Your CRM project is well and truly underway! In a few months, you’ll be able to work much more efficiently with this new software. But first, you have to choose THE solution – the one that will bring your customer relationship management to the next level… To sum up:
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and first define the key rules that a CRM solution needs to follow.
To begin with, a CRM must serve the productivity of as many people as possible. It has to support the sales function, of course, but not only that. A CRM with little or no marketing functionality, for example, is not a good bet!
On top of that, it must be simple and intuitive enough to make users’ day-to-day work easier. The idea is not to end up with some overengineered monster that makes everything more complicated.
Of course, it must also be able to adapt to your company’s specific requirements (for example, multi-site, multilingual or multi-currency).
You will be able to choose from leading CRM solutions on the market such as Odoo, SugarCRM, Salesforce or Hubspot.
Next, your future CRM must be future-ready. Don’t focus only on what you need right now. You won’t be changing your CRM every year, so think ahead to future needs and make sure the solution you choose will still fit.
Looking to the future also means your CRM has to be aligned with new technologies (AI, marketing automation, etc.). Implementing a new CRM solution is often the best time to review and improve processes with new features.
Finally, your CRM has to win over your CIO.
This is a polite way of saying that it has to be technically efficient. Whether it’s about interoperability or security issues, check with your CIO to make sure the chosen solution meets the technical criteria essential for proper operation over the years.
To discover the 10 key factors of a successful CRM project for sales and marketing departments, read our B2B CRM Guide. It’s a very good read!
