What is
CRM Software? Definition
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. CRM Software is designed to help businesses offer an impeccable customer experience, from the first prospect interaction to deal closure and beyond.
Get StartedImplementing a CRM system lets your customer facing teams (sales, customer service and marketing) — store customer and prospect information, identify and manage sales opportunities, make accurate forecasts, simplify customer service operations, manage marketing campaigns, and harness in-depth CRM analytics to help you make smarter business decisions.
- CRM Strategy
- History of CRM Software
- Do I need a CRM?
- Benefits of CRM
- How to choose a CRM?
- CRM Implementation
- Why choose Zoho CRM?
- CRM Strategy
- History of CRM
- CRM Adoption
- Benefits of CRM
- Choosing a CRM
- CRM Implementation
- Choose Zoho CRM
CRM Strategy: Why do businesses need a CRM Strategy?
Your business is dependent on your customers. Streamlining customer interaction across multiple touchpoints and tracking leads and deals from start to closure without a centralized CRM strategy in place is a futile exercise. Without the proper software, your sales staff will have a harder time tracking leads and staying on top of their targets. This leads to a drawn out sales cycle, with a generic and sub-par customer experience.
Here's where a CRM comes in.
With a CRM in place, businesses can streamline customer interaction across multiple channels, track deals from start to closure, get a 360-degree view of support tickets, phone calls, live chats, track their sales targets and make data driven decisions with powerful analytics. When you have a strong CRM strategy for your business, it allows you to build personal connections with customers, which in turn helps you identify their needs and requirements and provide them with personalized services.
According to Nucleus Research, for every $1 invested in CRM, you get $8.71 in return. That is An ROI of greater than 750% !
Brief history of CRM Software
In the late 60s and 70s businesses used to track their leads and contacts using offline methods such as journals and rolodexes. Modern CRM systems can be traced back to the 80s and early 90s, when businesses used to save their leads and contacts in digital database management systems which then evolved into Sales Force Automation (SFA) technology. As the industry grew, vendors were pushed to provide a broader set of services like omni-channel communication, marketing automation, performance tracking and analytics and reporting.
91% of companies with 10 or more employees use a CRM in their organisation - CRM.org
Fast-forward to the current day, customer relationships are built and nurtured through the efforts of every customer facing team in your company, not just the sales team. Accodingly, CRMs of today have evolved to become much more than a Salesforce Automation too. Enterprise CRMs of today bridge your your marketing, sales, and service teams on a common platform allowing your customers to have seamless experiences with your brand.
Does my business need a CRM Software?
If you're on the fence about adopting a Customer Relationship Management solution, look for these warning signs:
Is your data spread across your excel sheets, business cards, and notes taken during customer meetings?
Do your sales, marketing and support teams operate in silos leading to a subpar customer experience?
Do you spend a substantial amount of time and money into training replacements and getting them up to speed on customer preferences?
Does your sales team find it impossible to keep track of every detail as your customer base grows?
Do you face trouble keeping everyone updated on the status of a deal, or sending documents like sales orders and invoices?
Do you find it hard to find patterns and personalize your interactions with customers?
Between 70% to 80% of CRM investments are made in software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools, according to Gartner.
Benefits of CRM software
A CRM can help you identify, nurture, and follow up on quality leads. This means that you don't waste time and resources on a prospect that probably won't become a customer. Combined with a reduced sales cycle, you can guide more leads more efficiently and convert them to happy customers in a considerably shorter time.
Help your team stay productive by defining and building efficient processes for your business. A CRM can help you ensure that standards are followed while processes are executed. Make sure your sales team's time is spent on closing deals and not wasted on mundane tasks by automating routine activities.
You can rest assured that your customer data is safe in your vendor's data centers, safeguarded by top-of-the line physical and digital security mechanisms. If you're based in the European Union or do business with European customers, a CRM that offers GDPR-compliance features will be one of your greatest assets.
Accurate data from across your organization helps keep your decision makers informed, so they can react to market trends with better decisions. Detailed reports will show how your teams are performing and where there's room for improvement.
A CRM with a mobile app ensures that your team has access to important CRM data, no matter where they are. A sales rep in the field can pull up information about nearby customers, drop by for a meeting, and easily update everyone else on any new information by logging it in the CRM through their mobile app.
A CRM arms your team with all the historical data of a customer, as well information regarding similar issues faced by others. A centralized repository of information helps your team resolve customer inquiries quickly, ensuring they leave satisfied.
47% of polled CRM users said that CRM had a significant impact on customer retention and an equal amount of users stated that it had an impact on customer satisfaction as well.
How to choose the right CRM software?
When choosing the CRM tool for your business, the first choice you'll be making is between on-premise or cloud CRM software. Before you make that choice, let's take a quick look at the pros and cons of both.
