How Owners Can Choose the Best CRM for Their Small Businesses

List your company goals or priorities that a CRM platform could help make more efficient. These tasks may differ from company to company, especially between B2B and B2C SMBs.

• Create a streamlined sales funnel

• Manage your customer list

• Know the history of a customer’s interactions with your company

• Forecast sales for the next quarter

• Simplify the Quote-to-Cash process

• Compete more effectively against bigger companies

• Track your events

• Keep your files organized from client to client

You should know your company’s goals when it comes time to choose the best CRM software for your small business. Then you can look at a list of all the different features a CRM could offer, determine which are important, and keep those front and center during the decision-making process.

One CRM platform may have excellent event tracking, which means you can learn what a specific visitor does on your website, from which pages they visit to the collateral they download. Another platform has automation tools for sales. Two may seem identical. You will likely find, however, that one is better than the other for your company’s needs. When you start with what you value most, from features to the provider’s customer service, it will be easier to sort through the variety of features, tools, and services.

Here are the six steps you should take when you’re ready to select a CRM platform.   

1. Research your company’s current situation and create a list of your wants and needs.

2. Learn in-depth what a CRM system is.

3. Investigate the features of a CRM.

4. Prioritize the features you want from step 3 based on your findings from step 1.

5. Narrow down your list to the three best CRM options for your company.

6. Request demos. Invite reps from marketing, sales, customer service, and other departments that will use the platform.

As you get into the details of each of these steps, you may not know which features and tools will truly help your company grow. Small businesses that have never used a CRM platform before often don’t know where to start. Six of the most valuable ways to evaluate which platform is the best CRM software for small business are:

• The quality of its reporting features

• Integration options

• Budgetary considerations

• Reviews and customer experiences

• Your personal experience using it

• The opinions of your department heads

If you find a CRM platform that meets these needs, you’ll likely find success.

 

Your CRM system will make it easy to pull data the way you prefer — spreadsheets, charts, graphs, and other visual representations — to populate your dashboards, forecasts, reports, and more. The dashboard feature is available and customizable for each member of the team. On it your team members can view the data, such as metrics and important contacts, that is most relevant to their daily tasks and department.

For example, your sales manager is interested in high-level metrics that show the department’s progress, as well as performance data for individual salespeople. They can build a custom dashboard to show that information so that it’s easy to understand at a glance. Someone in customer service, however, is interested in knowing how many customer calls were answered within a certain time period for each specific employee.

When it comes to data, your management team needs to be able to see not only how your business is doing as a whole, but also how each employee is performing. Dashboards are essential, but so is reporting. The best CRM for small businesses will give you access to automated, personalized reports. It’s important to make sure that collating this data is intuitive. If there are certain parameters you need to use in your reports, you should be able to create that report quickly and easily.

Your CRM system needs to be your go-to resource for business information. Many CRM platforms have proprietary tools for a number of departments and functions that automatically integrate with the platform. Additionally, other data from your social media accounts, apps, and more software can be pulled automatically into your CRM platform to be categorized and used in your reports.

It is important that your CRM platform integrate seamlessly. This is especially needed for SMBs that want to grow. Dive into what integration looks like and ask CRM providers to walk you through how systems work together. Be sure to ask about all the integrations you may need in the future, too.

For example, many CRMs do not have a built-in ecommerce integration, which is necessary for growing retailers. What this means is that when you make a sale, you have to manually go into your CRM and mark that sale. The best small business CRM integrates with your ecommerce solution. If your company doesn’t have an ecommerce solution yet, talk with the CRM providers about your options.

Right now, your SMB is profitable, but hasn’t yet gotten the attention of investors. You need a CRM platform that suits your specific needs. However, in two years you may be working with a venture capitalist, and you may experience exponential growth. The best CRM software will scale with your needs.

As your business grows, you want to make sure your CRM can grow with it. Additional tools, features, and seats — the industry term for the number of unique logins a company can use on its CRM platform — are important. This is something to ask about right away, before you commit to a provider.

 

It’s easy to get caught up in all of the features of a CRM platform. As you research your options, check for reviews. These will not only give you a pulse on how current and previous customers feel about the platform and the provider, but they may also help you come up with more questions.

Many CRM providers will also put you in touch with users for an unbiased, helpful conversation. Ask for references once you have your top three choices.

Demos are essential. While you won’t be able to set up your entire business on the CRM platform in a demo, you will be able to play around with features. The provider will have example data in the CRM for you to work with so you can get a feel for pulling reports, reading records, using built-in tools, and more. Be sure you have someone to walk you through your demo first, and then share your demo with your company’s key team members to get their opinions.

The more different perspectives you can bring into your decision, the better. When choosing the best CRM for a small business, there are a lot of moving parts. Departments have different needs and wants and, in some cases, they may not realize they need something until they see it. Your teams will be intrigued by what a CRM platform can do if they have not used one before, so get them involved and get their input.

 

Small businesses need technology to operate efficiently and grow. Investing in a CRM platform is a necessary step, but the process of choosing the best CRM for your needs takes time and research. Use these steps and tips to make the process go smoothly. The sooner you find the right platform, the sooner your company will reap the benefits.