Compare CRM

How to Compare CRM Solutions?

For those who run a business, customer satisfaction is either the number one concern, or is going to be soon enough. There are ways to achieve a better reception to your brand; methods that include either excess expenditure of capita or great marketing efforts. To make customers happier you don't always have to part with healthy sums of money; sometimes it pays off to work smarter than to work harder.

Customer Relationship Management, or CRM for short, is not the cheapest way to get things going, but it's definitely mandatory after your business has reached a certain size. Let's assume this point comes once you have employees who need to follow certain protocol when talking to, or handling data of customers. When there is service, there are complaints and those complaints are better handled quickly, professionally and more importantly, with the goal of fixing the issue in mind.

A good CRM software package provides these protocols, and helps your employees to follow them more closely. The set of rules are called CRM workflows, and they often include some automated events, prerequisite checking, follow-up steps, billing and sending of letters or e-mails. All these steps require information regarding the case and the person on the other end of the mail (you'll want to make sure that your customer data quality is high so the information is good). CRM solutions include ways to access this data according to company guidelines.

More on Comparing CRM Systems

For example, a sales representative may get access to the database of people who requested a quote on your services, while a customer support representative may need information from the same set of data to handle issues with the ordering process. It all clicks together, if it doesn't you'll be first to notice it on the quarterly report.

Why is CRM important?

With increasing significance of social networking sites it's easy to understand how the voice of separate individuals gets amplified. Just for the sake of example, let's assume the customer is mistreated so badly they blog and tweet about it letting all their friends know about the incident. If that's not something to avoid, I don't know what is.

CRM is not only data processing, it involves forecasting trends, drawing conclusions from complex set of data. It's important for every business, or financial body to understand how profit can be maximized by winning new customers and retaining those who already trusted the company with their money. Most experts in the customer relationship management field will let you know that CRM isn't only a software it's a process. Once you have your CRM processes in place you are ready to start comparing the different software options available.


Comparing CRM Systems: Self hosted or web-based CRM?

There are two major schools of approach to CRM. When SAP started business in 1972 there were no alternatives, software were sold on disks and tapes. Today it's a bit different, some still prefer to keep everything in house, while others choose web-based services to meet their CRM needs. A web hosted CRM is a SaaS, Software as a service, which means that those who open their accounts at such a company will not need to run actual hardware in the basement to access information they need. Nowadays a CRM solutions provider may offer both an over-the-counter package and an online package. They do this so they can play to both types of customers.

Self hosted CRM has a distinctive advantage over web-based applications; it lets your company have everything behind the gates. While cloud computing is as secure as it gets, nothing beats a private system. Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP are the three big names in this field, and all work with a similar licensing fee. To get a SAP system up and running you need to fork out at least $2,500 plus the cost of the hardware. It may be shocking at first, and that's where web-based solutions win most of their customers.

Salesforce

Salesforce.com is a prime example of such a solution. They offer several different packages to choose from, with the cheapest being the contact manager for $5/user/month. It can synchronize contacts between users of the service, keep history of all communication, works with major e-mail clients and offers the ability to share documents with each other. It's rather basic, but offers what most small businesses need; it takes the pile of paper from the desk of the boss and puts it on the net.

In case you need advanced sale opportunity analysis, forecasts and other data crunching services, you can choose something in between the $5 and $250/user/month fees.

NetSuite CRM

While it's mandatory that you take your time and compare CRM products for yourself taking information available online into consideration, it's a sound idea to take a closer look at NetSuite CRM. It's a hosted service, which means you can calculate with per user per month figures. The basic package can be had for $129 per user per month. Among other features the 99.5% availability stands out. It means that when you need to access the system, you probably can.

If you're really serious about finding the best package for your company, then you'll probably want to get CRM consulting help. There are some unbiased experts out there that can help you compare and contrast the different CRM packages available. Ultimately working with a CRM consultant might offer you a higher likelihood of finding the package that best fits your organization.

Final Words

When you set out to compare CRM software, you need to keep the most important factor in mind at all times; the customer. Always choose measures that will benefit your customers the most while keeping other significant features in mind. Cost per user should always come to mind when making a decision. According to a survey conducted by asking CEOs of different companies, a way to ensure efficient use of the software is to make it as simple as possible. It doesn't matter how feature rich it is if your employees can't, or won't use it due to its complexity.