Encaptechno

crm system

Why CRM System Fail

Why CRM Systems Fail?

/ , , , , / CRM Services

CRM – A brief

CRM holds true potential to be a game-changer for many businesses. However, while selecting, be aware that most CRM system implementations may fall short of the desired objectives, and it could be argued that many fail in entirety.

SCOTT K. EDINGER, founder of Edinger Consulting Group, is recognized as an expert in helping organizations achieve measurable business results. Coauthor of The Inspiring Leader, he blogs for Harvard Business Review and Forbes. He has rightly quoted “In my work with clients, when I ask executives if their CRM system is helping their business grow, the failure rate is close to 90%.”

What is CRM?

 

What is CRM

According to Wikipedia, “Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an approach to managing a company’s interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers’ history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.

One important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company’s website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best care their needs”

Irrespective of your designation CRM’s today assist ranging from an executive in Sales, to Marketing, to HR, to the Customer Relations Department, to Operations Team, to the Productions Team, to the Accounts Department etc. and finally ranging to the Top Management and the IT Department.

If anyone who is using the CRM and not utilizing the data optimally, there is no incentive to keep up the data- the data quality deteriorates and becomes less reliable as time passes. For any company Sales is the center of revenue and Sales department must be happy and in total alignment with the CRM. If they are not, it is imminent that CRM failure is looming.

How do we avoid this disaster? Let us understand the common reasons why CRM project fail.

How CRM projects become a disaster?

 

Why CRM System Fail

 

1. Not knowing the goal from the very beginning 

Know Your Goals

There’s no rule that says CRM system objectives must include revenue improvements. However, by definition, if you can’t measure revenue impact, you can’t calculate CRM ROI. A successful software implementation, especially CRM, begins with understanding your desired business goals. What are the important success indicators or KPI’s for my business and sales teams? How do you wish to see your business to look like in the coming 12 to 24 months?  And 5 years from now & 10 years from now. You need a clear horizon.

Take your time to invest in your vision, and document it.

How do you foresee your success?

What are the targets you wish to achieve?  Make sure you are specific about them in planning which will reap great returns in your CRM implementation.

A few key pointers of CRM objectives that are easily related to improve the ROI are:

  • Increased customer acquisitions
  • Decreased customer acquisition cost
  • Shortened sales cycle
  • Increased revenue per customer

In addition, it is important that your CRM objectives align with and support the company’s business strategy. Your CRM strategy needs to show how strategy, people, processes and software are doctored to directly impact the business customers, team coordination, effort, performance and contribution of each employee in achieving revenue objectives. By setting quantifiable objectives and having a clear strategic vision of where your company should be after successful implementation, you will have a clear guide to follow.

2. Poor User adoption

Most of the times, it’s in a human tendency not to accept the change. We are so used to working in the style we have been working traditionally. At times the team members feel they are being spied, there performance is under continuous surveillance

A new CRM system brings new processes, automation, information, roles, responsibilities and control. Notably, a new CRM system oftentimes brings an actual or perceived loss of control. There might be a few people who feel they will lose their jobs and some staff may not understand why a CRM is needed in the first place.

Poor user adoption will create an unpleasant atmosphere where management drive adoption but CRM is resisted by the team members. Resistance to change is in human nature and it is a given situation in most CRM implementations, but it needs to be managed effectively.

When it fails to be quickly and properly addressed resistance will result in a less than 100% productive CRM. Wrong data entry is highly expected in these cases; a majority of the CRM failures happen due to wrong data entry.

3.Not Selecting the Right CRM Solution provider

Ensure your Solution Provider can train your teams on the tools he is offering and the ongoing support, he can offer if you need it. And chances are that you really will because after the switches are flipped, your teams need to be ready to go.

Your solution provider is well equipped to provide you with the support which is crucial when taking into consideration the plan for your CRM and your business goals. Have you selected the right software and the right solution partner?

It cannot be stressed enough: CRM implementation shouldn’t be considered a one-off project. Look for a partnership that aligns with the right Solution Provider enhances your business.

Know your internal champions and whether or not you have executive support for a CRM project is paramount to its success. In your planning phase, identify internal champions keeping in mind you may have more than one depending on the complexity of your business and the teams who will use your new CRM.

Additionally, executive support will be indispensable when it comes to your implementation. Strategy and execution – can make or break an implementation. And 50% of the CRMs fail due to signing a wrong choice of selecting the solution provider.

To implement a CRM system on a lower budget, and blinded by an attractive price point, businesses often make the mistake of not doing proper research on the vendor. In addition, businesses sometimes err on the other side and over-spec’ the CRM by paying for features that they don’t want or even need.

Key features one should look forward while designing the tools

  • What is the total years of experience of the solution provider?
  • Which other businesses like ours have you supplied with a similar CRM tool?
  • Does it need complex training?
  • How much help will you provide to us within the price?
  • How easily does it integrate with our existing tools?
  • Can we get started easily?
  • What is the support the solution provider extends after sales?

