Customer Relationship Management
Customer relationship management (CRM) is simply the process of managing your relationships with customers, whatever your version of that might be. So have you be it clients, vendors, buyers, event attendees, prospects, projects, homeowners, or whatever else you can think of. Depending on the size of your business, you probably have a system in place to manage all this communication. This is known as a CRM System or CRM software. Ideally, this system is automated and enables your team to process more info in less time. As a result of the time saved, you have an opportunity to generate more ROI for your business.
What CRM features to look for in your CRM system
Multi-Channel outreach
First is the ability to connect outreach tools to communicate in various ways, such as power dialing, email, SMS, and social media. Generally, these features can incur additional expenses, but emailing capabilities usually are included by default.
Collaborate between sales + marketing teams
Another key feature in any CRM is great communication between teams. Great revenue generators have excellent communication between their Sales and Marketing departments. Communication between teams is how ideal customers are found, created, and the reason they return. Using a CRM System that connects your teams is one way to ensure your business keeps leads flowing.
Built-in scheduler/appointment setting
Nothing is more time-consuming and challenging in the customer life-cycle than the appointment setting. Syncing calendars and the tasks included in booking leads and filling a calendar can be tedious. Therefore, your CRM needs to have integrated capabilities to use your booking tools and scheduling software or provide you the ability to build one out with automation.
Workflow Automation
If you can not automate at least a portion of your CRM processes, how are you meant to increase the overall output of your business? Automating routine and recurring tasks is essential in any CRM if you want to see an ROI. The best CRMs enable custom automation to improve every aspect of your sales process. Learn more about how workflow automation can enhance your work.
Reporting / Analytics
Another important feature is your reports, ideally ones you can tailor. You should have access to all the KPIs you need and be able to see and create reports, build custom metrics, and get granular details on your CRM and Sales performance. Learn more about why visualizing data is so important.
Invoicing & Billing
Any CRM you use should have the ability to connect to your preferred invoicing/billing software. Businesses often tend to lean toward these providers based on their industry, so any CRM you use should be accommodating.
Integration ability
Since businesses are so complex and agile these days, requiring tools for many different aspects, and you must have the ability to integrate these tools to ensure efficiency and accuracy within your CRM and across your entire business.
Customizability
Your CRM should be your CRM, meaning it should look, feel, and operate like your system, not the other way around. Being able to tailor your pipeline, process, and lead flow should be a default feature of any CRM. Additionally, being able to customize the structure of your work environment is essential. Here’s one way to create customized views on monday.com.
CRM Red Flags 🚩
When it comes to customer relationship management, there are hundreds, even thousands of options you can choose from. You must evaluate the needs of your team, business, and company objectives and find the solution that fits those needs.
As mentioned previously, there are several features that should come standard or “baked-in” to any CRM system. If a CRM lacks anything we mentioned above, chances are there are other aspects they’ll fall short on, and that’s a red flag.
#1 – No automation 🚩
Firstly, A CRM without automation is no CRM at all. The entire point of using a customer relationship management system is to enhance your team’s output by decreasing the number of repetitive tasks they have to do to reach a sale.
#2 – No customization 🚩
You’ve been there, using software that was built the way it’s built, and you have no way to change or adapt it. Depending on the use case, this could be OK, but you need access to modification in a CRM. Add on to it, customize the look, feel, and tailor the terminology for your team to ensure high productivity and usage from your team.
#3 – No integrations 🚩
Again, businesses use a lot of different tools, many of which become vital to the business process, growth, and ecosystem. If you can’t connect these tools to your CRM, how will it really enhance and benefit you in the long run? Additionally, if you have to entirely change the level of subscription or pay additional to unlock access to your external tools, this can be a red flag.
#4 – No metric customization 🚩
Businesses have changed a lot over the years, and that means changing goals, targets, and KPIs. Any decent CRM tools you with performance dashboards and measurable statistics. Being able to set, build, and measure custom KPIs is imperative to the success of modern businesses. But not being able to measure performance metrics the way you need means you are settling before you even have a chance to succeed. Don’t do that.
Something for you to think about
A great CRM system is one that can scale your business. There’s no reason you should have to bounce between systems every time you scale your business or go through a transition of some kind.
An important factor that’s often overlooked is employees’ satisfaction with the systems in place to do their work. The BYOD market (bring your own device) is projected to hit $367 Billion in 2022. This idea is often subsidized in companies where they provide employees an allowance or compensation of sorts to purchase technology and/or bring preferred devices for their workspace.
If your business tools or software were built in an environment where employees could plug in their preferred tech stack or software tools, wouldn’t that be a win-win for everyone?
Questions to ask yourself when evaluating CRM options
- Is this a system my team will want to use?
- Can I onboard my team easily?
- Will I have to change my process to fit this solution?
- Can I customize it, or is it pre-structured?
- What’s the cost? vs. What are the benefits?
- How long will it take to implement?
- Do I have easy access to support?
Finding a foundation for your CRM and sales hub
A solid foundation is just as essential to the business world as it is to the construction industry. For us, there’s no place quite like monday.com. We’ve identified this as our preferred place for building all extensions of our business. Starting with our CRM and expanding from there.
For us, monday.com has opened up the doors of opportunity, allowing us to expand and constantly improve our workflow. Furthermore, as the sandbox for business, it provides our entire team with functional ways to create tools to manage their work. Additionally, we have the ability to integrate any of our external tools. Learn more about the ways to use monday.com here.
CarbonCRM, the C-R-M for Everyone
Finally, being able to customize your pipeline, process, and lead flow should be a default feature of any CRM. Nowadays, businesses are not copy-paste, so why use copy-pasted solutions? Simply put, you shouldn’t have to!
The CarbonCRM, our first end-to-end solution, is an automated and customizable CRM Suite for monday.com. Built entirely inside monday.com, our Suite is ready to expand your sales efforts and integrate within your workflow. Everything you need and everything you read above is possible with the CarbonCRM! Check out this in-depth monday.com CRM comparison from Polished Geek.
Interested in learning more? Schedule a free demo.
CarbonCRM is now in the monday marketplace! View the CarbonCRM on monday.com
