In the US, companies lose over $600 billion each year due to poor CRM quality. Many companies fall victim to this pitfall by either hastily selecting a CRM, or sticking with familiar options. This is why it’s so crucial for startups to select a tool that will meet their needs both today, and in years to come.
Choosing the right CRM tool for your startup may therefore feel like a momentous task but fear not, we’re here to guide you through the process! In this article, we’ll walk you through the factors you need to consider, as well as a table of the top CRMs and their key features.
Factors You Need to Consider When Choosing a CRM Tool
Before you start your CRM quest, it’s crucial to understand your team’s needs and outline specific requirements for each department. While some CRMs specialize in just sales functionality, others offer comprehensive solutions for a variety of teams, including sales, marketing, and customer service.
Ahead of starting to look at the CRM tooling options available to you, take the time to sit down with the key stakeholders in your business and ask yourself the following questions:
- Why do you need a CRM? How are you going to use it? Do you need a CRM to manage hundreds of leads and contacts, or do you need one to do marketing? Maybe both, and even more! Try to define the overarching goal and purpose of getting a new CRM tool.
- Which teams are going to use it? If you only need a tool for your Sales team, the results will be very different than if you need one that covers your Sales, Marketing and Customer Service teams. Make sure you take the full organization into account.
- How many seats do you need? Identify the number of licenses you need – this will help you allocate an accurate budget.
- What are some crucial integration requirements? Maybe you have a database that was built in-house. Or you have an existing email marketing tool that you are already happy with. Make sure your CRM has the capability to integrate with your must-have tech stack.
- Are you expecting exponential growth? If there’s a chance that you will double your revenue in the next few years, make sure that your CRM can support you as you scale. You don’t want to go through this process again if you outgrow the capabilities of your existing CRM.
- Which features do you need? Make sure you have a list of feature requirements that are must-haves and nice to haves. For instance, if you are a B2B startup with 10 customers, it might be very important to have a tool with great email marketing features, but territory management would be very low on your list.
- Do you need implementation/migration support? If you have the in-house technical know-how to implement a new tool, or migrate to another platform, you may not need help from your new vendor. But if you have any doubts, make sure to ask for additional support ahead of time to ensure that you are implementing the tool correctly.
Now that you’ve answered all the questions above, you should have a much better idea of what would suit your team best, and therefore what you’re looking for in a CRM tool! Let’s move onto what options are out there.
Top 5 CRM Tools and Their Key Features
To simplify your search for the top CRM tools, we’ve compiled a handy table featuring vendors tailored for startups, alongside a breakdown of their essential features:
While the information in the table above is a good starting point, it’s important to remember that the capabilities of each feature can vary from vendor to vendor. For instance, while a CRM tool may offer a dashboard and analytics feature, if your business requires advanced AI-empowered reporting capabilities, you might need to seek out a different tool that provides more sophisticated analytics features. This is why you shouldn’t settle for a one-size-fits-all approach – if your business demands industry-specific functionalities, you need to make sure that your chosen CRM can deliver on all the requirements you scoped out!
How to Choose the Best CRM Tool Using Vendor Box
There’s some more good news on the horizon…
We know that choosing the best CRM for your business can feel overwhelming and confusing at times. We’re here to help you out and do the heavy lifting, all so that you can discover the best suited tools for your business in just 3 business days.
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