4. Unorganized Data

Organize data

In case your data is not well organized or largely incomplete, just because you put it into CRM doesn’t mean you’ll get great results. Knowing what data your business is tracking and why will help you understand the best way to organize it.

Knowing what you wish to reap out of a CRM tools will be an absolute impact of what needs to go in, both in terms of the implementation and the data you input in itself. CRM is often expected to be a single source of truth. This means that all of your resources must be on board within the standards of governance that should be deployed, and training is an essential part so that all of your teams be in sync of the data being entered, and how the data is intended to be used. It is rightly said Garbage in, garbage out. When you have data integrity, your CRM implementation and results will shine even greater and in case things are not organized nothing would help you.

Keep the CRM simple and only buy into features that you really need. There is a large temptation during the vendor selection process to deliver to the vendor an exhaustive list of features that covers a range of departments and functions at the business. Don’t make this mistake.

Define the business outcomes before you begin to meet with CRM solution providers.

Go for the most user-friendly and intuitive interface. Hitting your team with a new CRM tools, and with a difficult to use interface all in one go – much of which is not required – will only put them off.

5. Does your Solution provider really know what you wish to achieve? 

CRM Consulting Partner

Have you found the right vendor for your CRM implementation? Each industry be it construction, manufacturing, warehouse, suppliers or a retailer has a different parameter, and a different set of requirements to meet.

Does your solution provider understand and is the solution provider sensitive towards your language? They will use their time getting to understand your unique business needs even better. Here are some things to look for (and avoid) in a partner:

  • Avoid solutions providers who won’t take the time to meet and understand your standard operations procedures.
  • If planning isn’t a priority for them, buyer beware.
  • Be sure to ask your software solution providers for references from businesses in industries like yours. Contact them, take a feedback about their experience with the solution provider. Get the hang of the after sales services support of the solution provider from the past clients.
  • Select a partner who wants to celebrate your growth and successes. Going through your CRM solution provider selection process get your senior management involved. Don’t do it alone. Involve the various departments, users since it will be needed to drive the adoption across the various departments.

Conclusion

Implementing CRM system is a challenging task. Doing it without expert guidance can lead to a chaotic situation in the future. You need to plan the objectives and goals before you start CRM implementation. It is suggested to hire a trustworthy CRM consultant who can understand your goals and help you with best possible solutions.

Related Read – Why do you need to Hire a CRM Consultant?

Encaptechno is a recognized Salesforce and Zoho certified CRM consultant has globally delivered more than 500 solutions globally. Share your CRM requirements and let our team do the CRM Implementation for you.

Why CRM Systems Fail? Read More »

CRM Services, , , ,
Benefits of Salesforce Commerce Cloud - Encaptechno

7 Benefits of Implementing Salesforce Commerce Cloud

/ , , , / Salesforce

Benefits of Salesforce Commerce Cloud - Encaptechno

Salesforce Commerce Cloud, previously known as Demandware, is a user-friendly and seamless e-Commerce platform that is built with a clear purpose to help a business grow its brand, explore concealed or unknown business opportunities, and convert more customers in simple and efficient ways.

This cloud-based platform is essential for every success-oriented business that is seeking to create integrated and intelligent buying experiences across various channels for its customers by using the finest of B2C and B2B e-commerce solutions.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers a suite of features intended to transform the way brands connect with their customers at all stages of the customer’s journey. In addition to this, Commerce Cloud makes a smooth conversion from one channel to another, so every business is supported across every platform and phase of engagement.

With all the transitions in consumer buying behavior and the technology, this type of Omni channel omission gives a seller enhanced control from discovering through engagement, transactions, analytics, customer service, relationship building, and community development.

Table of Content:

 

  • Why Choose Salesforce Commerce Cloud?
  • What Does Salesforce Commerce Cloud Do?
  • Features of Salesforce Commerce Cloud
  • Benefits of Salesforce Commerce Cloud
  • Conclusion

Why Choose Salesforce Commerce Cloud?

Commerce Cloud makes shopping enjoyable, interactive, engaging, and customized on every digital medium via the mobile, web, and social — and even re-invent the in-store experiences of customers. It is done by coordinating order management, online store, predictive intelligence, and mobile point-of-sale (POS).

The Salesforce Commerce Cloud is distinguished by a multi-occupant architecture that provides a huge boost to the safety and reliability concerns of the platform. The three service categories of this seamless platform that are intelligence, experience, and operations; work cordially to power all stages of cross-channel commerce.

The intelligence aspect is the accurate selection for providing pertinent insights and directing business decisions based on data. Alternatively, the experience presents tools to users for managing their content, products, pricing, and promotions that consecutively translates to better customer engagement. The components of operations let the users link back offices with order execution by providing the necessary critical functionalities to multiple channels.

