How to choose the best CRM

How to choose the best CRM

Customer service software is a tool that brings all customer-centric activities in one repository, such as collecting, maintaining, organizing, responding, and reporting on interactions with the customer. It is an inevitable factor that it takes a lot of energy and time to find a customer but just a few seconds to lose one. The most important aspect of any successful business is its customers. Hence Customer Relationship Management is not a separate department but the team that connects and defines the success of every business.

However, with the current trends of Customer markets, it becomes a tedious job to maintain and work with such a customer database. That's when the role of Customer support software comes into play. Customers have to be treated like Kings, and hence they should not be kept at the wait. CRM software organizes and monitors the workflow from the first point of customer contact.

Notable Features of choosing a good CRM software:

Database Management:

Information is key as it is valuable data. The data about each customer, contact, query, and interest have to be recorded for closing sales. Only when we prioritize the customer, he/ she will prioritize our service. They must never be kept waiting, and hence an automated CRM software will help with a greeting message when a customer puts forth a query. This gives a sense of immediate response. Post this; the sales team can get in touch with customers depending on their queries.

Workflow Automation:

This is an added feature of CRM software solutions to make the sale closure more effective. This is possible by 

  • Directing the correct lead to the correct department. 
  • Responding immediately to the customers that their query will be attended to. 
  • Reminder messages and alerts are sent to the respective team if they haven’t contacted the customer within a stipulated time.
  • Marking the time and hour of interactions between the customer and the team.
  • Reporting such activities in the portal for report generation and supervision.

Customizable Service:

Every organization has different policies and varied workloads. This means the Customer support software tool has to be customizable according to the workflow of each organization. This includes dashboard customization, sorting customized reports, and advanced API features. This boosts sales and higher customer retention and can also be upgraded to your existing business solutions.

Keep a record of Employees:

When used wisely, this software not only combines CRM functions with better sales but can also provide a useful tool to track employees. Right from lead generation to sales closure, all points of contact can be recorded and maintained to review and enhance the performance of each employee. The higher cadre team can have access to the employee dashboard to scrutinize and review performance. This tool helps motivate better sales, calculate incentives, appraise employees and also lend out a helping hand to employees lagging behind.

Managing Lead generation:

Every lead, request, and the query should be treated with utmost priority. This shows the responsiveness and importance given to the customer, which creates a positive impact on your organization. Also, leads that have gone dormant can be contacted again, reassigned, regenerated, and reengaged. This feature promises complete supervision on each lead and augments sales.

Sales Forecast:

This feature can be customized to your CRM software that will track the past sales and depict the future sales correspondingly. It is a tool that will help us understand the notion of customer interests and buying trends to concentrate on the point of sales. It is a platform to study customer likings and changes in buying trends. Keeping this in mind, required changes can be made in the way of selling.

In-house Interaction:

This tool can come in handy for interactions and updates between the teams of the organization. Reminders and updates about the stages of the lead can be shared and also monitored for continuous tracking. Each note can be highlighted, and the history of interactions with the customer can be updated so that the involved teams have clear ideas of customer interests. 

Customer Service:

All data pertaining to a customer, such as a contact, address, interests, and query, has to be maintained religiously. This is needed to study your end-users and provide products and services accordingly. All previous sales history, website visits, and interactions can be recorded and used to benefit sales. Acknowledgment messages and greeting messages can be sent to customers to give a feeling of attentiveness. Seasonal greetings and offer messages can be forwarded to customers as a reminder of services offered.

Reporting:

The most important feature of CRM software is to generate and review reports. The reports can be customized according to each scenario too. Precise and concise reports pertaining to a particular period, leads and sales during a stipulated time, inbound and outbound call history, greeting messages and emails sent, etc., can be generated. This action-specific feature paves better comprehension of sales lag and can help increase happy customers.

Live- Chat support:

Live-chat support is a feature gaining importance day by day. Customers can directly and constantly get support regarding their queries. This proactive chat support of FAQs can be given to customers to find answers to their basic and repetitive queries. This gives time for the team to work on more intricate and complex issues.

Ticketing System:

Assigning a peculiar number to each query and opening a ticket for the same can be more beneficial in resolving the complaint/issue effectively. This enables professional liability between the front-end, back-end, and customer interaction. It assures speedy closure of tickets and higher satisfaction standards. A good CRM software also cleverly and smartly analyses which ticket has to be resolved first based on importance and complexity.

Closure:

An effective CRM software solution will promise better sales and productivity for all kinds of businesses. Proper care must be taken while choosing the apt one for your organization. With digitalization taking over and storming the entire world, the introduction of this software is a significant innovation. Hence meticulously choose the best CRM for your company, keeping in mind the above features of an efficient CRM.