How can a CRM system help you?
A CRM system is a software programme or database which holds important information about your customers, such as names, addresses, contact details and emails sent and received. CRM systems help you keep track of communication with past and present clients, as well as the ability to categorise prospects into hot, cold and warm leads.
A CRM system allows you to easily store and recall information about any transactions or conversations you’ve had, helping you to strengthen existing relationships and build new ones. It’s a great way of centralising key customer information and can be easily accessed by everyone in your sales team, providing continuity to your customer service.
Tracking your leads in this way is particularly important in giving you a head start on the competition. Storing a list of prospective clients and what they are looking for means you can easily check for potential interest when bringing a new property to market.
Which CRM system should you choose?
There are so many CRMs available that it can be difficult to know which to choose. Most CRMs offer basic contact information management and reporting, as well as useful features like integration with other applications, social media automation, a mobile app so you can view data while you’re out doing viewings, and cloud services to keep costs down. So how can you choose between them?
We’ve looked at five of the most popular CRMs aimed at the small business market:
Hubspot
Hubspot’s core offering is completely free, although you will have to pay for additional sales or marketing modules if you need them. It is also quick and easy to get started, making it perfect if you are just considering investing in a CRM system and want to try one out in a low risk environment. Hubspot integrates well with many other applications, in particular email, allowing you to track email openings, and access client details quickly.
While this CRM makes it easy to move clients through your sales process and keep track of them, Hubspot has limitations in terms of managing the early part of the sales process.
Capsule
Capsule CRM is simple to learn and use as it just concentrates on the basics – contact management, sales pipeline, scheduling, tasks and collaboration – rather than trying to do everything for everyone. There is a modest monthly charge, with a free trial available if you want to try it out before committing to a subscription. Capsule integrates well with commonly-used applications like FreeAgent accounting software and MailChimp for outbound marketing.
Capsule’s strength is its complete view of each contact, pulling together everything about a client or lead by tracking all emails sent and received, and tagged with relevant categories. This means it’s easy to pull up every scrap of information you have about a client at the touch of a button.
Capsule works best for small-scale projects as it does not have the functionality to act as a project management tool, but this may be a positive if you’re looking to get started with something uncomplicated.
Insightly
Insightly offers a free basic plan limited to 2-3 users, or a full-featured plan for an affordable cost. With functionality such as comprehensive contact management, project management, opportunity management and detailed sales reports, Insightly is technically very simple and intuitive. This means you won’t need to invest in lengthy and costly training – although there is a training programme should you need it. The project management features of Insightly are useful, allowing you to create individual projects with milestones and deadlines, with reminders sent to you automatically by email.
The main criticism of Insightly is its limited reporting capabilities and the inability to customise the reports that are available.
Salesforce
Salesforce CRM boasts a customisable dashboard allowing you to focus on the things that are important to your business, whether that’s key opportunities, sales numbers or leaderboards.
Salesforce stores information about your clients and leads including all contact you’ve had with them, and also automatically populates their social media information. Focussing on lead generation more than some other CRMs, Salesforce can help you turn prospects into sales opportunities. It gives you a full picture of each lead, keeping track of where they came from so that you can assess whether your marketing efforts are working. Salesforce also offers brilliant drag and drop tools for customisable reporting and Facebook-like social tools for internal collaboration.
But all this doesn’t come cheap. Salesforce can be great for a growing business, but may be overly complex for a smaller business, offering more functionality (and cost) than is necessary.
Zoho
Zoho prides itself on being a user-friendly way to automate daily business activities, track sales and engage with your customers, allowing you to automate workflows and integrate with projects and many other applications.
Offering a free trial, with various price plans available, Zoho enables everything from invoicing to email marketing and help desk services. But be warned: while keeping everything in one place can be great for some people, it can sometimes make functionality clunky and over-complicated.
Where next?
Finding the right CRM is dependent on the size of your business and what you want to get from it. Many CRMs offer similar functionality, and it may well come down to the look and feel of each interface, so it’s worth exploring a few free trials before you choose. These aren’t the only 5 by any means and we can also recommend viewing a more comprehensive list of available CRMs here.
Find the right CRM though, and it should give you everything you need to improve relationships with customers, keep track of potential leads, close sales quicker and ultimately grow your business.