What Does Salesforce Commerce Cloud Do?

Salesforce commerce cloud is not only a medium to run online business effortlessly, but it is also an inclusive and future-rich cloud-based e-commerce platform that encourages businesses to make intelligent and stimulating shopping experiences for customers across all channels such as mobile, web, store, social, etc.

In a wider manner, the Salesforce Commerce Cloud provides a set of powerful qualities that allow a business to connect with buyers or prospective customers at each stage of the sales process and provide them excellent support across all channels. As the buyer’s behavior is getting complex with each passing day, organizations need omnichannel insights to thoroughly find out and analyze users’ behavior, engagement across multiple channels.

What distinguishes the Salesforce commerce cloud from other cloud-based e-commerce platforms is its integral predictive intelligence. Salesforce’s Einstein AI is one of the most advanced built-in predictive intelligence systems that assist in providing unmatched shopping experience by gathering and delivering you smart insights on customers’ behavior, buying patterns, and recognizing opportunities to sell across different unexploited channels.

Features of Salesforce Commerce Cloud

 

Commerce Cloud Features

Here are some main features of Salesforce Commerce Cloud:

  • Multi-Site management
  • Product management
  • Responsive mobile design
  • Real-time reports and dashboards
  • Pre-built Integrations
  • Catalog management
  • Campaigns management
  • In-store extensions
  • Customer catalog entitlements
  • Comprehensive development platform
  • Customer and segment-specific pricing
  • Customer segmentation
  • Targeted promotion management
  • Native targeting and A/B testing
  • Marketing and merchandising tools

Benefits of Salesforce Commerce Cloud

 

Commerce Cloud Benefits

The Salesforce Commerce Cloud brings you an array of some especially valuable benefits that are:

1. Intelligence

Your assets of data are only helpful if you know how to read and interpret it to make decisions based on your discoveries. The more a business grows, there will be more data that you need to dig and manage. By the time businesses have managed to analyze the data they have, they no longer miss any relevant opportunities and have succeeded in instant decision-making.

There are 3rd party AI tools that can help with data analysis to integrate with your business in analyzing and automating digital marketing efforts.

‍2. Predictive Intelligence

To enlarge the implementation of artificial intelligence of the platform for e-commerce businesses, Salesforce built Einstein AI, a next-generation artificial intelligence platform that eliminates the need for third-party extensions and manual data analysis.

Previously, merchants needed to use third-party integrations to replicate new attributes and manage different activities on the platform. These integrations are strongly connected with each other, and the failure of one extension can also direct to the performance of others.

The key features of the Einstein artificial intelligence system –

  •       Suggest the best products at all touchpoints
  •       Create 1:1 predictions for every single buyer in real-time
  •       Get smart and improve conversions with data-driven commerce insights
  •       Save time and effort with automated trading tasks

The close personalization provided by Commerce Cloud is vital for brands that want to remain competitive. Today more than ever, customers are expecting more personalization.

According to research by Accenture and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), 63% of consumers surveyed are concerned about personalized recommendations, and the majority of them are ready to share their data in substitute of benefits like automatic credits for coupons and loyalty points (64% of surveyed customers), exclusive deals (60%), gain points and rewards (56%), or special offers for items of their interest (53%).

Einstein and Commerce Cloud can bring all those things automatically. By providing a smarter predictive and customized experience, businesses can rely on Commerce Cloud to increase customer loyalty and raise conversions.

Adding to this integrated buying experience, Commerce Cloud makes it easy for customers to click “buy” from anywhere, either from the social media platform, mobile, web, or in your store.

‍3. Enhanced Marketing Tools

Within the boundaries of Commerce Cloud, merchants can manage and share product information, images, and content among various catalogs, categories, and sites. You can even merge all these things across numerous sites, with different currencies, and in several languages.

It makes it possible for you to connect customers with the right product, variety, price, offer, and content at the correct time to maximize conversion rates and boost average order value.

Eventually, retailers, Product marketers, and content creators are empowered to run the business, launch campaigns, refresh repeatedly, drive promotions, start A/B tests to optimize conversions without technical support.‍

You can even manage customer searches and increase conversions by using merchant policies that alter customer’s search intentions and the productivity of your products. Combining it with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you get a one-stop solution for managing everything from paid advertising and email marketing campaigns to social media management and reporting for every touchpoint and experience with your business.

4. Internationalization of Storefronts

Only with the Salesforce Commerce Cloud, organizations are able to manage many storefronts at different locations across the world from a sole back-end platform. ‍

By leveraging Salesforce Commerce Cloud for your e-commerce store, you can easily manage product data sets for different stores without any obstructions and also manage multiple intricacies like billing, pricing, product availability, etc.

Salesforce is one of the first commerce solutions that completely support Apple Pay online, providing customers a smooth single-page checkout that lets them complete their transactions with a single touch.

