According to Abbreviationfinder, CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and CRM system is a system solution that will ensure better customer care and increased sales productivity.
Sales Support System = is just like a CRM system, focused on offering features to automate sales processes and streamline sales efforts to achieve better growth.
A CRM system is one of the most important and central system solutions of a company. With a CRM tool, companies get the opportunity to manage their customer relationships better, and access to a battery of innovative features that ensure that they gain competitive advantage in their customer and sales work.
The basic building blocks of a CRM system or sales support system are to create the following conditions:
- Centralize customer data – Store and collect information about your current customers as well as your potential customers and enable them to easily access the information needed to strengthen your relationships.
- Marketing – create marketing campaigns to reach out with their message to relevant customers and then measure the outcome. Important features of their lead generation work.
- Sales and customer reports – create reports and forecasts on sales productivity or churn activity as well as which areas / industries give the best results or differ.
- Customer service – some CRM systems are focused on streamlining customer service and offer functions that allow you to keep statistics, call directly from the CRM system, integrate with other call centers etc.
- Sales or customer pipe – pipe-management functions that give you a quick overview of the prospects the sellers work with and where you are in the sales process.
It is a “war” about finding and converting leads to new paying customers and having efficient processes that make you “first on the ball” and can measure your productivity to be better. It is with a CRM system that you achieve these important competitive factors and thus help your company achieve much better growth.
Choosing CRM systems
Choosing a CRM system or sales support system can be one of the most complex buying processes. There are simply many factors to investigate and evaluate and that it is a costly purchase. Unfortunately, it becomes even more expensive if you make the wrong purchase decision and need to change after 1-3 years.
To make sure that you have the right conditions when choosing CRM, we have described important parameters that can guide you in the buying process. However, the different parts of the buying process vary depending on the size of the company or the complex needs. Therefore, we have divided it into three sections.
CRM for self-employed persons
If you are a startup looking for a simple CRM that offers the basic CRM functionality, we recommend signing up for a free period.
Many CRM suppliers have good support during the test period and you get a very good knowledge if the system fits your needs. There are also free CRM systems but note that the business model is designed so that you will eventually upgrade to a paying customer (they limit important uses in the free version). See who offers free CRM or free period. Otherwise, it is good to read reviews from what other start-ups have done.
CRM for small businesses
If you are looking for a CRM system for small companies with less than 20 employees, where about 2–5 employees work with sales and market, we recommend starting with a needs survey and then taking and booking a prerequisite meeting with 2-3 suppliers for a demo of the products.
Or that you request a free period of one month to self-evaluate. To get help with the needs mapping and information about what others have done in your situation, test the CRM guide. It is an algorithm-based recommendation guide that recommends the suppliers that are most suitable for your pricing and needs. A very popular guide for SMEs.
CRM for medium-sized companies & large companies
If you are an SME or large companies with a sales & marketing at 15-50 employees so demands score the first thing to start with. It is important to try to do as thorough a job as possible before starting to meet suppliers.
In addition, one should identify who should be in the meetings with the suppliers. For example, the market should be an operator and a person from IT. The reason is that they will have an impact later on in the buying process and then it can extend even more in time if you miss their wishes and expertise.
Choosing a CRM provider
Choosing a CRM system that fits your needs is important, but working with the right CRM provider is just as important.
Below are suggestions of factors when choosing a CRM provider.
- Support (is it available in Swedish and over the phone?)
- Advice (is it available if you need it?)
- System customization (you can change the system without a lot of extra costs)
- Reviews (read reviews from independent sources to get their real features)