One
Size Does NOT Fit All
by Kendra Von Achen
Last week at a networking
event, someone asked me what MY favorite
CRM system is. My answer to him was
“that depends”, and here’s why.
CRM is not a “one size
fits all” tool for all businesses.
There are solely operated businesses,
small, medium, large, and multi-national
conglomerates. There are companies in
more industries than there are Jeopardy
categories. So how can you expect the
software that will help you manage your
day-to-day operations, your sales,
marketing and customer support (and then
some) be the same for everyone?
To further clarify my
answer to this man, I also told him that
the system you choose can live in many
different environments – installed
software on your own servers and
computers; SAAS (software as a service)
that lives in cyberspace; or a
combination of the two (and they’re now
coming out with Software in the Cloud
that is different than SAAS).
But that is just the tip
of the iceberg. If the only factors to
choosing a CRM system for your business
were as simple as the size of your
company, industry, and whether you
wanted installed software or SAAS, then
it would be a much easier decision for
people to make. Each system out there
today that you can purchase either
online, at your local office supply
store, through the vendor’s sales rep,
or through a reseller have very
different characteristics, all that are
important to your purchase decision.
I’ll leave you with 5 key
fundamentals to selecting the right CRM
system for your business.
-
Do your research –
whether this is going to the CRM
trade publication sites and seeing
what the top CRM solutions are for
your size company and/or industry;
or looking at each vendor’s website
directly; or hiring a consultant to
help you tread through the waters of
CRM systems.
-
Know what you are
looking for – have a good idea of
what you’d like the CRM system to do
for your business.
-
Keep the future in
mind – have your growth plan in
mind, so that you can ensure the
system will be scalable for your
future needs; both in growth in
number of users and data, to the
features and functionality you’ll
need down the road. Make it fit
your 3-5 year growth plan.
-
Get all of the
pricing elements on the table. The
cost of purchasing a CRM system is
not as simple as how many users you
have and the cost per license.
There may be maintenance/support
fees, setup fees, additional
modules/add-on tools you will need,
and other possible “hidden” costs
you may not be aware of.
-
Don’t let price be
the deciding factor. If you’re on a
tight budget (which, who are we
kidding, we all are in this economic
climate!), don’t just choose the
least expensive system. In the end,
it may end up costing you more if
you either selected a system that
isn’t working to fit your needs
correctly, or there are add-on tools
required to do all that you need the
system to do.
So thank you Carlos for
asking me such a great question and
allowing me to spew on for the next 5
minutes about why I couldn’t give you
the name of one CRM system that is my
favorite.
__________________________________________________
Kendra Von Achen is
President of DB Pros, a database
advisory and implementation firm based in
NJ. For more information on this and
other database-related topics, contact
her at
kendra@dbprosconsulting.com
or visit their website at
www.dbprosconsulting.com.
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