Top 10 Key Questions You Must Ask Before Choosing A CRM

Rohan Mathew

Updated on:

Customers are at the center of any business. A company’s success revolves around loyal customers. It is essential to develop strong relationships with customers. However, it is not an easy task to earn and maintain constant customer loyalty. Companies have to leave no stone unturned to ensure that the customers are satisfied with the services offered and repeatedly avail their services. This goal can be achieved efficiently with the assistance of a competent CRM platform.

What Is A CRM Platform And What Are Its Benefits?

Before moving ahead, let’s explore what a CRM actually is and how it can benefit your business.  A customer relationship management is a system which assists in strengthening relationships with existing customers, finding new prospective customers, and winning back old customers. It is a one-stop platform for collecting, organizing, and managing customer information. 

A CRM platform provides companies with a wide variety of benefits. These have been mentioned below:

  • Improve Customer Satisfaction- A CRM platform provides the tremendous benefit of improving customer satisfaction by storing secure customer data. This helps in conducting different customer interactions in an organized manner. Furthermore, with a CRM, you can understand their issues better, and provide them with improved services.  
  • Induce Customer Retention and Revenue- A CRM platform can help you to increase the retention rates of the existing customers. This, in turn, ensures revenue growth for your company. Apart from that, it provides information about at-risk clients and existing customers so that you can approach them for repeat purchases.   
  • Enhance Internal Communication- A CRM platform can help in sharing customer data between different departments. This enables smooth collaboration between teams and helps in optimizing customer experiences. With the help of this platform, each employee can provide feedback to the customers regarding the product.   
  • Optimize Marketing- With a CRM platform, you can conduct a more targeted and cost-effective marketing program. It helps you to understand the needs and behavior of the customers. Accordingly, you will be able to identify the correct time to execute your promotional strategies.    

Asking The Right Question To Obtain The Right CRM

It is indeed a challenging task to select the right CRM. Since there are hundreds of CRM solution providers in the market which offer quite similar services, making the right choice requires in-depth analysis. Sometimes, customers feel confused, and struggle to zero down on a service provider depending on pricing and features.  

However, you can simplify things by asking the right questions to the CRM vendors. This will help you to make well-informed decisions and will ensure that you achieve long-term success using the platform. Provided below are some of the top questions that should be asked before selecting a CRM:

  • Is my company ready for a CRM?: Before opting for a CRM, it is essential to evaluate its requirement in your company. You should analyze how your employees will perceive the CRM. It is important to consider factors such as company culture and technological skill levels before implementing a CRM. 
  • Which features are necessities?: You should conduct thorough research on the various CRM platforms available on the basis of the features you require. Some basic examples of standard CRM features include contact and account management, tasks and reminders, pipeline customization and reporting, and so on. It is important to compare features offered by different vendors at all plan levels.       
  • What are my priorities?: Sometimes the list of requirements is more than your budget. In that case, you should list down all the essential functions that you want from a CRM. Then, you can filter out a few extra requirements, and opt for a platform which provides you with the rest of the features at a reasonable rate.     
  • What integrations will I require?: Web-based CRMs come with the advantage of third-party integrations. As per industry requirements, your company may require integration of a multitude of apps. Accordingly, you should make a list of different integrations that you might require for your business. Then, you should scout for CRM platforms which provide those integration options along with their pricing. This way, you will be able to zero down the exact platform that you require. 
  • Who needs access?: A CRM platform allows users to access any web-enabled device so that they can collect important information with ease. With increased accessibility, you have to make important decisions such as who needs to access the CRM? Which users receive administrative privileges? and so on. It is important to consider these questions because many CRMs offer flexible user accessibility. Many companies restrict CRM usage to only the designated members for data security purposes. Once you are confirmed about the accessibility requirements, you can decide which CRM platform to opt for.
  • Who will own the CRM?: Once you have decided upon the accessibility factor, you have to focus on the ownership factor. There will be numerous potential users who will be accessing the platform. This may lead to many chaotic situations. In order to avoid confusion, you need to opt for a CRM, which provides seamless ownership functionalities.    
  • Do I need a consultant?: If you are a small company with limited IT experience, you may require the assistance of a seasoned consultant. They would help you to define a logical data structure, import customer records, and guide implementation. Larger companies can seek the assistance of a consultant to build new capacity and minimize the unnecessary shifting of resources. 
  • How will I import existing data?: It is not possible for most businesses to key in hundreds or thousands of important business records. This is because there are chances of errors in manual data entry. Thankfully, many CRMs are packed with a variety of data importing options. Hence, for any company, it is important to carry out deep research on whether their targeted CRM offers seamless data import options. 
  • What is this going to cost?: There many CRMs, which would make you go through elaborate procedures just to get a quote. There are others which would publish pricing on their website, but wouldn’t explain the features in detail. To tackle this, you must thoroughly research different CRMs and their pricing patterns and policies. This would help you to take a call on selecting a CRM platform which is feasible for you considering your budget. 
  • Will this system meet my future needs?: Last, but not the least, you must keep in mind that business is a dynamic entity. In fact, you may have many plans in mind, which you would want to execute in the future. Keeping this in perspective, you should research for a CRM platform which not only meets your needs today, but accommodates your future plans as well.               

Make An Impact With The Best CRM

Once you have got the answers to all these questions mentioned above, you may want to get started by trying some of the top CRMs. A growing business like yours can explore the excellent services provided by Kylas.io, which would help you to take the next step and explore newer heights. For more information, click here.