CRM: Custom Relationship Management

Relationships are key to achieving goals, it is not a myth, it is a reality: if you do not know how to relate, you will not be successful, as experts in psychology and business say not only in Spain, but also in English, German and American experts.

And not only because social networks are at the center of almost all market activities today, but because every business lives by and for its customers, who are people: if a business does not know how to connect with people, it is confined to disappear, therefore, fail.To do this, it is necessary to know your customers, and for this, it is necessary use a CRM. Still don't know what a CRM is and what it is for? This article will teach you all about it.

Explanation of why you need a CRM

To explain the importance of a CRM (Custom Relationship Management).

Let's look at an example.
Let's say you are an excellent member of your family and you have 10 close relatives, and you remember everyone's birthday. Let's say that you send cards and gifts to each of those 10 relatives, and that you not only remember their birthdays, but their addresses, and details of their hobbies and what they like and that, it takes you to buy them gifts of what they like. Suppose that each of the 10 relatives marries and each family has a child, we have already talked about 30 relatives, with their addresses, birthdays and important details to add to those you already had from the first 10.

It is when the problems begin.

Yes, we have calendars and diaries so we don't forget those details, but what we can't supply is the money and time to go to the stores, buy the gifts, wrap them, etc. Now imagine that those 10 family members are 10 clients of your company. 10 clients whose vital data you have learned by heart, yes, following up with 10 clients is possible, it is not impossible.

Then your business begins to grow, to attract more clients, and that means that you spend less time on each of your clients and that you take less time to respond to each email, and less time for each gift.

There is a solution, it is called CRM.

What is a CRM?

It is the name given to systems or models created to manage the interactions of companies with their customers, current and future. It is a software used to organize, automate and synchronize all areas within your company to improve relationships with your customers

The best free and paid CRMs

To help you create or improve the relationship you have with your customers, we will give you a comprehensive list of free and paid CRMs (and both), telling you its advantages and functions, hoping you find the ideal solution for your company. Go for it.

Zoho CRM

Certainly one of the best CRM on the market, because it is focused on small companies that need easy and complete solutions, and it is not recommended for companies with very fast growth and / or a large number of clients. Its free version is for a maximum of 10 clients.

Its advantages are:

• Multi-user
• 360º vision for each client
• You can automate tasks
• Integrates with social networks, to follow your customers on them
• Has an app for iOS and Android
• Integration with Google Analytics

SugarCRM

It's a Installable CRM, and its advantage is that it works under PHP and Microsoft SQL Server, and is a serious option for small and large companies. It has an excellent user interface, mobile support, knowledge base, excellent technical support, and a specialized dashboard for CRM work.

It has the main advantage of flexibility, being able to do all kinds of things, since the founders know that each company creates a style of relationship with its customers, so its capabilities are relatively infinite.

It is a free software alternative, so you can customize your entire console to your liking.

SuitCRM

It is intended to be the open source alternative for the above option, SugarCRM and is actually based on its open source version. It is designed for people who already have a solid customer base, and have a payment service that creates the solution for your relationship with customers, from € 15 per month.

Insightly

It is a solution for small companies, which do not need monstrous software solutions for high volume clients. They created this software thinking of small companies, but their workload is large, so much so that they cannot waste time, even if they only have 10 clients. The job is to sell and produce.

Its main advantages are:

• A complete contact management that collects all the information of each client
• Integrates the project management of each client, helping companies that offer personalized services
• Business management is carried out within the same system: milestones, reports and interpretation of the information created
• It integrates perfectly with the social networks of each client

Salesforce

Salesforce is a integral solution, since it takes the relationship with customers to another level: within its software you not only manage the relationship with customers, but you also manage the closing of sales with them within it. The Salesforce CRM runs from the cloud, facilitating access to any site and device.

It is a solution that will make many fall in love, and its advantages are:

• A contact management of another level: basic data, with consumption history, likes, your site in the sales funnel, internal notes, social networks, etc.
• Capture the activity of each client in order to increase the number of leads on the company's websites
• Provides information to know the area of ​​sale opportunity with each client
• Create sales forecast in real time
• Personalized and real-time reports

Nimble

Are easy to configure as Insightly, although less sophisticated. Bring together all social networks in a single unified contact “book” and inbox. The goal is to keep management organized across multiple platforms and help management generate new clients.
It is visually intuitive and agile and helps to better plan time and ensures the generation of relevant information for the marketing department. Its only "flaw" is that it does not separate the management of clients and potential clients.

hatchback

Hatchuck is perhaps the best CRM for online stores helping to create personalized advertising campaigns. For example: a music store may segment its customers into those who buy drums, guitars, pianos, etc.

