You’ll also need to have a program that can manage and track social media marketing, and organize your client relationships better so that you can create a better return on investment not only in terms of creating more sales per client, but just so that you can give better customer service.

Before you invest in CRM software

It’s important that you determine what types of features and functions you want to include.

Remember that a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application is designed to improve organization when dealing with customer relations. You’ll use the CRM to not only set goals, but to manage goals through to completion of the entire sales cycle.

With the right CRM app, you’ll be able to combine many different aspects of business from sales, to customer service, to accounting and marketing.

The Most Important CRM App Functions

To that end, ensure that at the very least the CRM app that you choose performs the following functions.

•  Searchable Customer Database — You should easily be able to input some information into the system to find a particular client, or to find all clients who purchased a particular item during a specific sale.

• Metrics Generation — In business, success often comes down to the numbers, and a good CRM app will supply you with numbers that you can see at any point in any campaign.

• Easy Dashboard — The system should be user-friendly and easy to use. If you don’t understand or comprehend the dashboard, you’re not going to be able to understand the rest. It’s okay because there are many CRM apps to choose from today. Don’t like one? Move on to the next.

• Report Generation — In addition to metrics, you should be able to easily create and print out or email various reports such as sales numbers to share within your organization. If you know that territory A is doing better than territory B, with the right numbers, and the right records, it’s likely that you can figure out why and improve territory B’s numbers.

• Forecasting Tools — Predictive tools that will help you use data to determine probable customer outcome of any campaign will be essential to developing any opportunity in a realistic way.

The one final thing that is highly recommended though not really a function, but something that is very useful, is ensuring that you choose a cloud-based application.

The reason a cloud-based app is so useful is that it can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, using a number of different devices.

People from all departments can access the full features of the CRM app without even coming into the office so it’s very useful for making your business more mobile. For instance, a sales rep could access important data during a lunch meeting, or you could have customer service reps who work in other states, or even other countries, all accessing the same data.

Finally, I highly recommend that you study as much as you can about CRM’s by reading this free eBook put out by GetApp. They are experts in business software such as this, and you don’t even have to give them your information to get the free eBook. It’s called: “Powerful Customer Relationship Management For Small Businesses“.

Image © Adam Gregor – Fotolia.com

The post The Most Important Functions that Every CRM App Should Provide appeared first on Famous Bloggers.

In the past, the market of customer relationship management software was a homogenous field – software solutions offered more or less all of the same functions. That meant business owners only had to decide which software vendor was the most convincing when selecting a CRM application. Then Web 2.0 arrived. It revolutionized our idea of the internet completely. In fact, it not only revolutionized our idea of the internet but also of how we communicate – and it brought movements in the software market.

Soon after the evolution of Web 2.0 a new term was introduced into the CRM software space. People started talking about Social CRM (SCRM) and new business software solutions were created to meet that need. That’s a good thing for business. A lot of new useful business apps with social features are now available for business owners.

However, there is still some confusion regarding the exact difference between CRM Apps and Social CRM solutions. Indeed, the focus of each software type is a little bit tricky to understand. Looking at the three main differences between the two is helpful in clarifying the differences.

The Three Main Differences of CRM and SCRM Software

Overall, the main differences of CRM and SCRM lie in three basic functions:

1. Data-driven vs. content-driven

The main reason why businesses invest in Dynamics CRM services is to store contact data. It was and still is important to store customer information at one central location because it improves the ease and effectiveness of your business communication.

Also in order to keep track of appointments, notes, potential deals or other activities, a CRM application is a basic necessity. Social CRM takes this one step further. It helps you to get the attention of people who are searching the internet trying to overcome business challenges.

If you offer the right content to those people, you will have the attention of this audience immediately, which leads to growing lead generation and lower customer acquisition costs.

Apart from creating attractive content, social listening has become a key pillar for SCRM strategies. Reacting to negative tweets or answering questions on Facebook are two examples of this very proactive customer retention strategy, which will positively affect your brand as well as your customer service.

2. Process-centric vs. conversation-centric

The focus of traditional CRM applications lies in implementing and automating processes. Each section of your company may use a CRM solution a bit differently – for example, management wants to standardize sales processes and customer service wants to ensure proper handling. This is what traditional CRMs are about; they turn activities and tasks into the correct sequences.

A SCRM application on the other hand, concentrates on meaningful conversations with the hope of converting them into clicks or deals. Providing good content is one part of this strategy, what a SCRM helps you do is to create conversations via comments left on a blog article or the ability to follow your company on Twitter.

A social CRM app increases the likelihood of engaging customers into conversations, which can result in increased sales.

3. Operationally-focused vs. people-focused

Managing customer information plays a key role in the ability to react to requests and to properly keep track of closed deals. The ability to have better communication between sales and marketing is one of the reasons why many companies decide on a CRM application.

Traditional CRMs concentrate on operational effectiveness and SCRM apps are all about people and communities. The focus is more on participating in ongoing conversations and embracing influencers of your market, such as popular bloggers, to help you build an outstanding reputation among your target audience.

It’s easy to see that SCRM applications bring additional value to modern businesses. If you want to bring on new customers in times of Web 2.0, you have to go beyond the traditional CRM. Focusing on tactics and strategies is important, but a two-way interaction with your customers is priceless.

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