VIDEO: CRM Software Tutorial

This is the technology advice guide to customer relationship management. It will show you how to find the best CRM software package for your business. CRM helps organizations manage their interactions with customers. 74% of businesses use CRM in 2013. CRM software that allows for interactions with prospective clients can lead to an increased ROI and more personalized interactions with customers. The data can help find patterns with customers, track progress through the salesunnel, and increase employee productivity.

Next up is the evolution of CRM software. Database marketing started in the 1980s for marketing communications and then companies began focusing on getting more information from their customers. After Oracle and a few other players got into the market, Salesforce introduced the first software as a service CRM. A few years later, the platform as a service model was developed to allow for custom applications. CRM applications have continued to add features and now integrate with social media and business intelligence systems.

Because new features are constantly added, functionality varies greatly with CRM platforms. At the core, there will always be content management and database marketing. Contact management profiles customers with their basic information. It primarily helps businesses keep track of information and the sales process organized and efficient. Customer interaction management software tracks each touch point a sales representative has with a customer or prospect.

Customer interaction management helps companies determine which strategies are consistently successful or where a relationship has broken down. Salesforce automation helps automate a number of sales process tasks, including populating the user's calendar with the details of the meeting. Salesforce automation often includes forecasting functions that predict future sales figures based on historical data. SFA software can create in-depth productivity reports that detail each sales rep's performance and can come in standalone best of breed applications.

SFA functions can even expand into inventory management and product knowledge management. Choosing between best of breed versus integrated comes down to the needs of your business. Best of breed CRM software refers a specialized tool that excel at specific tasks. Integrated suites have a wide range of functionality albeit in limited form. A best of breed SFA platform is often the best option for managing large amounts of clients. Market research has shown that Salesforce automation is the most sought-after best of breed application.

Before moving forward in the buying process, you should investigate any CRM platforms specific to your industry. Overcoming the adoption obstacle. As a CRM industry blossomed throughout the first decade of the 2000s, numerous studies surfaced detailing low adoption rates among companies attempting to implement this new software. It's imperative to gain an understanding of the underlying causes of low adoption rates and move to address them as swiftly as possible.

The factors are three-fold. Number one, learning curve. Despite significant progress in user experience and interface design, CRM are still not the most intuitive platforms to use. The solution, better training. Number two, inflated expectations. Businesses often develop unrealistic benchmarks for adoption and usage without properly assessing how much time it will take to achieve those results. The solution, research. Number three, unnecessary functionality.

While it's tempting to choose a CRM with hundreds of bells and whistles, the truth is that your employees won't use what they don't need. The solution? Priority based configuration. After you've had time to assess the successes and failures of deployment, revisit your configuration, and make more informed decisions about functionality. Current market trends. It's predicted that the number of mobile CRM apps will surpass 1,200 this year as demand for onthe-go information continues to rise.

Customer experience management software is better thought of as the next step in the evolution of CRM. It adds to that by integrating information such as customer buying behavior and intra purchases. CRM software helps businesses maintain contact details as well as past deals they've closed. CM helps businesses utilize such data in order to better understand customer behavior. Now that you've learned the basics, head over to our website where you can download the complete guide or read more about how CRM can help your business.

This transcript was generated automatically from the video's captions and may contain errors.