Why do companies need CRM?
Managing relationships and interactions with customers is a topical task for any scale of business – both large- and medium-sized companies, local small ventures, and even startups. Customer service and support, discount campaigns, personalized offers – all of it is backed up by CRM systems that are created specifically for optimization of business interactions with their clients. In terms of organizing, it embraces such processes as direct clients’ problem-solving, sales monitoring and accelerating, client’s behavior forecast, and analysis of all the data gathered. The info is gathered from companies’ websites, apps, social media pages, and other sources where the clients voluntarily share their info (like phone number, e-mail, name, and surname). Without CRM, you would have to keep manual notes about the clients. That is a thing of the past, although many businesses of small scale choose to use Excel tables to keep track of emails, numbers, and personalized data. The inconveniences are:
- you have to enter all info manually;
- it’s harder to find proper info with the growth in client’s numbers, also it takes more time;
- you will have to implement an additional communication tool;
- you will be able to implement only the visible data (voluntarily revealed by client), while CRM can also sense the behavioral patterns (time spent on pages, clicks – all of that forecasts interests)
CRM system will automatically gather this info and arrange it the moment your customers’ press SUBMIT after filling up the forms or writing in your chatbots. It doesn’t mean there won’t be the need to manually fill in at all – there will be after some offline meetings and seminars where the guests were given paper questionnaires. However, with CRM most of the processes are automatic, allowing your team to focus on enhancing the communication strategies and creative solutions.
There are three types of CRM:
- Operational CRM – helps to keep track of all processes your customers go through to make a purchase or agree to service – from registering on the website to end feedback;
- Analytical CRM – analyses the gathered data and outlines the patterns of behavior;
- Collaborative CRM – organizes the information about clients and shares it with your stakeholders.
The best CRM platforms for startups
AgileCRM
About: This is a CRM system that went from a small multi-channel engagement app to multitasking and universal CRM suitable for any scale of business. Its initial version was created so that you could install it on your app or website to chat with customers. Hence, it fulfilled only one CRM requirement – communication. However, just as your startup, it grew, adding more features necessary for effective customer base management. Now, it assists businesses in basically everything one may need from CRM: sales, marketing, and customer service. What’s distinguishing is that the AgileCRM team is so confident in what they do, that they even included to their website the comparison with other alternatives in CRM-universe.
Features:
- Sales Essentials: agenda, contacts, documents, deals, PC CRM and Mobile CRM;
- Reporting, E-mailing, Virtual Documents Signing and others;
- Telephony: audio calls, voicemails, scripts;
- Marketing and web ads control:
- Social Media CRM and marketing;
- Messaging in the smartphone and ads;
- Automation of service offering and support.