That targeting helps send discount coupons, personalized offers, etc. Hatchbuck sends, for example, a discount coupon after a few hours after your customer made a purchase or left the shopping cart abandoned.

Microsoft Dynamics

If you want to integrate everything into your Microsoft system, Dynamics is an excellent CRM that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Office, and even Windows Mobile 10.

Needless to say, all the advantages of each of these programs for managing customer relationships. It is a totally 'offline' CRM.

Highrise

It's a CRM focused on sales generation more than a simple relationship with customers, and has different solutions for each level of customers, not one for all types of businesses. Its main advantage is that it complements its service with the already highly recommended and well-known Basecamp project manager, so if you combine both, you have an impressive ecosystem.

NetSuite

It is a cloud option focused on businesses with a high budget and the desire to strengthen or create a strong cloud-based business system. NetSuite is more than a CRM- You can handle everything in it: inventories, e-commerce activities, purchase orders and human resources.

Goldmine

Is one of the most old men of the CRM world and despite this, it has a large number of followers. It is an installable software, compared to all the ones we have mentioned, and it is focused on groups of 5-25 users. It integrates seamlessly with Outlook and QuickBooks.

Clevertim

Do you want to get your contact information at a quick glance? This is what Clevertim does, and that is its specialty: it shows a brief summary of the contact information on the right of the screen, so if you need any specific information, you will find it easily and very quickly.

You can filter your customers by name, location, and any filter you can think of, and do tasks from it, and be able to make more focused marketing campaigns.

vtiger

vtiger does a typical management of a contact-centric CRM, but it also includes a combined email inbox for better communication. Depending on the plan, you can have a support system to respond to email messages to your customers and build documentation for your product or service.

In addition, it has a project management system to better plan work and know how each client's project is. Everything in one place, this being its best attraction.

Capsule

Capsule tracks and manages customers, suppliers, the media and even the employees of your company, large or small. Capsule allows you to create different contact lists Depending on the project and its importance to your company, that is something that gives it an advantage, since most companies give different importance to different types of clients.

It allows you to see how long it has been since you have engaged with each person, their last interaction, and it allows you to automate the most important tasks in establishing relationships with customers, suppliers and employees.

Solve360

Each business needs different information to track, and uses it in different ways, that's what Solve360 does. In addition, it allows you to use custom fields, labels, activity templates and other things to personalize your information.

In addition, it integrates perfectly with Google Apps, displaying the information on the Gmail screen, something extremely useful, since you will not need to go anywhere else to obtain the information. Also integrates with Google Sheets for custom reporting, without leaving the Google ecosystem.

batch book

Batchbook goes beyond classic CRM integration to social media and email- Focuses on seamlessly integrating with Hootsuite, the largest social media manager today. You can connect your social networks in Hootsuite and see the CRM data right next to it.

Nutshell

Nutshell is made with productivity in mind, yes, but also to eliminate the boring part of CRM, adding fun and personality to work. You get valuable information from social networks, mainly Twitter.

It's a Excellent CRM for industry professionals that provide a service to third parties, and extracts detailed information from each contact and has tools for tracking potential customers and reports on the performance of the work done, with a simple and beautiful interface.

How to choose the right CRM for my business?

As you have seen, there is a wide variety of solutions for CRM workIn terms of price, use, and different objectives, the key question is: How to choose the right CRM? We give you some criteria or tips for you to choose better:

1. The number of employees: Not only does the price increase, but the management is complicated if you have more, the more employees are in charge of the management.
2. The goal of your CRM: As you have seen, all CRMs have different specific functions, some are designed to search for potential customers, others to close sales with old customers, etc. You must be clear about the objective you are looking for in the management of your CRM.
3. Integration to other software: We have seen that some integrate with Google Apps, others with Hootsuite, etc. You must think about which system you will use the information.
4. Special functions: We have seen how each CRM has characteristics that others do not have, analyze each one and decide which ones provide the most advantages for your business.
5. The price: Decide how much you want / can pay for the software, think about it in terms of customer and per month, since that's how CRM prices are normally handled.