How to Choose the Right CRM for Your Business

Building a successful business is about fostering and maintaining strong customer relationships. Today's customers are in constant communication with brands. Starting from finding out about the brand to visiting the landing page, browsing products/services, placing an order, and reviewing the products, every individual touchpoint with a customer is crucial.

A business can only be profitable if it can capture customer insights in real-time and implement actions based on them. However, constantly staying on top of who your customers are and what they expect from your business can be challenging. This is true, regardless of whether you are a small business or a multinational corporation.

The most effective way to address this challenge is through appropriate tools, such as a good CRM. Although the old conception of CRM is dead as it doesn't deliver insights relevant to the 21st-century market, an updated CRM that is able to capture and manage customer interactions is crucial to have. The truth is that CRM can be the best tool for managing a brand's customer relations if leveraged to its fullest potential.

In today's blog, we will discuss the power of customer relations and how to choose the right CRM in 2022. Read on!

What is the definition of CRM?

CRM is an acronym for customer relationship management. As the name suggests, it is software or a system for building and managing relationships with customers. The term often describes a macro strategy or ecosystem for interacting with customers.

The keyword in CRM is customers. An effective CRM helps you track interactions, data, and notes about customers and prospective clients. The goal is to understand your customers better and use that knowledge to provide the best customer experience (CX).

According to a study conducted by CX Trends, more than 70% of customers want conversational customer experiences when interacting with a brand. The logic behind this is that as customers move between channels, so does their data. Most of the customer journey these days happens between the framework of these interactions. It can be particularly challenging because if a brand chooses the wrong strategy, the data can be lost and customer experience fragmented. Therefore, it doesn't end well for the customer and the brand.

Providing excellent customer service has become more challenging in recent years. Customers now frequently move between multiple channels (email, social media, websites, apps, phone, messaging) to reach out to brands.

With infinite choices and more possibilities for researching brands and making purchases, the customer journey has evolved in complexity. In fact, for brands dealing with different products and varied customer demographics, the problem of managing their customers' data has become challenging.

Brands need solutions that will allow them to have ongoing and productive conversations that move across channels. CRM helps to streamline sales, marketing initiatives, customer support, accounting, and management. The details of a specific client's customer journey are accessible to and editable by multiple parties.

A customer might initially enter your CRM by completing a demo or contact form on your website. After exchanging a few follow-up emails with a sales representative, you can edit the customer's information to reflect what you've discovered about their persona. Then, the marketing team may decide how to best appeal to their client's demands.

When thinking about how to choose the right CRM in 2022, let's look at the three different types of CRM software and how CRM helps brands.

How does CRM help brands?

A CRM typically works best for service and product providers. A robust CRM can help diverse businesses, including jewelers, clothing brands, real estate agencies, automobile manufacturers, technology giants, coffee shops, accountants, etc.

Another advantage of CRM is that it benefits B2B businesses, particularly those with longer sales cycles like SaaS.

These are the issues that CRM seeks to solve: Keep all of your client data in a single, integrated system. Using a CRM platform, you may establish a single, up-to-date point of truth that everyone can access rather than transmitting information to several divisions. If clients often engage with several employees of your business, a CRM makes it simple to maintain track of previous encounters. You can monitor your sales teams' output.

What are the three types of CRMs?

The numerous CRM options can be divided into three main categories: operational, analytical, and collaborative.

Each is designed to handle particular customer relationship management and data storage procedures, such as automating service, sales, and marketing tasks, recognizing and utilizing customer patterns, and more.

1. Operational CRM

Operational CRMs aid in streamlining a brand's customer relationship management procedures and offer capabilities to visualize and manage the entire client experience, even when it has a lot of touchpoints.

Starting with their initial contacts with your company's website, continuing through the entire lead management process as they advance through the sales pipeline, and concluding with their actions once they become customers, operational CRM is how you may manage them.

Operational CRM systems often offer automation features. The job that would otherwise be handled by your staff is offloaded through marketing, sales, and service automation. An operational CRM frees up their schedule to focus on their work's more imaginative and introspective facets—tasks that require a human touch.

The functions found in collaborative CRMs are typically also found in operational CRMs; however, operational CRMs also add capabilities that focus more on monitoring, controlling, and optimizing the entire customer lifecycle.

2. Analytical CRMs

The main goal of analytical CRMs is to assist you in analyzing your customer data to learn the crucial information. Large-scale data collection is now made simple by digital technologies and platforms. Data analysis, the procedure required to turn that data into something useful for your organization, is a challenging endeavor. In reality, studies imply that more than half of the data gathered by brands never find value.

Your consumer information is worth too much to be wasted. You may analyze your data through analytical CRM tools to identify customer behavior patterns. With that knowledge, you can clearly identify the processes that result in sales which boosts client retention, and which client issues are most prevalent.

CRMs with analytical capabilities are appropriate for high-level planning. Data analysis is the process you use to take all the client information you've gathered over time and use it to start providing answers.

Analytical CRMs offer reporting options that make it easier to comprehend:

Which advertising campaigns produce the most leads?

Which leads are most likely to result in complete sales?

What kind of sales techniques result in a purchase?

Which client types have the most lifetime value?

What problems do consumers contact support about the most?

Customers' favorite and most-used features and resources.

Data mining is a technological procedure for examining massive datasets to uncover trends within them. It is a technology technique that analytical CRMs use to their advantage, and technology excels at it far more than humans do, especially as your data increases.

3. Collaborative CRMs

Collaborative CRM solutions prioritize the breaking down of information silos. The marketing team, sales representatives, and customer service representatives frequently work in separate divisions that lack communication.

