Your company has decided to implement a CRM system. Congrats! A CRM purchase can be a momentous decision in itself.
After reaching one major milestone, it's time to choose a system - an even bigger challenge. When researching CRMs for the first time, it can be difficult to sort out what features are really necessary from the bells and whistles.
Don't go it alone if you're a newbie trying to navigate the sometimes confusing CRM landscape. It helps if you have an idea of what you want to accomplish with your CRM. In order to help you separate the essential from the unnecessary, we've created this guide.
CRM Features
First and foremost, a CRM system should be useful to its end users: sales representatives, managers, and leaders. A CRM system with these 19 features will be both empowering and enabling for a sales team.
1. Contact Management
CRM systems without contact management capabilities aren't very useful. In a recent buyer survey, 50% cited contact management as one of the top three issues businesses hope to resolve with a CRM.
A CRM system allows sales reps to create contact records and store prospect and customer information. However, the best CRM systems reduce and streamline contact data entry to the greatest extent possible. Consider the ease of use when evaluating this feature.
Furthermore, contact management provides comprehensive notes on customers' interactions with the support team, as well as calendar and follow-up reminders. By looking at current data and activities, you have more context regarding each consumer.
2. Deal Stages
Most CRM systems can be customized to operate according to a specific sales process. No matter how many stages your company has in its sales process, you should be able to program these into the software and assign values to them.
Throughout the sales process, a deal should be easily moved from one stage to another. With HubSpot CRM, advancing a deal is as simple as dragging and dropping:
Our tip: Not every stage is the same for every business, so pick a CRM that allows you to customize stages based on your industry, product, and other preferences.
3. Daily Dashboard
Reps need a dashboard to be able to see certain data on a daily basis, such as their progress against quota, how many deals they have in their pipelines, and what tasks they need to complete. The aggregated sales team must also be able to view these categories for managers and leaders. It is recommended that you evaluate this function based on its visual appeal and simplicity.
You should tailor your dashboard for a specific user group if you want better business decision-making. Your sales reps should have access to information that can be used to take direct action.
4. Task Management
CRM systems that include task management capabilities simplify salespeople's day-to-day workflow and help them stay on top of follow-up by streamlining their day-to-day workflows.
Our recommendation: Your task management approach should depend on the type of work you do. IT professionals should use Kanban boards, but creative professionals should use mind maps to organize their tasks.
5. Content Repository
Content that supports sales enablement is often sought after by salespeople. We don't know what would strike fear into your heart more than that. Look for a CRM system with an embedded content repository to reduce wasted time searching for content.
In addition to saving the collateral they send to prospects most frequently, sales reps can also save customizable email templates, so they don't have to reinvent the wheel each time.
Creating buyer personas will help you segment your audience and assign content to them. You don't have to spend time thinking about what to send to certain types of customers because you already know what they might like.
6. Automated Data Capture
Keeping track of customer and prospect contact is one of the primary reasons companies adopt CRMs. CRM applications often require sales reps to copy and paste emails or upload call recordings into the system. It can become maddening for salespeople who make 50 or 100 calls a day to take these extra steps.
According to Grandview Research, 82% of businesses use CRM solutions to automate processes and track sales. On a contact's record page, HubSpot CRM automatically logs calls and emails sent from the system and displays them in a timeline-like view:
This feature is great because you can customize your contacts to your heart's content. In order to provide a more personalized experience, you can add more notes about customer preferences.
7. Reporting
CRM systems are only as good as the insights they provide. You should ensure that your CRM has reporting features that make it simple to export and distribute trends.
Pick a CRM with extensive, user-friendly reporting capabilities. Additionally, it's helpful if every member of your team can create their own reports, fields, and dashboards.
8. Mobile
Having mobile capabilities is especially important if you have a field sales team. When reps are constantly traveling, tying them to CRM systems they can only access via laptop is bound to annoy them. Today, most CRM systems allow salespeople to access the application from mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones - make sure the ones you're considering do, too.
Mobile CRM has been proven to increase sales by 65% for businesses that have implemented it. This is why many companies desire a CRM platform with a feature-rich mobile app that allows them to answer queries and close deals on the go.
Mobile CRM solutions are becoming increasingly helpful as cloud-based systems and remote workforces become more popular.
9. Integration With Marketing Automation
Make sure your CRM can be tightly integrated with marketing automation software if your company uses it. In essence, "customer relationship management" provides a complete lifecycle view of each prospect and client. When marketing automation and CRM are not integrated, information and opportunities can be lost.
81% of respondents now use CRM software with automation features, according to a recent study. We recommend using a single system for data input and monitoring instead of introducing a new tool. In this way, your marketing and sales teams will work together.
10. Personalized Sequences
Send targeted, timely email templates to your prospects at exactly the right time. If prospects reply or book a meeting, it's more important that your CRM unenrolls them from the sequence so you're not sending canned emails to contacts who have already responded - never a good idea.
CRMs should also offer follow-up reminders that automate communication with leads, ensuring that your next big deal doesn't slip through the cracks.
A pro tip: When it comes to starting a sequence, it can be difficult to determine which emails work and which don't. In order to get great results regardless of the template we use, we try to incorporate high-performing templates into my sequences.
