Top Questions and Answers about CRM

The CRM market offers a plenty of solutions which cover a significant part of process automation needs;

CRM is no longer an app for sales and may compete with ERP systems (and are often confused with them);

Today, processing client’s information, from lead generation systems to internal communication apps, tends to be called CRM which causes misconstruction. To eliminate this confusion, we gathered top 20 questions about CRM and are ready to share the answers with you.

1. What is CRM?

2. How much does CRM cost?

Subscription Plan

Custom, Quote-based

Single Payment

Freemium

3. Should I buy CRM solution or build a customized one?

4. What technologies should be used to develop CRM?

5. How long does it take to implement CRM solution?

The amount of data to be imported;

A number of customizations required;

What 3rd party integrations are needed;

How many departments/users will use CRM.

6. What modules can be included in CRM?

7. What is the difference between on-premise and cloud-based CRM?

8. What companies can benefit from CRM?

9. What are the advantages of using CRM on mobile devices?

10. What is the difference between ERP and CRM? How can they be integrated?

11. How can I import data to my CRM?

Normalize the data - names, mails, telephones should be stored in a unified manner;

Create .csv or . xls with the defined fields, remove excessive or duplicate information and upload it to your CRM;

Review the imported data – fill in the empty fields, add the attachments and notes.

12. What integrations with CRM are needed?

13. How can CRM be integrated with any payment gateways?

14. How does CRM help sales?

View and manage account activity and communications;

Use reports to forecast sales, measure business activity, identify trends;

Qualify leads and track prospective customers;

Centralize customer data;

Access, update, and share information across teams and departments.

15. What is Marketing Automation in CRM?

Automated welcome messages to new customers, personalized with their most recent transactions;

Thank-you messages to recognize your customers' activities;

Lapsed messages with an irresistible offer to reactivate former highly valuable customers;

Cross-sell messages based on previous purchases;

Run marketing campaigns that rely on repeated contact or several 'touches' with potential customers (ideal for high-value products with a long sales cycle).

16. How does CRM work with customer mails?

Retrieve emails sent from your customers;

Automatically direct emails to appropriate users based on workflow rules;

Send auto replies back to your customers;

Automatically associate emails with incidents and customers.

17. How can I handle Analytics within CRM?

18. Can CRM be integrated with social media services?

19. What customizations can be done to CRM?

Custom modules (sections) and fields. You can create a new section in CRM or remove default unnecessary ones and pick the fields to feature the module.

Custom fields. You can create fields of any type (textbox, email, checkbox...)

Custom UI/UX design. You can add or reorder the sections and fields on each layout, set up the navigation, add quicklinks.

20. How to keep my data safe in CRM?

Let the specialist conduct security health check before CRM deployment to find vulnerabilities and prevent possible hacker attacks.

Define access levels within your organization: set up the basic access to all the records for everyone in the system and impose restrictions on access to specific records, functionality, and workflows depending on the roles and human resource hierarchy.

Keep track of user logins based on IP, API, or browser.

Set up password defaults to make CRM users create a complex password and change it every 3-6 months.

Regularly audit the system against the security regulations.

CRM Solutions Tailored for Different Industries