Each of those departments is divided into larger organizations based on factors like geographic locations, the channels they serve, the items they concentrate on, or skill specializations. But you need a mechanism to exchange information instantly throughout the entire business if you want to offer a seamless customer experience throughout the client's journey.

No matter what department or channel they operate in, collaborative CRMs make sure all teams have access to the same current customer data. Agents in a call center receive up-to-date information on client interactions that took place over email or message channels, in addition to having access to all the data marketing and sales teams gathered when engaging with a prospective customer.

There are a few critical characteristics of collaborative CRMs:

Interaction Management: No matter the channel, a collaborative CRM makes it simple to keep track of every encounter a customer or prospect has with your business. Whether a consumer contacts a company via phone, email, social media, messaging applications, or even an in-person meeting, the information in the product is updated. Agents can document the subject of the conversation, how it was resolved, and any pertinent information that might be useful for a subsequent discussion with the customer.

Omnichannel Management: Customers today demand brands to be accessible through several media. Understanding which channels your clients prefer will help you choose the best ways to reach them. To make sure you are accessible when clients need you and where they want you, collaborative CRMs track the channels they use for various sorts of communication.

Document Management: Collaborative CRMs can assist businesses in streamlining where they keep vital client documents. This functionality can be useful if staff need access to a customer contract or proposal while assisting a customer.

Most of the well-known CRM systems on the market offer features that overlap the three different categories.

Now, let's look at the tips to choose the right CRM in 2022.

What should we look at when choosing CRM software?

The steps to choose the best CRM for your business involve looking at factors necessary while making the right choice. Here are a few examples:

1. Accessibility and Scalability

With every product, user convenience is a known requirement, and CRM systems are no exception. In addition to being accessible across many platforms, the perfect CRM should be cloud-friendly, providing access whenever and wherever you want it with lower overhead costs than on-premise alternatives.

The most well-known CRM providers offer access to the cloud through phone, PC, and any smart device as necessary. Users then can select the platform they find most comfortable at any given time, improving connectivity, usability, efficiency, and productivity. Scalability is yet another important factor you should take into account. Will it be simple to add users as your business expands?

2. Integration with products/services

CRM platforms need data to offer the advantages previously described. A lot of that data is already present in the products you own. You need a CRM system that interacts with all the relevant products you now use to get the most value. Ideally, it should also be pre-integrated with your top products, ensuring you don't have to spend time manually connecting them.

3. Customization

Departmental processes within a brand can differ substantially. Consequently, a top-notch CRM should offer extensive customization to meet the demands of any business.

The sales system can be a priceless asset for the business if it can be tailored right down to the level of each user. Software that can provide insights into your data through comprehensive reporting is necessary if you want to increase your profitability.

4. Security features

Customer information is delicate. Although it is valuable to the brand, it might easily become a liability if it falls into the wrong hands. To protect your data and maintain your clients' trust, any CRM you select must provide the highest level of security.

5. Payment mode and budget

The most popular solutions are cloud-based CRMs that charge monthly fees. However, you may also find on-premise CRM products that you can download to your on-site devices after making a single purchase for a specific number of users.

The second option can seem more affordable, but it limits your ability to obtain software upgrades and makes it harder for your CRM to expand with your company as you add more staff. Regardless of your chosen CRM, ensure you understand the pricing model and how it will impact your budget.

6. User Experience

One of the most important factors to consider is how you feel and what you encounter when using a CRM system. Is the CRM platform logical? Or is it something that annoys you or makes your processes move more slowly?

For instance, you could ask the seller to demonstrate how many clicks are required to complete a particular operation. Inquire yourself as you watch: How well-designed (and fun) is the user interface? Are the buttons well labeled? Is the order of events logical?

7. Not limited to sales

The CRM that is the best fit for you is the one that complements your internal processes. From acquiring a lead to finalizing a deal, CRM platforms will collaborate with your team throughout the sales process.

It needs to have the ability to be modified and changed in the future, thanks to built-in flexibility. Most importantly, it should boost every part of the company process, whether it be sales, customer accounts, marketing, or customer service, and extend its benefits across teams.

A robust inbound strategy should be built into a sophisticated CRM solution to turn any leads into potential customers. Its clever features and functionality will bridge numerous departmental gaps and increase overall efficiency.

This is everything you need to know about how to choose the right CRM in 2022.

The best CRM solution for your business: LAYERISE

Brands can use Layerise to gather customer data and use that data to tailor purchasing experiences. With Layerise you can collect essential data about your customers starting from the onboarding process. With the help of this information, you can develop automated marketing campaigns depending on your target market and produce individualized and relevant send-outs to boost conversions.

With Layerise, the onboarding process is a crucial moment for first-party data collection. Once customers have received the product they simply scan a QR code on the packaging or directly on your product and they can quickly register their product ownership. When the customer scans the QR code and registers, all the information provided will automatically personalize the experience, in terms of notifications, language, videos, etc.

With Layerise collecting data about your customers has never been easier. With Layerise, you can get an in-depth view of your customers based on geographical, demographical, preference, and behavioral variables. Understand what your customers do and track their satisfaction. This will help you better understand your customers to design an onboarding experience that is tailored to them.

Brands can build strong customer relationships with their clients and recurring revenue streams by utilizing Layerise's innovative customer experience capabilities in combination with CRM and marketing. We can help you by providing your consumers with educational and interactive material, 24/7 real-time chat support, and self-service support.

Additionally, brands may personalize their communications, create automated marketing campaigns based on their target demographic, and boost conversions.

Book a free demo to know more about how Layerise is an effective CRM platform!