Is your business tracking its customers and prospects?
Is your business using Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Outlook to track customers and prospects? My question to you would be, why?
The intended purpose for each of those products is not customer relationship management.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is designed to give a business a 360 degree complete picture of its customers and prospects. A CRM Solution at its basic level should offer:
1. Data Tracking and Integration
2. Sales Management Tools
3. Customer Support
4. Marketing Automation
CRM, as it’s known in the software industry, gives a business the ability to track all activity and sales opportunity related events with its contacts. With CRM, you are able to look up a contact by their business name or last name or a variety of other data and look at the overall picture of what has transpired with a particular contact or set of contacts.
CRM is not just software but rather a complete, customer-related approach to a business’s philosophy of dealing with its customers and prospects. It includes the application of a business’s policies and processes, sales, marketing and customer service. Therefore, it is important for a business to give careful consideration into how and why it wants to implement a CRM system which will affect the business overall.
In the last ten years or so, CRM software products have flooded the marketplace. There are so many CRM solutions with such varied costs and features that it can be hard for business to know what to look for when evaluting this sales tool. A business should consider hiring the services of a CRM consultant to help make the correct decision for purchasing a CRM solution that will consider the overall organization’s needs. CRM software products serve a variety of business needs but the most basic is contact management.
The CRM software products that I recommend are ACT! by Sage, SageCRM, Saleslogix and Microsoft CRM.
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