CRM software applications

The modern business environment is very dynamic, so it is hard to imagine successful and profitable entrepreneurship that does not use all available resources. Successful business management and prompt, accurate decision-making require qualified management accounting. It’s therefore not surprising that most companies attempt to develop an effective management system. Outstanding efficiency can be achieved only through the thoughtful document turnover, the improved organizational structure and, of course, the automation system introduction. By implementing optimizing software, a company can provide clear and reliable data on employees’ activity, their main tasks and goals as well as reports on the work progress and sales funnel structure.

The market meets the potential customers’ requirements and offers many different solutions in the field of business automation software. In recent years, dozens of new integrated systems have appeared on the market to meet a wide range of challenges. When it comes to customer interaction, so-called Customer Relationship Management systems are the most popular software.

Doing business means working with hundreds and thousands of partners and customers, so CRM is important to organize and monitor any relationships. Among other things, the system introduction involves the integration of individual business tools into a single streamlined system. This usually includes scripts for customer data collection, transaction management, manager control, etc.

Two main types of CRM software solutions

A closer look at CRM hierarchy reveals a clear division between analytical and operational systems:

Operational CRM

Operational CRM automates the strategies of interaction with the company’s clients and simplifies control over the formulated during the call tasks implementation, reduces customer service time, improves service quality and, thereby, increases customer loyalty to the company. One of the system primary goals is effective sales and marketing activities monitoring, that’s why operational CRM functionality implies the following features:

• Task definition and employees’ work monitoring.
• Incoming requests registration.
• Clients and transactions data storage.
• Sales funnel transactions promotion.
• Scheduled calls, letters and meetings reminder.

Analytical CRM

If the CRM Operational System solves the increasing customer loyalty problem in the process of direct contact with him, then the analytical one is aimed at helping to develop a further interaction strategy. The analytical system allows the company to conduct serious research work using all the obtained marketing information, namely to segment customers, analyze their references and predict results.

It is important to remember that these two types complement each other perfectly and many popular solutions often contain unified functionality. On the other hand, it should be noted that most of the used CRMs is referred to operational because of the incomplete consumer behavior analysis.

CRM software solutions market statistics

CRM software is currently the largest software market in the world, and its growth is gradually increasing. Thus, the industry has grown by 50.7% for 5 years.

A steady CRM market growth, IBM

The number of users is also increasing. On average, the share of entrepreneurs using CRM is changed by 3% in each size class category.

More European enterprises used customer relationship management (CRM) for operational purposes (32 %) than for the analysis of

information about customers for marketing purposes (21 %), survey done by Eurostat

Adoption levels of analytical CRM are much lower than those of operational CRM, except for enterprises in the Accommodation sector.

Survey done by Eurostat

What operational CRM does the marketing or sales department typically use?

Of course, statistics show a strong demand for operational CRM systems. Nevertheless, it is difficult to define the market leader. That is why it is impossible to get an ideal business solution recipe. In order to answer the most frequently asked question “What operational CRM technologies does the marketing or sales department typically use?” we have identified 6 products that most often appear in the most sought after CRM ratings.

• HubSpot

This is one of the most popular CRM systems. HubSpot is more focused on creating sales funnels and attracts users with a large adaptive templates number, as well as the ability to create e-mail newsletters based on customer behavior. It should be emphasized that CRM has a high-level integration with Google Apps and extensions to collect information about contacts from social networks. The main disadvantage is the small free version functionality, which does not allow trying and objectively evaluating all the system advantages without buying the whole system or even additional modules.

• Salesforce

This CRM seemes to be innovative and fast-growing. You can use the ability of integration with modern web frameworks, predict sales and generate real-time reports. Salesforce focuses on small business automation, and this is a drawback of the system: it is considered that this software is not suitable for large companies. In addition, some companies find it difficult to master the frequently changing system interface.

• Freshsales

It is a simple and clear system with automatic leads information filling. CRM has a built-in telephony, integration with the mailbox and, a detailed sales funnel description; all this makes Freshsales a great tool for the sales department. As for the cons, many users have noted problems with the import of contacts and detailed data analysis. So, Freshsales is suitable for medium-sized businesses sales department.

• Zoho CRM

This is an advanced functioning and reporting system of the team engaged in attracting leads. CRM stands out from the total number of such systems with mobile access and easily customizable additional fields, but there is no sales funnel in its usual sense and, most likely, you will need to turn to third-party sources when mastering the functionality.

• Piperdrive

This is a set of tools focused on sales and management. The main advantages of CRM are interactivity and integrity. The interface is quite understandable, and in addition to this, the developers have released a series of tutorials, so there will be no problems with mastering the system.

Among the CRM disadvantages there are many marketing tools absence (e-mail newsletters, history of interaction with the client etc.) and the inability to customize fields in accordance with specific needs.

• Bpm’online CRM

CRM has a wide functionality and a pleasant interface. The presence of a BPM system is a major competitive advantage, as it allows you to organize the work on sales as a business processes.

The creation and configuration process is quite simple, as well as working with ready-made templates. There is also a good analytics system with sophisticated filters. However, there are some filters and it is not so easy to understand which of them are better to address your concrete problem. In addition, it should be mentioned that some users faces technical support problem.

A torn between ready-made and custom CRM

As it can be noticed, even considering the fact that there is a huge amount of CRM, it is difficult to find one that fully meets the stated requirements. There are many reasons for it. Various segments require different features. The factor mainly determining the functionality of the system is also the ultimate owner’s goal. For example, it is required to receive analytical reports on clients’ transactions for the banking sector, and for a trade organization it is more important to record payment by stages. Managers also noted that the main ready-to-use solutions’ problem is a poor reflection of the business process flow diagram familiar to staff, and one CRM is often not enough for a productive work within both the sales and marketing departments.

Thus, the majority of existing CRMs is aimed at solving common problems and requires the expansion of functionality. Therefore, many companies prefer to add custom modules to the ready-to-use solutions. They are easily integrated with the business infrastructure, contain a package of options necessary for a particular business and protect clients’ data.

Code Inspiration has extensive experience in the additional CRM modules development and offers you a free consultation to cut the time to find the most suitable system and provide it with a full range of required features. Just contact us to receive a comprehensive expert-level reply.