Omitting a client is a loss of money, ignoring him after a deal is a double loss. To understand optimization systems, stop thinking that this is something otherworldly, make a choice and not be afraid to implement - our short article.
If an idea to introduce a CRM system was born in your head today, consider that you have mastered half of the task. Now, having decided to stop drowning in leads, you will have to avoid drowning in a wide variety of systems, and then integrate this business into the business in principle and into the heads of each employee individually.
In a broad sense, a CRM system can be understood as a complex of IT products. All their work should be aimed at ensuring quality control of work with clients, regulating the work of all departments, thereby building a certain CRM environment. Explaining in numbers: the willingness to lose up to 40% of customers in the usual way and up to 90% in the event that you fired an employee or he got sick - this is a story about the absence of a CRM system. Her presence is much more interesting.
Before you start, let's say one thing: no matter how small or large you are on a planetary scale, specific and unique, high-quality and productive - everyone needs the system. Think of hospitals and your health data storage system. Startled? Do you love your clients as much as Larisa Stepanovna behind the glass of the register, who remembers Stalin?
Few associations. Imagine that your company is a locomotive. Here is the cabin (we hope it's you), here is a trailer with goods, here is a trailer with documentation, here is a link in the form of managers between all of you, and over there is a platform with clients. Surprisingly, but true: remove one link, and the engine will not reach its destination. It is important for you (and for us) that this very engine not only arrives, but also sells, unloads and then does not forget about the client.
Petya and tables
Let's say you are a successful entrepreneur. Now your company is at such a borderline moment, when there are already a lot of you, but still a little. Nevertheless, keeping an eye on each one individually, standing with a pointer and calling Petya to an impromptu board every time he calls to tell him about the product, and not sit tactlessly on some social network, is an overwhelming task for any manager. In addition, it is advisable for Petya to agitate to enter the data into a certain table so that the information does not get lost and does not disappear into oblivion.
Hence the conclusion - you need a system that will easily monitor, compile and analyze all actions, and will also be simple and understandable for any average Petya. In addition, it should be adapted to the number of your employees.
What to look for when choosing
If you open the rating of CRM systems (we really love it when a smart guy made the top, and we just bought the “best”), you will understand that the functionality and cost of some of them is designed for fairly large teams. And here it is about turnover: such ratings are compiled according to several indicators, the main one being the cost of the CRM itself, its integration and further use. Therefore, it will not always be correct to be guided when choosing the top 5 or top 10.
When you only plan to optimize sales, then the choice is easier: systems tailored for the work of just such departments will do. These include Pipedrive, amoCRM. Nevertheless, we believe that the more ambitious you approach the systematization of all business processes, the more control and quality will be in your entire company in principle.
In contrast to the West, where they tend to use systems developed for specific business tasks, we consider CRM more as a complex tool.
With the help of one system, in particular, small business representatives want to manage not only sales, but also, for example, finances, projects, tasks. Fortunately, demand generates supply, and today we have a lot of such complex systems.
In large companies, where the entire staff of a small agency can work in one department, it is clear that it is better to choose specialized systems tailored to each business task. After all, a large amount of processed information needs serious automation and systematization.
A small business, on the other hand, has the opportunity to use one complex and simple system, in which several solutions will be collected at once. This will allow not to implement, not to integrate many different applications, and with the emergence of new business tasks - not to move from place to place. Such systems include, for example, Flowlu, Freshoffice and others.
Pay attention to the clear interface, the ability to customize and customize without the help of third-party specialists, fast page loading, instant access to the necessary data, the ability to create new entities in 1-2 clicks. The implementation of such systems will not take much time - 1-3 days and your employees, and you yourself become one big system that moves towards incredible sales and quality customer service.
When choosing, it is useful to look not only at the complexity, but also at the ability to turn off unnecessary tools and, moreover, not to overpay for them.
It is worth mentioning here, for example, about Bitrix24. Among the features of this particular system is its purchase only in combination with all other tools. On the one hand, it is quite interesting (you have more than you planned), on the other hand, it is difficult to use, unnecessary functions. However, such interesting things as the ability to communicate in different ways (voice and video) and much more in the process of use can unexpectedly come in handy.
If we try, then it's free
There is quite a direct pattern between the CRM system and your business: forgetting a client is a loss of money, ignoring him after a deal is a double loss. The main task after the selection is implementation. After all, even if the system was chosen correctly, then who said that it would work as it should?
There is a tendency to introduce systems for business management with the help of third-party organizations. In short, you should have some amount of money (far from three kopecks) that will allow you to invite a team of professionals and implement software. Usually, having learned that this is not really three kopecks, you will most likely abandon the system. The hope of solving all the problems associated with the shortcomings of managers, managers or production may not be realized at all.
They don't take money for demand, so why not. Please note that today almost all of the manufacturers offer to test the product for free, or even use it for free with limited functionality. If you do not like something - take on another. As a last resort - Excel is installed on almost all computers.
Weaknesses in the transition from a digging stick to a full-fledged system
A digging stick is a good thing, but not reliable. The system for business management, although at first glance seemingly very complex, is the same stick, only even simpler. So let Excel not be sad that we called it that: the role of the progenitor is always important, and any tradition needs to be improved and adapted to the time.
There are certainly weak points in the drive to optimize a business. Perhaps your ideal piece is a piece of Whatman paper and multi-colored gouache. Or now you like stickers and visualization and you will choose Megaplan, and tomorrow you will have so many clients that it will simply be “anti-functional”. There are many systems, and yours is most likely one. Analyze and compare.
Just remember that CRM is just a tool. The situation with control as such is a fiction: if the team is not ready to win, then there will be no effect from using the system.