5. Rich Mobile Experience

It is an open fact that the number of users shopping via smartphones is increasing exceedingly. Therefore, having a mobile-friendly or better say mobile-intuitive e-commerce store is the need of the today. Moreover, Google has already built mobile-first indexing, mobile responsiveness, and page load speed crucial ranking factors.

To make your business stand out in the crowd of competitors, you should need a mobile-friendly e-commerce store. Probably the biggest benefit of the Salesforce Commerce Cloud is that it gives great importance to the mobile-first approach. Salesforce Commerce Cloud is all about delivering the best possible shopping experience for mobile users.

From the time of sale in brick-and-mortar businesses to maintaining the online store, Commerce Cloud acquires a mobile-first approach. Everything from reporting to inventory management is made effortless and easier with mobile.

6. Omni-Channel Functionalities

There is one key feature on which the Salesforce Commerce Cloud has put deep emphasis, which is empowering retailers to manage their business over multiple channels from a single platform.

Retailers can streamline multiple processes like sales, order management, inventory management, marketing campaigns, conversions, etc. at a single SaaS solution. Not only it provides flexibility to retailers but also Omni-channel functionalities that save a lot of their valuable time and efforts.

7. First-Class Customer Support

Salesforce Commerce Cloud provides around-the-clock and continuous support to all its merchants and makes sure their business runs flawlessly and thrives promptly 24/7. Moreover, the support offered by the Salesforce Commerce Cloud covers complete issues varying from fixing codes to improving security concerns, and the list continues more.

Conclusion

Overall, Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a very powerful and scalable eCommerce platform with lots of native features for merchandising, multiple store management, customer segmentation, internationalization, and many more. This platform is generally adopted by fashion and lifestyle brands with its superior features such as advanced merchandising, endless aisle, point-of-sale (POS), internationalization features, machine learning across main areas, and verified cloud-based solutions.

The decision to select Salesforce Commerce Cloud completely depends upon your business profile, your priorities, the quantity of freedom and personalization you require, and how agile you desire your platform to be. If you find yourself unable to manage your own infrastructure and need a robust platform, then Salesforce Commerce Cloud will be a smart choice for you.

Need support and guidance regarding Salesforce technologies? Go for Salesforce Consulting Services and discuss your needs with the experts!

7 Benefits of Implementing Salesforce Commerce Cloud Read More »

Salesforce, , ,
Why Do You Need To Hire A CRM Consultant

Why Do You Need To Hire A CRM Consultant?

/ , , , , / CRM Services

Is your company starting up with a new CRM system or has already adapted to a new CRM system? So, what’s your implementation strategy?   Even for companies that want to take on complete ownership of a CRM system, it can make sense to engage an external consulting party for the initial CRM implementation.

Why Do You Need To Hire A CRM Consultant

Implementing CRM into your company system can sometimes be challenging; that’s where the need for an expert consultant arises.

Why CRM?

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software is getting progressively important in today’s business world. Right from collecting customer information to managing it efficiently, CRM allows companies to administer an array of important front-office activities, including sales processes, lead acquisition and conversion, tracking of customer interactions, and marketing.

As companies can streamline their operations using this software, all varied processes and responsibilities can be more integrated; it results in superior levels of sales and customer satisfaction.

Reasons to Hire a CRM Certified Consultant 

Whether your company is implementing a CRM system or already has one, you’ve possibly realized how vast an undertaking it is. From selecting which CRM platform best suits your needs to encourage employee adoption, there are various aspects that can fall short if not handled correctly. Hiring CRM consultants can help you make the most out of your CRM investment and ensure a smooth implementation process.

1. Selecting the Suitable CRM Platform

Since CRM systems support various departments with different requirements, choosing a platform that assures all of them can be difficult. So CRM Consultants can facilitate your decision-making process by helping you to identify your business needs and matching them to the different leading CRM platforms. They help you to select the best matches and evaluate its usage as per the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

2. Time and Cost Resource 

It is worth considering that internal resources will likely take more time to execute a CRM package than external consultants. A company can pay more per hour for an external CRM Consultant, but the benefit of having skilled people come in for quicker implementation. As a result, the company gets a sooner return on its investment in the new CRM system.

3. Customizing and Optimizing after Installation

Once you have installed and configured the right CRM application, you’ll want to include any extra customizations and adjustments to tackle any challenges. CRM consultants will help you out at this stage as well. After the setup, consultants inquire the customer to discover the key initiatives and problems with the solution. Then they produce a plan and an ROI and then create a multi-year plan according to your budget.

At the initial stage, many customers don’t understand that CRM can be integrated with third-party applications that can improve their platform’s functionality. The consultants will also develop custom solutions for clients based on their particular requirements. So, whether you want to unite back-office systems, insert document viewing and signing, or automate manual processes, a CRM consultant can direct you in the right direction.

