How to Make the Right CRM Choice for Your Business

1. Why is choosing the right CRM system important for companies?
2. How can you determine the requirements and goals of the company in order to make a suitable CRM system selection?
3. 12 common and popular requirements for a CRM system
4. How can the different CRM systems and their functions be compared?
5. How can you ensure that the selected CRM system meets the requirements of the company? 
6. The research of CRM providers before CRM implementation is essential. (Source: own representation)
7. you can find out about a range of CRM tools that support you in promoting and maintaining your customer relationships. Based on verified customer reviews, the following tools are particularly popular in our community:

When it comes to CRM, most people think of the software solution first. For me, CRM primarily means Processes. Processes that focus on your customers, your prospects, your partners and suppliers, but also your employees. The focus is always on the person you are dealing with and the relationship with them. The CRM software is the best tool to map these processes in a customer-oriented way, to standardize and automate them.

Why is choosing the right CRM system important for companies?

Just as requirements and processes differ from company to company, so do the software solutions. Not every solution is right for you and your goals. So it is important to choose a CRM solution that not only suits your business, but also covers your desired requirements functionally. The CRM market is huge and difficult to navigate. In addition to hundreds of CRM solutions, there are thousands of CRM partners. Everyone is marketing and they all appear to have the best CRM solution for you. Therefore, the CRM selection process is more complex than you might think.

How can you determine the requirements and goals of the company in order to make a suitable CRM system selection?

You can either define the requirements and goals for the suitable CRM selection from top to bottom in the corporate hierarchy or exactly the other way around. Both methods work. It is important to have a dialogue with all project participants. You need a common goal, a real need and a fitting strategy.

Important questions in this context are:

• Do you want to structure the Sales?
• Do you want to automate the Marketing?
• Are you concerned about the Service processes?
• What does your Customer actually want and how do you satisfy them?
• What do you want to achieve in your Team?

Every company has individual processes and strategies. First and foremost, be clear about what you really want to achieve and what benefits you and your team the most. Derive your primary goal from it. This goal, linked with your idea, needs to grow and mature within the company. Ideally, a real awareness develops among all project participants, i.e. future users, key and power users, departments, administrators and the IT team. This is an extremely important and often underestimated step in CRM projects. If constructive exchange takes place in advance, you can identify problems, objections or project opponents and find solutions.

So if you want to make a suitable CRM system selection in the end, you need the Commitment of the employees in advance. No one knows the company and its challenges, the current processes better.

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To reach your desired state X, you should analyze your current state Y precisely. That means: Capture your Status Quo, your current state. Get feedback from your internal circles. This also has a very strong side effect. The employees feel noticed, important and appreciated. In this way, you generate a positive project atmosphere already in the early phases.

What these dialogs with the employees reveal are customer-oriented processes and perspectives in daily business. Therefore, I recommend that you carry your wishes, requirements and potential improvements from the bottom up into the hierarchy. Then it is necessary to analyze the collected information.

What good ideas and what less good ideas are there? What do you want to implement? What can you implement? I recommend that you weigh or prioritize these requirements. This does not have to be mapped in a highly professional requirements specification. A Requirements list is sufficient at this stage.

It is important that you have taken into account the requirements from all departments.

The success of your CRM choice depends largely on the Acceptance of the users. Users accept a CRM solution the more the better and more accurately their processes are supported. The best CRM solution is of no use to you if no one uses it. CRM is much more than a piece of software. CRM has to be lived. Together as a Team. And that's one of the success factors.

The CRM system as the most important recorder for the success of the project (source: own illustration)

12 common and popular requirements for a CRM system

The requirements for a CRM system usually come from Sales, from Marketing and Service. But also Project management departments, Quality management and Controlling are very often involved. In all departments, the core requirement is always transparency. CRM is the idea of making processes more efficient and successful through information. That means: Cross-departmentally view all important Information central from anywhere at any time. In this context, it is crucial to achieve and maintain a high Data quality. Therefore, integrations into other information systems play a very decisive role. There are hardly any projects without integrations to ERP, DMS, E-marketing or ticket systems, for example. The idea is to build a central pool of customer data in order to be meaningful about the current transactions and processes. Therefore, flexible and intuitive CRM solutions are in high demand among CRM enthusiasts. After all, future users should enjoy working with the CRM software.

