How to Choose the Best CRM Software for Your Business

Whether you are a solo business or growing a team, having a CRM (Customer relationship management) is critical to the sustained success of your business. 

A CRM helps you to keep track of your current clients, past clients, and prospective clients. It can also help you define workflows for maintaining contact and nurturing relationships.

If you want to avoid the feast-or-famine cycle of business and you would prefer to have a steady stream of clients and thus revenue, you need to have consistent outreach and follow up with prospective, current, and past clients. That is where the value of a good CRM can really have an impact. 

A good CRM:

• Keeps track of all your interactions with each client
• Streamlines your sales and marketing activities
• Makes your team more efficient by showing who has done what
• Offers a way for consistent outreach and interaction that builds or maintains relationships

Now that you agree you need a CRM, how do you find the one that is a best fit for you?

How to choose the best CRM software for your business

As I always say, technology amplifies. If you do not have good workflows in place, then any software solution you purchase will only make it worse. If you do have good workflows and you seek out software that matches your needs, then your technology solution will make your workflows better. 

There are a lot of CRMs out there and a lot of them have neat bells and whistles. Indeed there may be a few that are buzz worthy in your circles and thus you know those the best. 

However, oftentimes the buzzy solutions are more than what you need at the moment. Really take the time to sit down and think through all your needs.

How do you like to engage clients?

Do you simply want to know the last time you spoke with someone or do you want to have a drip campaign? Do you have certain communications that happen with every new client? Knowing how frequently and what kind of communication you engage with current, past, and prospective clients will guide what kind of features you need in a CRM.

Who all will need access?

Are you a small business where you and your team will need the same access? Do you have a sales team that may need different levels of access than the marketing team? Consider who and what kinds of access will be needed and compare that to the plans offered by your top choices.

What all will it need to integrate with?

I knew a business owner who uses a CRM that sits on top of Gmail. When she tried to adopt another software solution, it used the same integration that the CRM does and thus caused issues. 

You want to make sure your CRM not only integrates with other solutions that you use as necessary but also that they will not interfere with those existing integrations.

Is there a freemium version?

At Freedom Makers, we are big fans of freemium options over free trials. The freemium version lets you truly test out the system and it can grow with you. A free trial...ends in two weeks. That is not enough time to test it out in real time. It is simply a chance to play around and imagine how it might work in your business. While that is not necessarily a deal breaker, choosing a solution that will grow with you just makes more sense. 

Simpler is better!

As mentioned before, business owners run the risk of buying more than they need. Implementing a more-complicated-software-solution-than-you-need can be overwhelming. Start simple (even just a spreadsheet!), focus on your workflows, and grow from there.

A CRM is critical to the sustained success of your business. An effective CRM will have a profound impact on that success. Take your time, start small, stay simple, and choose wisely!