4. Exposure to Best Practices

crm best practices

One of the major reasons to hire CRM consultants is their massive knowledge of a variety of CRM best practices. When you hire an external consulting team, you don’t just engage people who are technically certified in your chosen CRM system. But you hire a team of professional personnel who have come across a wide variety of real-time world business situations with many years of expertise, and who know which strategies and technical approaches work the best, and which ones don’t.

5. Information about Subtleties

Just as some restaurants that have a secret menu, some CRM retailers have unexposed, free functionalities that can be made accessible on request. Most of the professional consultants will possibly have information about some of these hidden gems.

Additionally, today’s CRM systems have such profound functionalities that it’s sometimes even harder to find out the well- known features. A CRM consultant will help you to distinguish which type of features you should give a high priority.

6. Creating Past Solutions for Similar Problems

When you employ special IT staff to implement CRM applications in your organization, they will need to spend time learning about your company’s exact business profile. When you hire an experienced consultant, It can be possible that they have encountered some similar business problems to those of your company during their preceding consulting engagements. Therefore, the consultant can then recommend the best-proven approaches to resolve those business issues within a CRM solution.

7. Pre-Developed Code

For more advanced functionality and integrations, expert consultants often have pre-developed code collections that can accelerate the speed of CRM development. If an in-house developer is new to the selected development environment of the CRM system, he or she will require developing every single line of code from scratch, or spending time researching some smart and time-saver techniques or public code samples.

8. Pre-Developed Data Migration Strategies

If you need to migrate the data from a legacy contact manager to a CRM system, a CRM consulting partner will already have experience and knowledge of transferring data from the same legacy application that relates to your existing company system. While data migration can often be a complex process, even when the understanding of a legacy application comes into practice, there can still be considerable time saving and an improved outcome from leveraging an external consulting team’s former experience.

9. Third-Party Product Recommendations 

It might be possible that a single CRM system does not have all the features you need in your organization, but they consist of hundreds of different apps you can use to function more resourcefully. Opting for the multi-company experience, a professional CRM consultant can recommend which third-party add-ons you can take into consideration. Some enhanced functionalities may include partner portal, email marketing, marketing automation, data, and app integration, or legacy system integration, which can save a significant quantity of internal research time.

10. Training Team to Use New CRM System

crm training

Consultants will support your company employees and propose technical training and rollout plans that will make the transition easier. They will analyze and evaluate the company’s processes and workflows to make suggestions for working out ways for streamlining processes using the CRM system.

External professional CRM consultants are the best option to provide more effective end-user training than internal resources that are relatively new to the CRM solution. The proposed user training may include the knowledge and guidance of all sets of best practices that can help the users in CRM adoption.

Choosing the Right CRM Consultant

As explained above, a CRM Consultant does more than helping you and your company in choosing the right customer relationship management solution for your business. They can support you create content systems and processes, train your staff to use the new system, and recommend the best practices for future growth. Therefore, selecting the right consultant can make a significant difference in your productivity and outcome. Before you employ a consultant, it’s essential to check out a few key points to make your decision easier.

  • Total Experience in CRM Consulting
  • Expertise with Multiple CRM Platforms
  • CRM Product Development Experience
  • Specialties and Industry Focus
  • Delivery capacity
  • CRM Implementation Approach
  • Expertise in Your Niche
  • User Experience
  • Customization and Training
  • Cost-Effectiveness

So when you approach a CRM consultant, don’t forget to consider the above-stated points, so you end up with a well-experienced and professional consultant at your corner.

Also Read: Why is CRM So Important for Business Success?

Wrapping Up

Sometimes, users do not understand that when they start transiting to new CRM, requirements will also change, and new requirements will be there. And the companies fail to recognize those needs, which can lead to failure of adoption and lose out the CRM project.

As you have read, CRM implementation is a hard job to do, and you may confront a lot of organizational and technical challenges on the way. But relationships with the customers conclude the success of any business, and that means you need CRM. In most of the cases, it’s pretty logical to consider hiring a qualified external CRM consultant who can give you superior advice on selecting the best option for your custom needs and provide technical guidance on CRM implementation.

Consultants actively participate in the complete implementation process and can help you at different levels, including business process planning, choosing an appropriate configuration, and developing system integration strategies. Your consultant can provide recommendations on how you should optimize the application and ensure its security. Besides, they will also help you choose the right methods to capture, extract, and transfer your business data and analyze it.

Zoho and Salesforce are the leading CRM service providers that are serving millions of users around the world. It all depends on the specific needs of your business to conclude which platform goes well with your business. If you are looking for a highly-advanced system with an abundance of scope to scale, Salesforce Consulting Services will guide you to get the complete guidance and the basic price quote. And if you’re starting over with some fundamentals and want to save on costs, you will don’t regret contacting a Zoho Consulting Partner.

Usually, the thing that matters the most is not “Which one is better?”; but is “Finding the one that better supports your needs and budget” If you’re getting any difficulty in deciding, we’d like to help you.

