What Is A CRM System and How Can It Transform Your Business?

Businesses nowadays opt for a more preferable and comfortable method of managing their relationships with customers. This method is through getting a usable CRM system, especially with software. If you are a startup wondering what a CRM system is and how it can benefit, grow, and transform your business, then keep reading; this article is for you!

What Is a CRM System? 

First and foremost, a CRM system is a customer relationship management system or network. This system can contain all info pertaining to a business’s clients and customers. This info could be background checks on clients, marketing trends, and demographic details, sales, and leads reports, customer satisfaction status, engagement data, and so on.

So, with a system like this tracking all important data relating to sales and customers, a CRM can easily and readily completely transform your business! Keep reading to see what a CRM system can do for your business.

Now that you know what a CRM system is, keep scrolling to see what it can do for you.
 

What Can a CRM System Do?

A CRM system can do many things! A typical CRM system should basically offer most of the following:

• The means for a business to collect and store important data on customers
   
• Schedules for handling follow-ups easily
   
• The tools for tracking sales, trends, and preferences in order to know what and how to market (as well as to whom)
   
• The ability to manage relationships with customers at the most basic level
   

Installing a CRM system can do all of that and so much for your business. Some of the ways it can help transform your business include easily storing every single minute detail on contact with customers and having it ready for use whenever it is needed. This can be so helpful when you need certain information on specific clients.

A CRM System can also be so widely beneficial in the marketing sector. Knowing and understanding your customers can be very hard to do manually and without any outside assistance. It is, therefore, a very smart move to get a software system that can instantaneously collect and save this data, process it, and send it to the designated party. These details can help in making specialized campaigns that can be highly localized and cater to a specific audience. With a target audience in mind, and knowing their preferences, advertising becomes a piece of cake!

With all relevant details and information on customers at hand, it is also easy to get rid of useless data that would have no value. The system can easily take care of all of that. Businesses can become much more personal in this way and save a lot of time and money trying to figure out what people want.

CRM systems can also track calls, emails, and so forth. This greatly increases accountability and makes it very easy to store important backup info. This could come in handy when needing proof that your side was not in the wrong. This could help in many cases where customers and clients try to forge info and details. It could also help in better scenarios, such as understanding your customers better.

All of the above is designed to help businesses, especially small businesses and startups, grow. However, with all of that being said, it is very important that businesses recognize the privacy policy that comes with CRM systems. The point of CRM is not to spy on customers or steal their data. It is crucial to know that info on customers is to only be used by the system to help benefit both sides. This guarantees that chances to close deals will not be wasted. By understanding customers better, you can provide much better services.

A good CRM system would ensure all of this. It will also come with many benefits and features as well. Keep reading to know what the most useful features that come with a CRM system are!
 

Key Features In a Good CRM System

These are some of the most typical key features that any good CRM system should have:

• Contact Management
• Lead Management
• Integrations and Email Tracking
• Dashboard for Analytics

More advanced systems, however, can come with the following, in addition to all of the above:

• A cloud-based CRM platform that can seamlessly integrate operations
• Marketing and sales automation
• Customer service systems that can provide a fully functioning ecosystem of customer data
• Mobile-based CRM to help in remote working
• Social media integration, as it is a modern source of leads
• Artificial intelligence (AI) reading and tracking
• Advanced management systems

For these reasons, we will provide you with a list of recommendations for some of the best, most advanced, and feature-rich CRM software systems that are bound to help your business grow! Keep scrolling to read the list below.
 

Recommended CRM Software

Now that we have explained what a CRM system is, demonstrated all of the most important key features a good software system should have, and shown you how it can completely and wholly transform your business to another level, here is a list of some of the best CRM software systems, from some of the best service providers out there, that we highly recommend.
 

1. Monday.com

Trusted by Uber, Adobe, and Hulu, the number one CRM software we suggest is Monday.com CRM. It is, clearly, one of the best CRM software available. We suggest this as our number one option because it comes with some of the most excellent features and user-friendly tools.

