5 Must Have Features in A CRM

A CRM is not just a sales and marketing software, it is an essential tool in determining strategies that help develop processes and systems in sales and marketing pipelines that last for very long. Therefore, selecting a software that is going to stay with the organisation for so long is quite a big deal. There are few core features of a CRM that are super useful for your business.

1- Ease of Setup and Use-  It doesn’t make any sense to pay  for software that is hard for your team  to understand and use. Unnecessary customization and  functionalities lead to a complicated platform which affects CRM data integrity.

Start with features which get your teams to enter details about leads, deals and their interaction with prospects or customers. Once they got the basics down, now add some email workflows, email tracking, call logging etc.

2- Remote accessibility- A CRM software that can not be accessed from outside the office has no practical use these days. Invest in a cloud based CRM software which has native mobile apps for iOS and Android. This is the most pertinent feature for businesses where sales reps have to be on the field.

3- Intelligent analytic- Entering  data is not enough for CRM software. There is no point in having a huge bulk of data and not knowing what it means. A manual analysis might take a very long time. Growing businesses do not need the additional hassle of their employees having to learn quantitative and qualitative analysis, every time there is a new set of data collected.

It is the job of a CRM to help the user select campaigns, target consumer groups, define and apply strategies, measure results across multiple platforms and channels and integrate the results into the further planning processes.

4- Third-party integration- Third-party integration makes things vastly simple for CRM users. It allows users to have different apps embedded in the CRM and use them without having to switch between apps. For example, most businesses using Google for Work (Business Google email) would like the emails of their sales reps to be automatically logged in their CRM.

Well reputed CRMs such as Hubspot have a wide range of integrations, allowing-ease-of-usage. Simple plugins such

5- Lead generation-  Lead generation starts from your website. Your website lead gen forms need to integrate with your CRM. This allows captured visitor data to be available on your CRM dashboard. Once these leads are qualified, you can put them in your marketing workflows based on their buyer’s journey (Awareness, Consideration, Decision stage).   

Hopefully now the concept of CRM is clear in our mind. It is really very essential for the overall development of any organization. As we know now, it is not just a sales and marketing software, it is an essential tool in determining strategies that help develop processes and systems in sales and marketing pipelines that last for very long.

All the best for overall success in your business.