Why Do You Need To Hire A CRM Consultant? Read More »

CRM Services, , , ,
Hubspot vs Zoho CRM - Choose Wisely

HubSpot vs. Zoho CRM – Choose Your CRM Wisely!

/ , , , , / CRM Services

Hubspot vs Zoho CRM - Choose Wisely

A sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) includes all the activities, technologies, and strategies that a company uses to manage its customer interactions. CRM System assists businesses to build a better relationship with their customers and increase customer loyalty and retention, which in turn affects a company’s revenue. Hence, a CRM tool creates an easy user interface for collecting data that help businesses to identify and communicate with customers at a scale.

Why Does a Business Need CRM System?

In today’s universal economy, if you aren’t on the pinnacle of your game in aspects of customer experience, you risk losing out. When it comes to regulating customer interactions and lead conversion, spreadsheets won’t work well for long. Without appropriate software, your sales and marketing staff will have a tough time following up on leads and keeping on top of customers.

For a reputable organization, working without a CRM solution is like throwing caution to the wind. If your sales team is losing its competence, CRM is a great deal to help.

There are plentiful reasons why you should invest in CRM software:

  • Enhances Your Internal Communication
  • Reduces IT Cost
  • Increase Productivity
  • Understand Your Customers Better
  • Automate Daily Tasks
  • Eliminate Risks of Miscalculations

Also Read: Why Is CRM So Important For Business Success?

What are HubSpot and Zoho CRM?

zoho vs hubspot

HubSpot and Zoho CRM are Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solutions designed to help businesses keep track of their customer relationships, manage leads, and identify opportunities for converting leads to sales.

HubSpot CRM

hubspot crm

HubSpot CRM is the free CRM presented by HubSpot, which is a sales and marketing SaaS (Software as a Service) company. Besides being free, HubSpot claims its CRM as a simple way to augment lead conversion and keep a grasp on sales opportunities.

Another key aspect of HubSpot CRM is quick implementation without making much changes to your existing workflow. Many users of HubSpot have realized that the software also provides a good user experience (UX).

Zoho CRM

zoho crm

 

Zoho CRM is the CRM solution designed by Zoho, a leading business software company that builds software for everything from sales and marketing to human resources to finance. Zoho claims to create automated workflows with independence for customization as one of the major benefits of its CRM. This solution enables you to work smarter, not harder, so Zoho CRM also embraces an AI-powered sales assistant called Zia that responds to voice commands similar to Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri.

The Comparison – HubSpot vs. Zoho CRM

hubspot-zoho-comparison-encaptechno

Both HubSpot CRM and Zoho CRM state themselves as substitutes for one another, but who would you consider?

Both CRM Consultants provide powerful solutions for small to medium-sized companies, and though one is free and the other is not, it doesn’t essentially mean it is better.

Well, before you decide or conclude which one is better, let’s drill down into both HubSpot and Zoho CRM, comparing them side-by-side based on some key factors will help you to make a more well-versed decision.

Side-By-Side Comparison Table

In a single scan, HubSpot appears to be a lighter alternative to Zoho, which is definitely a feature-rich CRM. But you cannot conclude based on the features alone. Or you may require some more functionalities than what HubSpot offers. There are several factors that you need to consider when choosing CRM software. Check out the table below to compare both solutions side-by-side to ensure they fulfill your requirements across multiple standards.

Standard HubSpot CRM Zoho CRM
Average user rating 4.5/5 4.5/5
Pricing Free low-end
Works best for SMBs Any-sized business
***** CRM FEATURES *****
Calendar/Reminder System Yes Yes
Document Storage Yes Yes
Email Marketing Yes Yes
Internal Chat Integration No Yes
Lead Scoring Yes Yes
Marketing Automation Integration Yes Yes
Mobile Access No Yes
Quotes/Proposals No Yes
Segmentation Yes Yes
Social Media Integration No Yes
Task Management Yes Yes
Territory Management No Yes
***** PROMINENT INTEGRATIONS *****
Google Drive Yes Yes
Social media Yes Yes
eCommerce Yes No
Microsoft Outlook Yes No
Zapier Yes Yes
Gmail Yes No
Google Calendar Yes Yes
***** PLATFORM FEATURES *****
Analytics Yes Yes
Cloud platform Yes Yes
Document management/sharing Yes No
Access control Yes No
Dashboards Yes Yes
Mobile application No Yes
API No No
Automatic notifications Yes No

 

1. PRICING
sales productivity

Undoubtedly, the major point of differentiation between HubSpot and Zoho CRM is pricing. HubSpot CRM is 100% free forever, according to its website. But if you actually want to get the most out of HubSpot CRM, you’ll probably need to spend some from your pocket. Zoho CRM also offers a free version of its software with limited features, which is only useful for teams of three users or less.