- Cloud CRM
- On-premise CRM
- INFRASTRUCTURE
- Requires no additional infrastructure other than a browser and a working internet connection.
- Requires you to set up servers on your business premises.
- ACCESSIBILITY
- Your CRM data is accessible from anywhere and any device. CRM vendors provide a mobile app for accessibility while on the move.
- Your data is hosted on local servers and can only be accessed by devices on your local network. Building mobile applications requires an extra expenditure of time and money.
- TRIAL
- Cloud CRM offer free trials, so you can test the product and see if it meets your needs.
- No trial is available, as you need to have the infrastructure on premises to run the application in the first place.
- COST
- A pay-as-you-go plan, allows you to pay an upfront subscription fee for your total number of users on a monthly or annual basis.
- A large upfront cost for server and software installation, as well a monthly licensing fee for the software.
- CUSTOMIZATION
- Depending on the vendors, customization options vary, but are often readily available and quick to deploy.
- The deployment period is longer and more labor-intensive.
- INTEGRATION
- Easily integrate with other business applications and through APIs.
- Depends on the vendor, but requires expert domain knowledge, upkeep and additional costs.
- SECURITY
- Vendors are dedicated to providing robust security measures and access control to ensure the safety and integrity of your data.
- Your organization will be responsible for the monitoring and protection of user data. You will have to dedicate a team, and considerable resources, to keeping your security and privacy measures up to date.
- SLAs and Uptime
- Enterprise vendors like Zoho provide 99.9% server availability.
- Ensuring 24/7 availability is a responsibility your organization has to take.
- SCALABILITY
- Easily scale up or down to accommodate changes in the number of users or data storage needs
- Requires costly upgrades or replacements.
On-premise CRMs were the go-to choice of organizations a decade ago. Today, cloud CRM software has come a long way in offering better benefits. With Cloud CRMs, your data is secure and accessible from anywhere, and your team stays connected and up-to-date with the latest and most accurate customer information.
Back in 2008, only 13% of CRMs were hosted on a cloud server. Fast forward to 2017 and a whopping 87% CRMs are cloud based.
Things to consider when implementing a CRM
When choosing the CRM tool for your business, the first choice you'll be making is between on-premise or cloud CRM software. Before you make that choice, let's take a quick look at the pros and cons of both.
83% of businesses admit that their biggest challenge was getting their staff to use the software. Choose a CRM which offers a simple and clean interface, a great user experience, and is easy to pick up.
Market conditions are dynamic—you will need to maintain with the current pace of the business to outpace your competition. Do you have a sudden surge in your workforce? Your CRM must be able to grow with your teams and business by keeping up with the current pace of the business.
Choose a CRM with advanced security features like encryption, audit logs, IP restrictions, and two-factor authentication. Your CRM should allow you to focus on your business without having to worry about data compromise.
Choose a CRM that can be molded to reflect your business process by adding additional modules, custom processes, and automating repetitive tasks with workflows.
If you have a sales team in the field, it is important to ensure that they have access to customer data at all times. This allows them to be on the move, close deals more effectively, and keep everyone in the loop.
Ensure that your CRM is compatible with your current customer data source : be it spreadsheets, notepad files, CSV, or API if you are already using a CRM. This will ensure that your data can be easily transferred to the new system without the need for extensive reformatting.
We offer flexible contracts. Straightforward pricing, no lock-ins. See plans and pricing
Why choose Zoho CRM platform?
Zoho CRM—with its broad coverage, deep features, and intuitive UI—can go head to head against any other big brand name when it comes to technology and functionality. Where other CRMs use predatory business practices and aggressive, multi-year contracts to strong arm users into sticking around, we're so confident in the strength of our product that we offer flexible, month-to-month subscriptions that can grow with your business.
When your marketing, sales, and service teams are on the same page, your customers have seamless experiences with your brand. With our comprehensive -- and flexible -- CRM solution, you can unite your customer facing teams, promote positive experiences, and build lasting relationships.
Redesign the look and feel of Zoho CRM to suit you with Canvas, a simple drag-and-drop editor. Create the experience you want from scratch or choose from a wide range of customized templates created by our in-house artists, from minimalist views that deliver role-critical information to industry-specific views that deliver sales data.
Create personalized customer journeys with CommandCenter. Coordinate the actions of various departments and third-party apps used by your organization to provide customers a seamless brand experience. Track the journey taken by each prospect or customer so you always know the path they've taken
Zoho's AI assistant, Zia, is well-equipped to give your sales, marketing, and service teams intelligent suggestions to enhance their work, and make predictions to improve their decision-making. Zia can also answer vocal queries, detect anomalies in data, and analyze natural language sentiment.