Introduction
Every business is unique in many ways, and so is the industry it operates in.
Choosing the right CRM for your business can be a daunting task. There are many different types of CRMs in the market designed to solve specific challenges. It is very important for you to prioritize your needs and then objectively look at all the parameters before you decide the right CRM for you and your team.
This guide is put together to explain the various types of CRMs that exist in the market, what do they specifically solve, which CRMs you should evaluate for your business, and finally what are the parameters you should consider while choosing the right CRM software for your business.
Before we get there, let us first understand why companies need a CRM software and what they could accomplish through it.
Why Do Companies Need CRM Software?
CRM software (Customer Relationship Management) investment is one of the most strategic decisions a company makes. The right CRM can deliver a huge competitive advantage to help companies outgrow competition and gain market-share.
A CRM system helps automate sales, marketing and service operations. These departments need to manage a lot of data and information pertaining to their leads, client details, deal information, tasks and activities, etc.
Most companies in their initial days generally track all this information in various spreadsheets, word docs and sticky notes. Over a period of time, this unstructured and unorganized data breeds business inefficiencies and hinders business growth.
Lack of CRM prevents organizations be proactive in their client engagements; thereby hampering client relationships and revenue growth. Companies also end up losing a lot of critical information about their clients and deals; which could have delivered them a competitive edge. Last but not the least, the lack of the right information pulls down your team’s productivity and their ability to efficiently meet client expectations.
It is extremely important for companies to plug these holes in their business operations and lay the foundation for future growth. Most studies have proven that the right CRM can give a boost of up to 50% in your growth.
What Are The Different Types of CRM software?
To be able to choose the right CRM, it is important to understand the various types of CRM software available in the market.
Deployment: On-Premise CRM v/s Cloud CRM
Generally, CRM systems are of two types depending on the type of deployment – On-Premise CRM and Cloud CRM software
On-Premise CRM software:
As the name suggests, on-premise CRM software systems get deployed within the company premises. The necessary infrastructure, hardware, application software, and database application are installed in the company’s data-center.
On-premise software involves huge capital investments and costs. The costs include infrastructure, hardware, networking, application software, and database costs.
You also need to consider the cost to hire and retain a dedicated IT team that can manage your IT infrastructure and business applications. In most cases, these companies solely depend of their own IT staff for supporting its users and change requests that come up from time to time.
The other challenge with on-premise CRM applications is that you will need to constantly plan for updates and upgrades of your systems. Only then you will be able to avail the latest capabilities and features. Also, these updates are extremely critical to remove security vulnerabilities that could come up from time to time.
These upgrades are applicable to your hardware systems, CRM applications, and database software. At that point in time, one needs to also keep in mind the compatibility and interoperability aspects between these systems.
If not planned well, on-premise CRM applications can lead to a lot of downtime and outages; thereby adversely impacting your cost of business operations.
While making your decision, it is important that you consider all these parameters and then arrive at the Total-Cost-of-Ownership (TCO). It is not a good idea to blindly look at only the costs shared by the software vendor. I am sure you would like to avoid future surprises after you embark on a project like this.
Many traditional companies still use on-premise CRM systems. Companies in Banking & Financial Services (BFSI) and Government entities generally prefer on-premise software to comply with data regulations and data privacy norms.
Cloud CRM software:
Unlike On-Premise CRM, the Cloud CRM application is not deployed within your premises. They are hosted and managed in the cloud infrastructure.
In this case, the total cost of ownership (TCO) is much lower than that of On-Premise software. You need not commit any upfront capital cost for in-house infrastructure or software applications. Cloud CRM applications are available on subscription based on pay per use model. Also, this model will allow you to scale-up or scale-down easily depending on your business needs.
You need not spend a lot of money on software upgrades and updates that is generally witnessed with On-Premise CRM. You also avoid any downtime-related costs due to these upgrade projects. The Cloud CRM vendors will seamlessly push these updates making sure you are always on the latest version.
Category: B2B CRM v/s B2C CRM
One of the important criteria to decide on the right best CRM for B2B sales is to consider the type of clients you work with. The way to analyse this is to look at who pays for your products or services. At a very high level, these get categorized in to two –
B2B clients: you raise your invoices on companies or legal entities; they are the ones who pay you
B2C clients: you raise your invoices on individuals; end-consumers make the payments to you
The needs of B2B clients and B2C clients are very different. It is important that you select your CRM on this basis to make sure you get the best out of your CRM initiative.
B2B CRMs are designed and built to enable long-term client relationships to maximize customer lifetime value (LTV); unlike B2C CRMs that’s designed to support high volume transactional businesses. B2B buyers are very rational and cautious due to higher perceived risks. Whereas, B2C buyers are impulsive and emotional.
B2B CRMs allow you to manage multiple stake-holders, influencers and decision-makers at the client’s place. This may not be a priority for B2C clients.
B2B CRMs support very high-touch complex sales engagements with long sales cycles unlike transactional short sales-cycles in B2C.
Last but not the least, B2B CRMs help you to automate your Accounts Receivables (AR), Quotation Management, Order Management, and post-sales Service operations which are not supported by B2C CRMs.
Department: Marketing vs Sales vs Service
Based on its operational use, CRMs are designed for various LoBs (line-of-business) and departments like Marketing, Sales, Service, Customer Success etc.
The needs of these departments are quite different and it is important that you select your CRM keeping their objectives in mind.
Marketing CRM: is designed for helping with large-scale marketing campaigns. The main objective of a Marketing CRM is lead generation, also called demand generation.
Sales CRM: is designed to accelerate end-to-end sales operations all the way from lead management to deal closure coupled with order management process. Main objectives of a Sales CRM are to improve deal conversions, sales productivity and sales efficiency. It also helps with sales activities and tasks.
Service CRM: is used by clients to automate post-sales and service operations. It is useful to manage service tickets, AMC management and timely service visits.
Few CRMs like HappSales support a combination of these. It supports other departments like Accounts Receivables (AR) and Customer Success also through its unique integrated Account Management CRM framework
Industry: vertical-specific
As mentioned before, different industry verticals have their own unique needs. For example, a company operating in the Hotel industry would want support with guest loyalty and guest onboarding. Educational institutions would want to improve student engagements and acquisition. Hospitals focus on patient management and patient loyalty.
So, it becomes important for you to make a list of your objectives that might be specific to your industry and then make a decision based on the solution fitment.
Usage: Web-based CRM vs Mobile CRM
As per HBR, conventional CRMs have a very high failure rate. The main reason for this is due to poor adoption by the end-users who find these very boring, cumbersome and time-consuming.
Mobile CRMs can help address these challenges, especially given the fact that an average person spends over four hours per day on their smartphones nowadays.
Moreover, Mobile CRMs can engage the users better, and help them to capture and fetch information with ease. It is a great way to empower your reps with a productivity tool that can give them the flexibility and freedom to manage their business efficiently.
HappSales is the only voice-enabled Mobile CRM that leverages Machine Learning and NLP technologies to help improve productivity by leaps and bounds. This is made possible through a unique personal-assistant called Ami.
Mobile CRM apps also offer other capabilities like business-card scanning, easy attendance management, GPS support, etc. which are very useful for on-the-move reps.
Original Source: Choose the Right CRM
HappSales India 
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