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In today’s competitive world, building and maintaining customer relationships is vital. CRM tools are a must-have for this, as they help with lead generation, nurturing, and everything in between.
It’s important to know what features are key and what mistakes to avoid when choosing a CRM system. It’s also critical to ensure the software you choose will benefit your business’s wider CRM strategy.
To help, this guide covers everything you need to take into account before deciding on a CRM tool.
Monday CRM – Affordable, Easy to Use, and Scalable
- Powerful Sales Automation
- Task and Project Tracking
- Efficient Roadmap Planning
1. Consider Your Needs
First, identify your needs, set clear objectives, and identify the concerns you’re looking to address with your CRM system. Start by consulting your team to understand their experience with customer relations and data.
There’s never a “one-size-fits-all” solution. Every business is unique, so it’s important to choose software that’s compatible with your objectives and goals.
These are the 3 types of CRM systems:
Analytical CRMs focus on analyzing customer data, such as sales patterns, financial data, and marketing information. This can help you identify the current market trends in customer behavior.
Let’s say you want to form a customer segment. In that case, you can analyze your customers’ average spending to divide them based on income groups, for example.
If you want to improve and automate your marketing, sales, and customer service functions, an operational CRM is what you need. These also help in customer retention and acquisition.
These types of CRMs help businesses generate quality leads, nurture them, and convert the leads into loyal customers.
An organization is a collection of various departments, and all of them should work in sync, and a collaborative CRM does just that. It improves business processes and customer experiences.
This is done by allowing seamless communication between multiple departments. If you’re a large business with various departments and a broad customer base, you need a collaborative CRM.
2. Determine Your Budget
The cost of CRM solutions depends on the provider, the features you opt for, and the number of users you want to add, among others, with most offering various monthly subscriptions for differing budgets.
You can expect to spend around $12/user/month on an average CRM solution, but if you have a large team or require advanced features like AI insights, then you’ll need to opt for a high-end plan.
Higher-end plans typically cost $50-$150/user/month to $300+ for an enterprise CRM. You want to strike a balance, and this means ensuring:
- That you don’t overspend on a system that you don’t need
- That you don’t under-spend and compromise on features
If you’re not sure where to start or have very tight budget constraints, you can go for free trials. Some providers also offer free CRM products, which can be a good starting point for small businesses.
3. Consider the Features You Need
This ties into the budget. Start by consulting with the teams who’ll actually use the software, develop a checklist, and categorize them as must-have and nice-to-have features.
This will help you choose the right subscription and avoid paying for unnecessary features or opting for a service that doesn’t have what you need.
Here are some of the important features you should consider:
Choose a CRM that can organize and store customer data, such as their names, contact details, addresses, and communication history. Additionally, your CRM should have features for exporting and importing contact lists, plus duplication management.
This lets you identify the most promising potential customers based on psychographic and demographic factors. This way, you can identify and focus on the right leads, thereby improving the productivity and efficiency of your sales team.
Make sure the CRM system you choose lets you monitor customer interaction through different channels like phone calls, email, in-person meetings, and social media.
This way, your team will have access to real-time data and communication history to personalize customized experiences for the customers.
Nobody likes doing repetitive tasks, and it’s a waste of valuable human resources. Choose a CRM that lets you automate recurring tasks like email campaigns, follow-ups, and lead scoring.
It’ll reduce manual workload and provide your sales rep enough time to focus on providing value-added services instead. Keep in mind that often, automation is limited or reserved for higher-end plans.
Robust reporting and analytical tools are key to gaining insights into the performance and effectiveness of your sales, marketing, and customer service efforts.
This will help you track key metrics, measure campaign success, and identify trends over time. However, it’s key to ensure the reports and analytics you need are on offer with your chosen plan or provider.
Switching CRMs is a big deal that requires a well-thought-out plan and, often, outside help. To ensure you won’t need to do this, it’s important to ensure the CRM you choose is scalable.
For this, we recommend ensuring it offers ample customization for things like workflows, forms, and fields and factor in the cost to scale and the functionality and any limitations on higher-end plans.
The best CRM apps will let your team members access and manage customer data from anywhere. Here, too, you’ll want to consider the UI and the functionality on offer, and where possible, try any free versions before committing.
4. Integrations
Businesses use an array of apps in their day-to-day operations, and it’s important to ensure they all sync to provide a single source of truth for your entire company.
For example, if you use Salesforce as your CRM and Monday for task management, it’ll streamline processes if these are integrated — where an action in one automatically updates the other.
This minimizes the need to juggle apps and saves you from manually doing things like updates. This is important to consider, as the number of integrations varies depending on the provider.
For example, as we found in our HubSpot review, it boasts 1,000+ options, whereas tools like Act! CRM has 40+. Some providers also limit certain integrations to certain plans, or they’re add-ons.