11. Canned Snippets
With these short, reusable blocks of text, you can create reusable messages via email and chat. By using canned responses to commonly asked questions or prompts on contacts, companies, and deal records, you can save valuable time in the early prospecting stage. For example, "Would you like to schedule a demo?" or "Are you interested in learning more about our pricing?"
The key to snippets is consistency. You don’t want your customers to get the wrong message, do you? Check them frequently (every quarter or more often if your branding has changed) and make necessary modifications. By doing this, you will ensure that your company's communications are up-to-date and aligned with its goals.
12. Email Integration
Getting the most out of your CRM requires connecting your email inbox with your CRM. Integrate your CRM with your preferred email provider, such as Gmail or Outlook.
Using your CRM, you'll be able to keep track of who you emailed, when, and what you sent - without ever leaving your inbox.
Check whether your email marketing system allows bidirectional synchronization if you don't want to lose data. You will end up with numerous "silos" of data that will require manual updating, interrupting workflows.
13. Custom Support Form Fields
Would you like to build custom forms that connect to your contacts database? You should be able to do that with your CRM. Check to see if yours has drag-and-drop capabilities for creating forms.
Filling out your form should automatically route to your CRM, making it easy for you to set up reminders to follow up with a personalized email sequence or phone call. Your CRM should allow you to embed these forms on your website in seconds - without requiring a computer science degree.
We've seen forms that ask for too much information for the process at hand at times. Therefore, we prefer quick view forms which only collect necessary data, such as phone numbers and primary contacts. By doing so, you can quickly find the data you need to work on a record without having to take a look at another one.
14. Meeting Scheduling
Salespeople schedule many meetings. Shouldn't your CRM handle that for you as well? Check if there is an app or integration for that, with a meeting tool that syncs with your Google or Office 365 calendar, shares your availability with prospects, and updates in real-time.
You may find it helpful to embed your meeting tool into your website. As a result, the back-and-forth needed to arrange a meeting time at a time that is convenient for both parties is eliminated. Prospects can quickly schedule appointments and choose from available time slots without having to switch windows.
15. Lead Management
CRM software for lead management helps you identify leads and their actions throughout the sales cycle. By using lead scoring, you can filter leads and assign them to the right team members. CRMs that offer lead scoring allow you to rate each lead in your sales funnel according to how well it matches your ideal client profile.
It is possible to have dead leads in your CRM for several weeks or months at a time. To rekindle interest in silent or seemingly dead prospects, sales managers can use a robust lead management tool.
Regardless of what CRM you choose, we recommend selecting the exact criteria you will use to score leads. Behavioral data like email engagement, location, industry, and income range can be used to do this.
16. Pipeline Management
CRM also offers pipeline management, which lets you create visual sales pipelines. What does that mean? In the sales process, it shows how many steps there are. As a result, you can set benchmarks at each level for your prospects to advance in the pipeline.
You can then transfer leads or prospects between stages once they have met each benchmark. Therefore, you can make the most of your interactions with potential customers. Predictive AI can help companies manage and collect leads, coordinate sales, and monitor results. Specifically, it determines how to take the best advantage of your opportunities.
Your consumer's position in the funnel is always visible with pipeline management. You should use that data to understand any issues your customers have at any stage and to prevent them.
17. Customer Service
In order to deliver excellent customer service, you must stay up-to-date on essential consumer data. Consider integrating your CRM with your help desk system to improve your customer support operations.
You can view your customer information and tickets in one place. With it, you'll be able to keep track of client preferences, manage active tickets, and enhance customer care.
Tracking customer satisfaction levels over time is easier since older cases can be reopened. Additionally, you can use AI-powered chatbots to customize client communications and raise your clients' satisfaction levels.
18. Generative AI
Since ChatGPT was introduced, generative AI is already being used in everyday work. According to HubSpot's State of AI report, 81% of participants believe AI will reduce the amount of time they spend doing manual labor. Only 14% of respondents said that AI and automation tools are essential for their daily work.
Using your CRM, you can automatically create personalized content, social media captions, and email marketing campaigns. Integrating AI with your CRM email features can even help you write marketing emails more quickly.
CRM generative AI can even generate multilingual product descriptions, service team knowledge articles, and audience-specific marketing campaigns using customer data.
19. Document Management
Document management is one of the main features of leading CRMs, which might seem negotiable. For effective customer management, however, we disagree - especially if you have a small business.
Your entire sales process can be managed by uploading, saving, organizing, and managing documents. With features such as version control, folder security, safe storage, and collaborative sharing, you can ensure that every member of your team has access to critical documents. In some CRMs with document management integrations, you can also find templates for contracts and proposals.
Document management allows you to keep all of your information in one place. Because you don't have to hunt for information, this is a huge game changer for managing customer connections and creating campaigns.
Make your sales game stronger with a CRM
Hopefully, this checklist will help you select the CRM system that's right for your business, not just your first. As we've learned over the years, you should also consider whether your CRM can handle your business if you scale. Ultimately, it all boils down to how the CRM can help you grow your business.
By the way, HubSpot CRM is completely free if you're into the CRM part but not so much the buying. The only thing you have to do is sign up.