Choosing The Best CRM System For Your Business

At Virgate Accounts, our goal is to make our clients’ lives easier and their businesses more profitable, and that’s why we would always recommend that you invest in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application.

Sharing the same ethos as we do, such technology can make a real difference to your venture, by helping you to boost sales and increase revenue – but only when carefully selected to make sure that it will work for you.

For those considering investing in such a system, we wrote this article to make the decision-making process just that little bit easier. We hope you find it useful.

What could a CRM system do for your business?

We began this article by telling you that a CRM system would make your life easier, but we don’t just expect you to take our word for it. That’s why we thought it best to compile a list of the extensive benefits attached to such technology, so that you can see for yourself how it might help you.

Major benefits include:

• An increase in sales (of up to 30 per cent for some businesses).
• A reduction in admin, leaving sales staff free to do what they do best.
• An increased identification of opportunities for cross-selling or up-selling to existing customers.
• The ability to ensure that customer requests are never left to slip through the cracks, leading to an improvement in the overall client experience.
• The consolidation and protection of institutional knowledge.

We’re sure that this all sounds very appealing, and if so, you’re probably wondering how you can have a taste of this for yourself. Here’s what we recommend.

How to choose the right CRM system for your company

In order to choose the best CRM system for your business, you need to do your research to make certain that you’re making the right decision before you invest. Here are a few top tips that we would suggest following to help you narrow things down:

#1: Do your homework

In order to make the most of a CRM system, you need to choose an application capable of supporting your unique sales process, and this means taking the time to sit down and identify exactly what you’re hoping such technology will help you to achieve. Talk to your team and ask them what they need, specifically focusing on which parts of the sales process could be made easier. Only begin looking at websites when you have this clear in your own head.

#2: Ask the right questions

Choosing the right software is a process that should be led by the team who will be using it, so ask both them and the companies selling CRM products some very specific questions. Begin by asking your team how they collect lead information, before checking with various retailers how they could accommodate this. Then move on to looking at how many sales leads your business has, how many steps it takes you to close a deal, and what’s needed to simplify admin, in order to work out which system is most likely to meet your needs as a team and as an enterprise.

#3: Shortlist and test

Once you’ve compared the answers you’ve received from both your team and the vendors you’ve approached, try to spend some time compiling a shortlist of around three systems, and then request the opportunity to test these. It’s not enough to decide that an application looks good on paper – have the retailers demonstrate a working model to see what it could really do for your business.

The most important thing throughout the entirety of this process is to liaise with your sales team, and to make sure that they are kept in the loop throughout. Their input will be more important than anything else, for they are the ones whose professional lives and performances will be most greatly improved by a CRM system that supports them, and in doing so boosts your sales and bolsters your business.

To learn more about the sort of advice and input Virgate Accounts could offer to your business, feel free to send across any questions or queries you might have, whether they relate specifically to this blog or are a more generalised enquiry. As retail specialists we are committed to making a difference to the businesses we work with, we’ll always be happy to help in any way we can by offering our professional expertise and advice.