Tips for Choosing a CRM - Part 1- Questions to ask

New Users

Feb 25

So you’re thinking of adding a CRM to your business ?

First – that’s awesome. Done properly, a CRM product can add a huge list of benefits to your company. It adds transparency to current business activities, drives customer engagement and simplifies information storage.

But where do you start? Sadly a large number of CRM implementations fail – not because of the software, but the implementation and adoption are not coordinated properly internally or CRM software isn’t the right fit.

Hopefully this guide will highlight some of the things you’ll need to consider when selecting a CRM product and inspire a successful implementation for your team.

Below are some questions to get you thinking about the CRM concept and how it will be helping your business. Thinking about these before testing out specific platforms is useful to help focus your thoughts on what you need from a system instead of being blinded by the flashy screens and cool interfaces.

Step 1 – Some big-picture questions to ask yourself when considering a CRM

Why do you want a CRM?

Make a list of the reasons, then distill that down to the key reasons.

Its OK to say ‘increase sales team productivity’ or ‘keep track of opportunities in one place’ but these are very vague and undefined. What do they mean to you?

For Example Do you want your CRM to...

Add structure to your follow-up process?
Help your sales team log more touchpoints in less time?
Increase close rate by X% within six months?
Increase cold call reach rates?
Increase sales outreach email responses?

How do you manage your customers right now and why isn’t that working?
If it’s working why do you want to change? If it’s not working, how do you envision the CRM software changing that?

Do you need to integrate with other services?

Software such as your accounting software, marketing mailings or file storage? These integrations help increase your efficiency and delivery of your service but can require additional add-ins or connectivity such as Zapier or Power Automate. If you need it to connect to another system, make sure this is on the list of requirements.

What metrics do you (or want to) track?

If you’re wanting to track metrics, make sure that you have a list of the types of data you want to track.
Your CRM should make measurement and reporting completely painless. If you can’t track the metrics that matter most to you within your CRM, you’ll wind up wasting hours taking the manual-measurement path.

Do you think you’ll need to customize the system ?

Are there specific fields for your industry or can you make do with out-the-box configuration. More customization means more complexity and more initial setup cost.

How will I know if this worked?

Tracking your ROI with an intangible tool can be tough. Ensure that you have some metrics in place to score the success of the implementation.

Consider Features You Need

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