Choosing the Right CRM for Your Business
If you’ve looked around recently you’ve probably noticed there are countless CRMs to choose from. They range in price, accessibility, depth of functionality, customizability, and ease-of-use. At CRM Pro Partners we keep a close eye on the growing list of CRM options to ensure we understand the choices available to our clients and the market trends that can help our customers stay competitive. Below we examine some high-level considerations for choosing the right CRM for your business.
Price
CRMs range greatly in price. Anywhere from $0 all the way to $300 per user per month. Free and low-cost options (under $15/monthly) often lack the functionality and flexibility of the four-star contenders. Whereas the expensive options ($75+/monthly) have the same features as the middle ground ($25-$50/monthly). You do get what you pay for - but only up to a certain point. Anything past that point will yield diminishing returns.
Accessibility
If your users work on the go then accessibility is a big deal. According to a study by Innoppl Technologies, salespeople with a mobile CRM app are 43% more likely to meet sales quotas, compared to those without mobile access. The right CRM is accessible wherever you need it.
Another point about accessibility is whether the system is cloud-based or available as an on-premises solution. The move to Cloud is definitely happening. But there are still companies and industries that like to keep their data on their own systems. We recognize the value in both options.
Depth of Functionality
On the lower end of the spectrum, the inexpensive CRMs, are nothing more than a digital Rolodex. These types of systems leave a lot to be desired. Tracking emails and calls, dialing out of the system, leaving notes and histories, scheduling follow-ups and reminders, tracking sales, Â reporting, workflows, automating processes, automating common emails, web forms, customer portals, marketing, and 3rd party add-ons are the types of functionality that make a CRM a CRM.
Customizability
Every company we work with wants something slightly different. Something that works specifically for them. The lower end of the CRM offerings tends to fall short in this respect. They may let you add a field but that's the extent of it. Whereas, the 4-star CRMs that we support allow you to track any type of entity you need.
Out-of-the-box, CRMs are often convoluted. Another nice piece of customizability is the ability to remove fields and functions that simply don't apply to your business. The higher-end CRMs that we support allow for this type of clean-up.
Ease-of-use
Perhaps the most important aspect of all is the ease of use. Some of the 4-star CRMs we've tested were clearly written by engineers. What takes 3-4 clicks in one CRM may take 15-20 in another. Having seen how important training is, CRM Pro Partners looks for the CRM systems that are easy to use yet still powerful enough to fulfill every need.
Our CRMs of Choice
We can't say enough good things about the Zoho CRM. It's way more than just a CRM, although CRM is at the root of everything it does. Since Zoho was written specifically for the cloud, it really shines for teams that are spread out across multiple offices. It's perfect for users on the go because of the mobile accessibility that’s hard to beat.
There are a lot of other factors that contribute to why we support this product. It knocks all five of our criteria out of the park. Read below for more details or schedule a private, live demo, on our scheduling page.
Tried and true. Act! CRM is the longest-running CRM in existence and still the #1 on-premise CRM. Like the first edition of Microsoft Windows, Act! was written by a guy in a garage in the 1980s. He needed something to track his own customers. He called it his Automated Contact Tracker, or ACT for short.
30 years later and the product is still going strong. Most other CRMs are based on the foundation that Act! helped build over the years. And in a lot of cases, Act still does it best.