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Businesses of all shapes and sizes may find themselves in need of a CRM.
For instance, they may be more focused on brand building or growth than profitability.
Questions are likely to center on cost, with budgets possibly limited, ease of use, and support.
Keep reading for more tips on the key CRM considerations for small businesses.
Get started now and boost your team’s communication and productivity.
Preferred partner (What does this mean?)
A guide to choosing a CRM for a small business
What’s your budget?
For many small businesses, cost is the driving force behind most decisions.
First of all, define your CRM budget clearly.
How will costs build up over time?
These are all things you should factor into your budget assessments when choosing a CRM as a small business.
Think too about the pricing plans that come with a particular CRM.
Some offer payment monthly, while others operate on an annual basis.
And, of course, dont discountfree CRM software.
There are several great tools that wont cost you a penny, many of themopen-source CRMs.
If budgets really are tight, these are definitely worth a look.
What are your essential features?
Some common CRM features includelead generation,project management,databasefunctionality,calendarviews, analytics, and much more.
Some of these features will be essential to your operations but some may not be needed at all.
Theres little point in paying for functionality that your employees wont use.
By setting out your business needs, it will become a lot easier to narrow down your CRM choices.
They might not have an IT department with plentiful resources to set up training initiatives or respond to troubleshooting.
Freshsales also offers an intelligent assistant called Freddy AI and drag-and-drop Kanban-style boards forsales pipelinemanagement.
Plus, they are less likely to have a well-resources support team internally to help out.
One of the areas where support is most likely to be needed is in terms of integration.
Security
CRM tools may contain a large amount of sensitive data, making security credential extra important.
Examine the security credential of your chosen CRM tool carefully and dont forget about compliance.
For example, if you operate in the EU, youll want a CRM solution that is GDPR compliant.
Encryption is another feature that small businesses would be advised to look for when choosing a CRM.
you could reduce the likelihood of data leaks by limiting permissions to those individuals who really need access.
Fortunately, many CRM tools, including heavy hitters likeSalesforce,Workbooks, andHubSpotoffer free trials.
This means businesses can gain first-hand experience of a CRM solution before committing themselves financially.
This period is crucial to understanding whether your chosen CRM is really right for your small businesses.
Be sure to use it well.
They may even be in a similar industry or be a direct competitor.
If thats the case, see if theyve reviewed the platform.
What do they think are its strengths and weaknesses.
Make the most of the community of employees, developers and entrepreneurs out there.
Ask them about a small business CRM.
You might just receive some hugely valuable advice.