These are some of the integration categories most businesses will want to keep an eye out for:
- Accounting or ERP software
- HRM software
- Billing and eCommerce tools
- Your website itself
- Social media accounts
- Project management software
You’ll also want to look for common integrations like Gmail, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Slack so that your team can communicate without having to leave the CRM platform.
5. Ease of Use and Setup
A complex interface can lead to a low adoption rate, frustration, and mistakes. That’s why it’s important to choose a CRM that boasts a minimal learning curve — like Monday CRM, for example.
Make sure the provider offers online courses, in-house seminars, a training program, or webinars within the software. This will help you reduce downtime and get a hang of the software quickly.
We also always recommend making use of any free versions, be it a plan, trial, demo, or even a money-back guarantee, to test the software yourself before committing.
Guided implementation and onboarding for tools that have a higher learning curve is also something you’ll want to take into account to ensure that your team gets the support it needs.
6. Security
When using a CRM, you’re entrusting your company’s most valuable assets to the provider. We can’t stress enough the importance of choosing CRM software that prioritizes the protection of sensitive customer data, ensuring secure storage, transmission, and access.
Since CRMs contain personal information like credit card numbers, financial records, biometrics, and other personally identifiable information (PII), they’re an enticing target for hackers.
Make sure the CRM you choose is equipped with the strictest security protocols, including:
Avoid These 5 Mistakes When Choosing a CRM
As you go through the CRM decision-making process, it’s important to know some of the common mistakes to avoid. This includes:
1. Ignoring End Users
The success of your investment depends on whether the employees are comfortable using the system. Don’t let your business goals overshadow the needs of your end users.
Automatic lead tracking is useless if the automation process is too complex to implement. Failure to consider your team’s expertise in a particular solution can lead to missed opportunities and decreased efficiency.
2. Not Identifying Your Needs
CRM systems aren’t one-size-fits-all solutions, and with so many popular CRM services, identifying your needs and having a clear budget is vital. Not doing this can lead to spending more than you need to or not having the capabilities your team needs, for example.
3. Ignoring Metrics
You need goals in place to measure whether your CRM is helping you achieve what you set out to. This means that you must be able to quantify your objectives and measure them on comparable metrics.
Before you choose a CRM solution, take some time to consider your goals. Then, choose a system that offers metrics to measure and support your goals.
For example, if you want to improve your email marketing, check if the CRM measures parameters like how many emails were opened or how many users clicked the links in the email.
4. A Higher Price Doesn’t Mean a Better Fit
Some think an expensive CRM is a must-have to accomplish business goals. However, that’s not always the case. Think about what works best for your business.
Don’t waste your resources on a CRM that doesn’t meet your needs. For example, as we saw in our Pipedrive review, it’s one of the cheapest, yet it boasts a strong reputation and solid features.
It all depends on your specific needs and your budget.
5. Not Looking Into the Future
The main purpose of a CRM is to help your business grow, which means it should be scalable. Not taking this into account can mean, as we discussed above, needing to switch CRMs.
Another common issue is that businesses scale and then find the CRM doesn’t meet their needs or it’s too costly to justify in terms of the feature-to-price value on offer.
Compare the Best CRM Solutions
Now that you know how you can pick the best CRM software for your intended use cases, here are some of the market’s top options compared:
| CRM Platform | Salesforce | Monday CRM | Pipedrive | HubSpot | Act! | Zoho |
| Best For | Large organizations | Startups | Pipeline management | Any-sized business | SMB needs | AI-powered assistance |
| Starting Price | $25/user/month | $12/user/month | $9.90/user/month | $18/month – 2 users | $30/user/month | $14/user/month |
| Free Version | 30-day trial | 14-day trial | 14-day trial | Free plan | 14-day trial | Free plan |
| Compatibility | iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, browser | iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, browser | iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, browser | iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, browser | iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, browser | iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, browser |
| Top 3 Features | 3,000+ integrations, AI automation, lead activity tracking | Unlimited free viewers, 200+ templates, mass email tracking | Contact mapping, group email, meeting scheduler | Team collaboration, conversation intelligence, recurring revenue tracking | Built-in SMS, industry-specific templates, automated workflows | Predictive sales, omnichannel presence, journey orchestration |
Conclusion
The right CRM solution will help improve your business’s growth, revenue, and productivity. However, it’s important to do your research and pick a CRM that works well with your existing tools and fits your budget.
When you choose a CRM, take into account all the factors we’ve outlined to help you save time and money in making the right choice for your business. Remember to keep it simple and avoid getting caught up in all the features it offers.
Monday CRM – Affordable, Easy to Use, and Scalable
- Powerful Sales Automation
- Task and Project Tracking
- Efficient Roadmap Planning
FAQs
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What does a successful CRM look like?
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References
- TLS 1.3 in Practice (University of Tennessee)
- Why Customer Retention Lies at the Heart of Corporate Valuation (Knowledge at Wharton)
- What Are the GDPR Consent Requirements? (GDPR)