The additional sales features for HubSpot CRM are actually comprised in HubSpot’s Marketing Hub, which includes live chat, conversational bots, forms, email marketing, marketing automation, and an events API, based on the type of tier you choose. Even if you don’t need any additional features, its CRM does have many essential CRM features. Therefore, it’s not bad considering it for free.

On the other hand, Zoho is free only if you opt for the three-user plan for home businesses, but it is available at a very affordable range. As compared to other leading CRM solutions, such as Salesforce and Insightly, the cost of Zoho CRM is unbeatable. Zoho also offers Zoho CRM Plus at one per-user, per-month rate, or billed either monthly or yearly if none of its fixed pricing options suit you.

2. FEATURES

Customer satisfaction

Comparing all the features of HubSpot and Zoho CRM is complicated because both solutions have a diverse range of features they offer. For example, HubSpot CRM offers task management, and Zoho CRM does not; Zoho CRM offers sales forecasting, whereas HubSpot CRM does not.

HubSpot CRM fulfills the need for all basic features, and if you want to work smartly, additional features of Zoho CRM will be a great choice. Here is a contrast between both for the two most essential features they offer:

3. Contact and Lead Management

business automation encaptechno
Contact and lead management in HubSpot CRM allows you to keep up to one million contacts and company records, either manually or retrieved from email or contact forms. A contact’s information shows the history of your relationship with that contact, including a complete list of sales information. HubSpot CRM automatically produces a company record whenever you add a contact from a new company, drawing the company information from HubSpot’s exclusive business database. Its dashboard and reporting features are accessible as a paid add-on.

Zoho CRM’s contact management feature allows you to store up to 100,000 contact records in every standard edition. Similar to HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM offers its account management facility to store information about the associated companies. You can view the contact information on a dashboard, leave notes, and view overviews of your communication history. Zoho CRM also offers social hearing, so that you can view details right from the CRM every time a contact reaches out via social media.`

In aspects of lead management, Zoho CRM presents more functionalities than HubSpot CRM. With Zoho, you can assign leads to various sales personnel based on different criteria, allowing them to create own lead scoring procedures, and convert leads to deals. You can also produce leads from web forms, from Zoho CRM’s Leads mobile app, live chat, and social media.

4. SALES TOOLS

sales tools

HubSpot comes with some limited sales tools, which include the deal pipeline, standard sales reports, live chat, one personal meeting link, 200 notifications per month for email tracing, and mail scheduling. Upgrading to HubSpot Sales Hub provides features like email sequences, advanced analytics, and additional capabilities for all sales features of free CRM. HubSpot’s free CRM includes essential sales tools you require for sales teams of one or two people.

Zoho CRM offers sales tools for all of its pricing plans, including scoring rules, email insights, SalesSignals, SalesInbox, etc., while none of these features are available in Zoho CRM’s Free Edition. The Enterprise level of Zoho CRM comprises most sales tools, such as SalesInbox, which enables you to manage your sales inbox without leaving Zoho CRM. So you can organize your inbox by contact type, view email interactions in the contact management, and define notification triggers for important messages.

5. IMPLEMENTATION

crm implementation encaptechno

Another key consideration that you must make when selecting between HubSpot and Zoho CRM is implementation time for migrating from your old CRM to a new one. The implementation time for HubSpot CRM is significantly lower than Zoho CRM. It depends on the number of records you have and the type of tier you choose.

The expected time for implementing the HubSpot CRM can take about a day to a couple of weeks. While Zoho CRM technically takes 30 days or more for complete implementation.

Wrapping Up

When comparing Zoho vs. HubSpot, it is vital to remember that both are quality contact management systems having their own strengths. While HubSpot is suitable for teams on a budget that need a permanently free CRM with a basic set of key features, on the other hand, Zoho positions itself as an affordable package of features that also contain social integration tools for Twitter and Facebook.

Every business has differentiated needs and customs; therefore, the software solutions they need will also be different. Firstly, you have to analyze and evaluate your software needs, then review the features described above and decide the best one for your organization.

Do you need help in selecting appropriate CRM software? Contact for Zoho Consulting today!

HubSpot vs. Zoho CRM – Choose Your CRM Wisely! Read More »

CRM Services, , , ,
CRM-Importance-in-Business-Encaptechno

Why Is CRM So Important For Business Success?

/ , , , , / CRM Services

Customer relationship has been one of the most critical aspects of the business throughout the antiquity of business. Not only in this digital age but if we look at history, business individuals have always tried to maintain their relationship with the customers. However, today, when business growth revolves around the successful implementation of out-of-the-box IT solutions, the importance of a CRM System cannot be overstated.

CRM-Importance-in-Business-Encaptechno

Since customer relationship is an obligatory trait in business, people seek for the most superlative approach to do it effectively. If you review the success of companies using CRM, you will find that the people who use CRM have gone a step ahead of all. So, if any confusion bounds your mind, make sure to consider what is best for your company.

