the years. No one solution is the perfect fit for every business and we can alleviate the pressure of selecting the right tool/system/partner, by discovering what you want and need and offering some free advice to help guide you.

If you'd like to find out more about how we can help, fill in the form below and we'll be in touch!