Tips for Choosing a CRM - Part 4- Selecting A Vendor
Get help adding a CRM to your business. A lot of SAAS or online CRM products will tout themselves as easy to use and implement.
That’s great. But you also have a business to run and manage. Using a vendor who is skilled in the CRM you’re considering can really help accelerate the process and help you get t right the first time.
Questions to ask when selecting potential vendors
Do they have a specialty or focus on a specific product?
Knowing a product inside and out is a huge help when you’re asking for customizations or processes to be implemented within the system
How many clients have they implemented already?
What industries to they normally work in?
While it may not be a game-stopper, its useful when you’re all speaking the same lingo
How do they help encourage adoption of the system once it has been deployed?
Are they certified by the CRM Product company or a partner with them?
While not a huge issue, its comforting to know that the team implementing your new system has the backing of the company that provides the CRM software.
Some questions to consider during your demo or trial period.
When you’ve narrowed the options down and you want to start checking out the actual software, a guided demo is a great way to be shown some of the systems capabilities. Ensure that you’re going to see the things that you’ve decided are deal breakers and how they operate. Just because a system can do something, if it is twelve mouse clicks and rain-dance, the users aren’t going to do it.
Make sure you see how easy (or not) it is to do these mission critical tasks that you previously identified.
Here are some others to get you started;
What are the sales managing capabilities of the software?
Sales isn’t just about face-to-face interaction anymore. Customers are plugged in and educating themselves on their own. An effective CRM will track sales opportunities, from lead acquisition to proposal delivery, and will help your sales team coordinate with other colleagues essential to the business flow.
How will it integrate with my marketing automation platform?
Leads don’t have much value if you can’t apply your marketing to them. Make sure a CRM will synchronize seamlessly with your marketing campaigns, email actions and activity streams so it can deliver its full potential.
Can you show me how the customer database works?
During a CRM demo, ask to see how the customer database is organized. You should be able to easily filter information and assign customers to different stages of the acquisition process.
Tell me about the CRM’s activity management.
The most useful CRM will coordinate with your physical activities, like appointments and tasks with deadlines that are linked to the progress of your marketing campaigns.
What types of reporting does the CRM offer?
The best CRM for your company will include comprehensive reporting functionality. You should also be able to create your own reports based on your particular needs.
Will I be able to actively support my customers?
Email and chat support capabilities allow your team to offer real-time support to ensure that customers stick with you.
What kind of security does the software have?
Make sure you ask if you can set different levels of user access and if the software is encrypted to prevent hackers from accessing private company information.
How does the CRM integrate with social media?
Your customers are connecting and creating relationships online, so you should be able to access them where they’re available by integrating the CRM with common social media platforms.
What kind of support and maintenance is offered?
Don’t leave your team in the lurch. Make sure your employees can easily get help when they need it, and ensure that you can receive crucial upgrades and maintenance as they’re needed.
Is the CRM scalable?
In a CRM demo, it’s important to ask if the software is scalable. Check out how much storage the CRM has and how many records it allows. Ensure that you won’t experience data loss if you upgrade as your company grows.
How do I get my data out?
In the future you may want to part ways – how easy is it to pull out your data and what does that look like?
Some Industry Specific Questions
If you’re in a highly regulated industry, you’re going to have some more questions.
Where is my data stored? Financial, government and
medical sectors have legal requirements as to where the data can be stored geographically. If you’re in Canada – the data must stay in Canada; that means Canadian data centers.
How is my data protected? Encryption and protection are other minimum requirements for regulated industries. Who can access the data, how is it protected from theft or exposure.
What is the auditing and log availability? How can you see WHO accessed and changed the data, and when.
Marketing management such as GDRP are now mandatory in many countries and regions. How does the system protect you from breaching these rules?
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