Are you looking for a CRM solution for your Startup company?
Do you know why is your choise of a CRM Software so vital?
In this blog post we will explain you the four crucial considerations for CRM System for your Startup Company.
As startups get off the ground, they have numerous choices to make regarding automation. Due to a fledgling company’s financial status, these choices are often mitigated by cost. When it comes to the choice of CRM systems, however, there are four other important factors to take into account in addition to its price.
1. CRM Is The Backbone for Startup Company
When engaged in many other distractions—such as keeping the company up and running day-to-day—the choice of a CRM (customer relationship management) solution may not seem all that important. At the outset, you’re just looking for a way to keep track of your contacts, to coordinate different actions in relationship to clients and prospects, and have some kind of central repository for customer data.
But since the primary activity of a startup company is dealing with customers, a CRM system is in fact the backbone of your entire operation. It will not only be a coordination point for different company functions but the primary interface between you and the public. The better CRM does its job, the more capable and facile your enterprise will be in the conduct of daily business. This is especially important for a startup getting off the ground.
2. Empower Sales
Most CRM solutions are designed with a “top down” approach. While synchronizing various actions between departments, the effect upon sales is to burden salespeople with cumbersome reporting. Because CRM solutions are not usually designed with salespeople in mind, this becomes a one-way street; sales reps cannot in turn rely upon the CRM system to help them organize and manage their sales.
A CRM solution that is truly “intuitive” would be one organized in the pattern of the company’s sales process—the exact series of established steps through which a sale travels from lead to close. This allows salespeople to view, analyze and manage their sales all the way through their pipelines. It also allows others in the company that need this data, such as sales management and marketing, to easily find it also.
A company will find that as its sales reps are further empowered to do their jobs, the more sales get made. That, after all, is the goal—especially for a startup.
3. Balance Between Complexity and Simplicity
To some, a complex CRM solution may seem like the way to go. All those “bells and whistles” might be needed someday, even if they’re not at the moment. The downside is, when you’re trying to train people to use CRM—and most importantly get it into use so you can get on with business—downtime occurs when employees are learning the system, and also when people are stuck trying to remember how to enter or retrieve data.
An inadequate system can be as much of a problem. Salespeople and others in the startup company find that there is no way to enter vital data that they will later need. More importantly, that data is never going to be available when it is needed to move along a sale, close a tech support ticket or properly ship an item.
This is where flexibility enters the picture. The ideal startup CRM application is simple enough for employees to grasp and use, yet complete enough so that all needed information can be entered and be available when needed. And most importantly, CRM can scale as the company grows.
4. Talk To Your People
The above three factors are crucial to a startup company in choosing a CRM solution. But don’t make the mistake of making that choice without talking to your employees: What would they need from a CRM system? How would it help them? What particular features would assist them in doing their jobs? What would hinder their jobs? You should of course discuss these choices with salespeople, as they are your front line of customer relations. But the input of others who would utilize CRM—such as marketing, tech support, customer service and even perhaps R&D—is also vital. The more able everyone is to utilize CRM, the better off the enterprise will be.
As a startup, get off the ground with the right CRM, and your journey to success will be considerably eased.
Watch for more articles in our series on startups, salespeople and CRM.
