CRM softwares are intended to help track interactions with current and future customers for the entire organization and help organizations increase sales department effeciency by doing that. Customer Relationship Management is a the combination of business processes and supportings technologies that support the key activities of target management, customer acquisition, customer retantion, and collaborating with customers.

For over a decade now companies have used CRM to overcome challenges to take care of competitive business environment, resource utilization across the organization, fast changing busines environment etc. A 360 degree view of customer interaction along with advanced analytics allows organizations to plan for the future in the best possible way. It also allows businesses to detect any changes in the environment at quite early stages.

In market, lot of CRM software are available, and they are updated on regular bases, based on advancement of technoligies. While selecting CRM for organiztion you should consider different aspects to provide maximum effeciency.

Features

Customer Management Systems improve interaction, efficiency and effectiveness when acquiring, supporting, selling and managing customers. CRM benefits companies to benefit from marketing campaigns, faster sales cycle and improved customer service.

  • Sales And Marketing Automation

  • Email Integration

  • Analytics

  • Invoicing, Payments and Dispatch Details

  • Project Management

  • Customer Service Portal

  • Knowledge Base

 To decide on a CRM to buy, customer should look at :

 Type of functioning the organization has.

 - Front office business opertions including Sales, Marketing, Services

 - Allowing direct intearction with customers like IVR etc

 - Requires analysis of customer behavior etc.

 Type of deployment required

 - Inhouse – For sensitive data, customized solutions, large operations

 - Shared cloud – For standard operations, small operations

 - Dedicated cloud – For standard operations, large operations

Total Cost of Deployment

Customer should look at total cost of operations incuding Licensee cost, Datacenter cost, Customization cost, Support cost etc over a period of 3 to 5 years. There are lot of hidden cost which need to be taken into accounts and clarified beforhand, including Hardware cost, regular support cost, regular customization cost etc.

Open Source CRM Software :

Open source provides a lot of options, with Vtiger and Sugar CRM being the most prominent Open Source CRM Solutions. Both the solutions are available for inhouse deployment as well as on cloud. There are a lot of solution providers who provide implementation, configuration as well as customization functions in both technologies.

Indian Context

 CRM software in India has a mixed market with both proprietry as well as Open source options available. Lot of service providers are available for both.

Based on the above functions and due diligence, the customer will be ready to choose the best fit CRM, and ready to take advantages of the technology to the fullest.