Here are the most important features Monday.com CRM offers:

• Exportable contact database
• Customization
• Total visibility
• Mobile-optimized
• Automation of tasks
• Constant monitoring
• Open API
• Lead/Pipeline management
• Tracks prospects, clients & deals
• Consolidated contact information
• Easy to use and navigate
• Free version and free trial available
   

Monday.com has five different options when it comes to its plans. With a wide range of choices, you will be certain to find one that suits you as well as your budget. These are the five different options you have for plans with Monday.com CRM:

• The Individual plan

This plan is free and perfect for a limited budget. It comes with core features and 500 MB for file storage.

• The Basic plan: $8/user/month

The Basic plan build on top of the individual plan. It also comes with a wide range of extra features such as contact and deal management. This plan includes 5 GB of file storage.

• The Standard plan: $10/user/month

In addition to all of the features in the previous two plans, the Standard plan includes great features such as a calendar view, and sales analysis. This plan includes 20 GB designed for file storage.

• The Pro plan: $16/user/month

Adding onto everything in the plans above, the Pro plan has everything from customized notifications to time tracking to workflow automation. this plan comes with 100 GB of file storage.

• The Enterprise plan: Quote-based

The Enterprise plan is the most feature-rich plan. It contains all of the features mentioned above in the other cheaper plans but comes with much more as well. This plan is specifically designed for big enterprises and it comes with benefits to help bigger companies. This plan also includes 1000 GB of file storage.

You may also request a two-week trial for any of the plans above before you make any choices.

2. Zendesk

Our second recommendation for great systems is Zendesk CRM. It is another great option to look at. Besides a whole 30-day free trial, here are some of the following features offered by Zendesk:

 Zendesk CRM features:

• Sales email intelligence
• Native dialer
• Integrations and open API
• Sales prospecting
• Third-party integrations
• Sales reporting and analytics
• Mobile CRM

The plans and packages offered by Zendesk include:

1. Sell Team plan: $19/user/month, billed annually

This plan contains the most basic features you could ask for. Such features include a custom sales pipeline, built-in call recording, mobile CRM, applications, and more!

2. Sell Professional: $49/user/month, billed annually

With the Sell professional plan, you can get features all of the features from the Sell Team plan and more. These extra features include benefits such as personalized bulk emailing, endless templates for email, and even advanced call analytics.

3. Sell Enterprise: $99/user/month, paid annually

The Sell Enterprise plan comes with all of the previously stated features from the two plans mentioned above as well as a product catalog, load or deal scoring, work automation, and customizable notifications.

4. Sell Elite: $199/user/month

Sell Elite has all of the features in the other plans as well as extra benefits planned for an elite experience. These extra features include open API, advanced sales insight reports, and insightful reports.

3. Salesforce

Salesforce is yet another perfect alternative for CRM software. Below are some of the key causes we recommend Salesforce:

• A varied range of features and customizable options
• Great analytics reporting
• Free trial
• Allows an inclusive variety of integrations
• Cloud-based
• Scalable
• Easy to use and customize
• A customer-centric platform
• Instant upgrades and updates
• Mobile app
• Integration options
• Record tracking

 

The options of clouds that are offered by Salesforce are the following:

1.  Sales Cloud | Starts at $25/month

The price of this cloud begins at $25 for the Essential tier, $75 for professional, $150 for Enterprise, and $300 for Unlimited.

2. Service Cloud | Starts at $25/month

The Service Cloud offers Essential, Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited tiers with the same pricing from $25 to $300.

3. Marketing Cloud | Starting at $400/month

For $400 a month you can be sure to get the worth of your money. Some of the studios available in this cloud are Email studio, advertising studio, and Social studio. You can also integrate third-party apps to make the process of marketing even more effective.

4. Commercial Cloud | Quote based

The Commercial Cloud supports online shopping as well! If you are interested and would like to know the price of this cloud, you will have to contact the Salesforce team directly to get a custom quote.