 

What is a CRM System?

1

The acronym CRM means Customer Relationship Management. Though the term is transparent to understand by its name, not everybody is aware of doing it correctly without some supervision. Apparently, you can take the help of a CRM Implementation Consultant; otherwise, it can cost you some major blunders in your business.

CRM is an inclusive business strategy designed to boost profitability, lessen the overheads, and escalate customer reliability. CRM works on the simple philosophy to put the customers first.

When the businesses consider every action and preference of customers, they deliver a better customer experience, which in turn boosts their loyalty to your company. Modern businesses are investing in CRM because the various researches prove:

  • A single negative experience with a favorite brand will tend to lose 1 in 3 customers.
  • 86% of customers are ready to pay extra for better customer experience.
  • Companies with better customer management services are 60% more profitable than those that don’t.

 

Why is CRM Important?

2

CRM software gathers all information together from various departments across the company to give a single holistic understanding of every customer in real-time.

The employees in the field of sales, marketing, and customer support who interact with customers regularly use CRM to make quick and informed decisions for everything from up-selling and cross-selling, to enhancing the quality of customer communication and approachability, to managing the sales and marketing campaigns.

When implemented effectively with the professional help of a CRM Development Company, CRM provides companies with not only insight into the opportunities to cultivate their business with each customer, but also a technique of determining their value.

There are loads of reasons that make a CRM approach important for your business, so here are a few reasons that will help you understand how CRM software can boost your business growth:

  1. Business Process Automation

3

Business automation is considered as the most important benefit of CRM; it is very helpful to capture your customer’s feedback automatically. Not only captivating their response, but it will also show you the most appropriate proceeding step based on their complaints and suggestions.

CRM helps a company to streamline business processes automatically. It eliminates the chances of human errors by standardizing and automating sales, marketing, and service processes, which ultimately increases productivity, accelerates business operations, and enhances customer satisfaction.

 

  1. Better Lead Conversion Ratio

4

As per reports, 79% of leads never convert into sales, and the most common reason behind this is the deficiency of lead encouragement.  So here CRM comes to your rescue; it tracks all details about customer interactions like when the customer was last contacted, what was the conclusion, the suitable product based on customer feedback, etc.

CRM gives you all the insights that can help you turn your lead into a potential customer.

 

  1. Personalized Product Configuration:

5

As a single size does not fit all, the same goes for the preferences of people. Customers will probably buy personalized products or services than general ones.

CRM helps businesses to configure products for each distinct customer by enabling them to customize products as per customers’ requirements. It also takes into effect the variability based on the other factors like region, country, industry, age group, etc.

 

  1. Marketing Campaign Management

6

Managing campaigns is the very first step towards prospective customers with your products. Therefore, it must be impeccable. CRM conducts customer segmentation that splits prospecting customers into minor categories sharing similar kinds of features, which could be based on many factors, such as buying patterns, geography, age, gender, or some custom rules, etc.

For marketing campaigns, customer segmentation determines the best group to target, and campaign management assists in running a campaign and analyzing data.

CRM empowers the marketing campaigns by automating the process, which will get more qualified leads than traditional campaign methods. This approach trims down the campaign cost, evaluates campaign data, and predicts the forthcoming marketing strategy.

 

  1. Improved Customer Support

7

CRM helps a business to retain their current customers, gain more business from them, and seize fresh leads. You can deal better with customers’ complaints or suggestions effectively and quickly by automating customer service processes with a CRM system. Human error reduces when you streamline business processes.

CRM provides you superior traceability over the employees’ actions on customers’ queries.

 

  1. Gain Customer Loyalty

8

Attaining a new customer is almost 6-7 times expensive than retaining an existing customer.

Loyal and satisfied customers will most likely buy products from you than a new customer. Additionally, they spread optimistic views about your brand. Hence, satisfied customers will help you produce more leads and grow sales. Being an inclusive way of customer service and support, CRM helps to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by building a healthier relationship with them.

  1. Cost-Effectiveness

9

If you think CRM is expensive software and only big companies, then you may be wrong!

Using CRM can be a costly process for SMB, but over the passing time, efforts of CRM Firms have made it the most cost-effective way to run a business. Business process automation with CRM saves time, manual efforts, and other resources, which, in fact, reduces overhead charges.

In addition to this, you don’t even miss a selling opportunity when you’re not in the office. You can access customer data through your mobile anywhere and anytime.

 

Conclusion

Regardless of size and industry, CRM assists a company in understanding its customers and business in a better way. It delivers actionable insights about customers that improve sales and generate better revenue. When you start using a CRM system, it considerably enhances the business-customer relationship at various steps of business operations, whether it is for sales, marketing, or customer support.

It is extensively important to select the right CRM software for your business. Contact a leading CRM Consultant to help you find the most suitable one!

Why Is CRM So Important For Business Success? Read More »

CRM Services, , , ,
Scroll to Top