Top 5 CRM Must Haves
While the back-office has Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to track payables and receivables, the front office needs a way to track customer and prospect interactions. That’s where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) comes in. CRM software is rich with features that record and streamline front office operations, but which of them is absolutely necessary to every organization? Here’s a simple list of must-haves to follow when you are deciding on a CRM solution:
- Contact Information Tracking
Sure, you can still buy a Rolodex at your local Office Depot but they can get messy fast. We had an office manager who used to write all over the edges of the Rolodex cards to remember details about her clients until the whole card was filled with ink. There’s no reason for that anymore. Most CRM software has strong contact managment built in. Make sure it is easy to find the person or company you are looking for. What fields are searchable? What if you only know the first few digits of the phone number, can you still find them? A database is only as good as your ability to find the data.
- Customer and Prospect Interaction
Simply knowing a company’s address and phone number will not help your sales and marketing team to be more effective. They will need to know how often they have tried to reach the prospect, what they spoke about and what products the prospect is potentially interested in. A good CRM will have the ability to track every customer inter-action from emails to face-to-face meetings. It should interact with Outlook so that messages and attachments are automatically recorded in CRM, and allow you to add any important details in the notes.
- Sales Funnel Tracking
You have spent a lot of time developing a sales process. Isn’t it important to ensure that the process is being followed? Your CRM software should allow you to define your sales processes and offer your sales team an easy way to check each step as it is completed. Pipeline meetings are much easier when a dashboard report is printed with a list of every prospect and their stage in the sales cycle.
- Marketing Tracking
Marketing is often overlooked in a CRM system, but it is a vital part of the selling ecosystem. Your CRM should tell you how many email campaigns you have sent to each specific prospect and what articles they are clicking through to read. You should know if they responded to a mailer or an online offer. Over time you will gain an accurate picture of what each prospect is interested in, allowing you to begin to target your marketing efforts.
- Cloud Capability
Our sales workforce is becoming increasingly mobile and CRM should accommodate that. Always ask if you have the option of hosting the software instead of installing it on an internal server. The implementation time is often shorter, the costs lower and the accessibility easier.
Do you have 'must-haves' for your CRM system?