How to choose the right CRM for my company

How to get it right when choosing a CRM for my company

In these times, it has become essential, even for small businesses, to manage customers through a CRM or Customer Relationship Manager. Despite this, there are still those who have not taken the leap or are wondering how they could access this type of service and the real advantages they can offer.

Why do you have to have a CRM?

A CRM will allow us to have absolute and, most importantly, automatic control of the company’s relationship with each client. How many times you contact, what purchases you have made, the complaints you have presented or what responses have been given by the company and who has handled this relationship are some of the data that we can collect in order to later try to optimize the relationship or the service to each of the users.

How much does a CRM cost?

It is, perhaps, the big question and the fear of many companies, especially the smaller ones, to take the leap and use this type of service. The good news is that the fear of spending on a CRM is completely unfounded, since there are solutions that are free, such as Zadarma’s, and that also have the virtual branch exchange (PBX) integrated for calls – which is also free -, which allow any company to make the leap at zero cost.

CRM and virtual switchboard go hand in hand

It is important to highlight this binomial between switchboard and CRM, since they are an indivisible couple. The telephone continues to be the main channel for customer relations, so it is essential to have both systems connected. As we have pointed out before, it is something that does not have to cause us any cost and, in addition, we can port the company number or create one – or whatever we want – new.

In the case of Zadarma, the only obligation to have both, CRM and switchboard, for free is to recharge the account every 3 months, balance that is used for calls or for payment of the virtual number. In addition, it is not necessary to use your CRM solution, it is possible to connect your switchboard to any of the ones on the market if we are already using one, but we still need to add the communications part to the system.

Keys to keep in mind when choosing a CRM

What does a CRM have that makes it interesting in front of others? Above, the issue of price has already been discussed, which is still a sensitive factor, but going into the matter and the key characteristics when choosing one or the other, we would start by talking about scalability.

It is something that, again, goes hand in hand with the switchboard. Both systems must be able to adapt not only to the growth of the company but also to the different situations that occur throughout a year. There are times of more and less work, and even emergencies or crises such as a reimbursement campaign or repair of a defective batch of products in which it is necessary, overnight, to increase or reinforce the team that provides service to the clients.

Tools such as the virtual switchboard 2.0 allow creating in minutes, thanks to systems such as the visual editor Zadarma has, setting up new call scenarios in just minutes, creating voice menus and sizing teams so that from your CRM it is possible to respond to any type of situation. And it is that it will not always be a crisis, these scenarios may already be pre-configured for campaigns such as Christmas or Black Friday in which it is already known that a special team of agents will be needed to deal with the increase in sales or claims.

On the other hand, another key feature of a CRM is versatility in the sense that, in these times, the needs of a business are constantly changing. At first, for example, it can be based on attracting customers to later move on to a greater focus on loyalty. But, in addition, the development of a business is based on constant reinvention and commitment to new lines of growth. Therefore, it is necessary that the CRM can work, connect and trigger actions on other platforms that we discover or arise to give us new opportunities and ideas such as newsletters, ad managers, chat applications, etc.

It is practically impossible for a CRM to be natively compatible with absolutely everything, but there are a number of platforms with which compatibility cannot be lacking and that solve this problem: workflow or action chain managers. The best known is Zapier and they work in a way as simple as establishing an action that is generated from a CRM such as the Zadarma CRM and triggering another one in the more than 5,000 apps or services that there are to choose from.

A simple example could be that of a company that provides web development and maintenance services. It is common for customers to call desperately and urgently because this or that fails on their site. Before speaking with a technician, different voice menus can be established that generate a ticket for the development team and while it is in the call queue to be attended, a solution can be given that will be offered as soon as you pick up the phone to answer to your call, which will result in a huge increase in satisfaction.

Do you have to choose a single CRM and stick with it forever?

It is the last interesting point, especially for medium-sized companies. In this case, it is quite common for there to be several lines of business that, although they may be managed by the same virtual switchboard, need differentiated customer management systems both internally and to work with a partner that already uses one and does not. wants to change.

It is true that this is more of a PBX capability, which in cases like Zadarma’s, can be seamlessly connected to several CRMs to distribute calls to each of them, including the one that is integrated for free. A very graphic example is that of a motorway, which would be the switchboard, in which the cars of each of the clients who are their calls arrive and this has the capacity to direct them to the corresponding exit of the destination they are looking for, which does not have to what to be the same

In short, it is already essential to use a CRM in a company that wants to have its place in the future, but that does not imply, as we have seen, that it is expensive – in fact, it can even be free. In addition, to get it right, it must be clear that it is necessary to opt for one that is compatible with our virtual switchboard, scalable and versatile.