The most frequently encountered CRM requirements and selection criteria include:

1. User-friendly Design
2. Flexible, easy and intuitive CRM solution
3. Historical Correspondence of all Customer activities
4. Mobile use on all end devices
5. Lead management with Quote follow-up
6. Geo-services (radius search, route and tour planner)
7. Sales controlling
8. Customer projects map
9. Integrations to ERP and other systems
10. Rights and role concepts
11. Marketing campaigns map
12. Ticket system

How can the different CRM systems and their functions be compared?

Contact management, sales activities and marketing processes. At first glance, there are hardly any differences between the individual CRM providers. And basically, this is also true. In terms of the breadth of functions, a Comparison is difficult. However, each CRM solution has its areas of specialization.

Practice shows the following: Each CRM provider has its Sales partners. While the provider tries to optimize the CRM solution through new versions and possibly fix bugs, the sales partners are closer to the customer. Thus also closer to the requirements. Almost every sales partner has developed their own modules, integrations or workflows. This is how the standard functions of the CRM provider are extended. The provider is not always informed about every new development. Much knowledge is therefore with the respective sales partners.

For a first comparison, I recommend among others the Comparison page for CRM tools by OMR. Here CRM solutions, Prices, Functions and Experience reports are shared. By users for users. Also, I recommend product-independent CRM consultants and agencies for selection advice. They know the market, the solutions and their strengths and weaknesses.

With the comparison and selection of the CRM system, the decision phase is not yet over. The choice of the perfect Implementation partner is just as important. So the partner who supports you in the installation, adaptation, integration and training. This partner must be able to take off his own glasses and see through your customer glasses.

How can you ensure that the selected CRM system meets the requirements of the company? 

A CRM solution must be flexible. Your requirements today may look completely different in 12 months. No one wants to introduce a new CRM system every 12 months. It is therefore important to let future CRM requirements flow into today's decision. Many companies start with slim contact management processes. These are usually expanded further. The CRM system should be able to grow with you and your company. Your Project preparation is also crucial. The better you have done your preliminary tasks up to the CRM selection, the better the result. In this context, I'm happy to give you a guide to the first steps:

1. First of all, be clear what you really want. Why a CRM project? Why a CRM selection?

2. Derive your primary goals from this.

3. Communicate why and what for into all levels of hierarchy into the company.

4. Record your Status Quo / current state.

5. Communicate with your employees and develop potential improvements

. 6. Analyze

your optimization potentials. Evaluate and weight them.7. From this information, set up a Requirement list

.8. Already have rough thoughts about the following specific steps

• .
• Define project roles and responsibilities
• Create a schedule
• Obtain and argue budget
• Create project plan
• Research suitable CRM solutions and partners
• Getting-to-know and presentation phase
• Cost assessment

Workshop phase

The research of CRM providers before CRM implementation is essential. (Source: own representation)

Choose from popular CRM softwares⁠On OMR Reviews

CentralStationCRM

Salesforce Sales Cloud

HubSpot Sales Hub

Pipedrive

TecArt CRM

Zoho CRM

SuperOffice

SAP Sales Cloud

SugarCRM

BSI Customer Suite

Samdock

SuperOffice

monday CRM

ameax AkquiseManager CRM-Software

you can find out about a range of CRM tools that support you in promoting and maintaining your customer relationships. Based on verified customer reviews, the following tools are particularly popular in our community:

Conclusion Whether your CRM selection is really successful depends on various factors. As described, the first steps are crucial. Every CRM project is different. Each process and requirement is individual. A lot of Communication

is necessary internally and externally.CRM projects cost Time, Resources and Money. You invest primarily in your Customer focus

. Not documented processes and missing information and data can become incredibly expensive. More expensive than the actual investment in CRM processes itself.

Just the idea of setting up or optimizing CRM processes brings you incredibly ahead in your customer focus. At this point you haven't invested a cent.Whether with or without CRM - anyone who does not manage their communications and their contacts runs the risk of not getting orders or even losing customers. Without customers, no sales and no business. Therefore, it is important to know: CRM projects can be funded