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Premise of the test

The more popular our ranking is, the more closely all manufacturers look at it. Our production premise for this ranking is still the same. We check which CRM systems best meet the needs of SMEs. This is very important because the systems that fit our specificity win this ranking, and our results do not have to coincide with rankings conducted, for example, in the United States. For this year’s edition, we tested several dozen systems, and based on our experience, we prepared an upgrade of the criteria we take into account. Our team tested each system, and we did not give credence to any marketing information – we tested all functionalities personally.

The premise of the test has changed. Free solutions entered the ranking and we removed the requirement that the cheapest paid version cost less than 20 USD. As a result, Hubspot and Salesforce, which users have been asking for so long, entered the ranking.

we selected the manufacturers and started the tests based on the prepared criteria.

Traditionally, each CRM system that is included in our ranking had to meet basic assumptions:

• Ability to set up and maintain a customer card;
• Monitoring of customer event history;
• Responsive version (use on a mobile phone);
• Possibility to set merchant/manager rights;
• Reporting module;
• Sales opportunity management module.

Livespace

Livespace takes the top spot in our ranking. The system faces big changes ahead in the next few years, but despite this, it is still the CRM System that, in our opinion, best meets the needs of SME companies that want to lay out processes. Thanks to the functionality of the non-linear sales process, it is easy to ensure and implement the process in your company. This is a functionality that almost no other CRM system offers. Livespace also stood out this year for its exceptionally good customer service and attractive price compared to the solution’s capabilities. This is very valuable information for potential buyers!

We encourage you to test this year’s winner.

Advantages

• A dashboard to keep track of company events;
• Great user support;
• Non-linear sales process;
• Integration with Zapier;
• Extensive statistics module.

Disadvantages

• Lack of a quoting module.

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Pipedrive

Pipedrive is the system that most often competes with Livespace. We are making the decision more difficult this year because Pipedrive, together with Livespace, is the winner of this year’s ranking. Pipedrive is a very mature and extensive solution. It has a huge number of integrations and additional functionalities. The extra paid LeadBooster, which you can see on our website (a simple chatbot), deserves special mention. The differences between the two winners are subtle – Pipedrive lacks a wallet summarising company events and a non-linear sales process. Nor can you see the effectiveness of sales through the lens of products. For what it’s worth, Pipedrive’s interface is much clearer for some.

For those who find it difficult to choose, I recommend testing both systems and comparing them in our table.

Advantages

• Pipedrive is a very mature CRM system (no bugs or other issues);
• Leadbooster – a simple chatbot that gives you the ability to collect leads from your website automatically;
• Very many integrations available;
• Refined mobile app.

Disadvantages

• Lack of an offer module;
• There is no possibility to make customized changes in Pipedrive.

Freshworks

The Freshworks system is huge. Apart from the ease of use, the most important argument for choosing it is the very large ecosystem of other solutions. These include Freshdesk, Freshcaller, Freshchat, Freshservice and others. The system offers user support and, thanks to other solutions, is a great choice for teams that need a bit more functionality from their CRM system.

Advantages

• As many as 34 language versions;
• Many different add-ons – Freshdesk, Freshcaller, Freshchat and others;
• Integration with Zapier;
• 24/7 support.

Disadvantages

• No bidding module.

HubSpot

This is Hubspot’s debut in our ranking, which is very impressive, as the system immediately takes second place on par with Freshworks. Hubspot is known to all sales and marketing veterans. It is one of the most professional systems combining the efforts of sales and marketing departments. The most common argument that makes customers choose other systems is the price. Apart from it, Hubspot has almost no disadvantages. Hubspot is almost the only choice for those who want to combine marketing automation with a CRM system in one place.

Advantages

• It best combines sales and marketing;
• Despite its large size, integrates with Zapier;
• Huge number of educational materials.

Disadvantages

• High price of the solution;
• Complicated interface compared to other solutions.

Salesforce

Many may be surprised by Salesforce’s position in our ranking, so we are already rushing to explain. Salesforce is more expensive than the most popular solutions. In our assessment, it works well for large companies. In SMEs, the lack of even an integration with Zapier eliminates it from use in many cases (thus we cannot carry out many simple and cheap integrations). Salesforce deserves attention especially among large companies with high budgets.

Advantages

• Best CRM in the world (magic quadrant);
• Very broad functionality.

Disadvantages

• High implementation and operating costs;
• Complicated interface at times.

The post Ranking of the best CRM systems for SMEs appeared first on LevemCRM.

Separate customers into categories

The more accurately you know the portrait of the person who contacted you, the more profitable your offer will be for him. Divide your clients according to the following attributes:

• Sales funnels (first transaction, repeat customers, VIP customers)
• Sources of request (website, referral link, etc.)
• Target audiences (e.g., wholesalers, retailers, online retailers)

This division will help you target each individual customer segment more effectively, and you can also easily track statistics about who is buying from you and how much so you can focus on them.

A great idea would be to divide your customers by priority – by what’s called A-B-C qualifications. The A-B-C qualification is the same for all types of businesses; it filters customers by the following parameters:

• Urgency of purchase
• Budget
• The product you’re interested in

Add to the category “A” the highest priority customers who have all three parameters: they need your product, they are willing to buy urgently and have the right budget. In category “B” – those who have two parameters. And in category “C” – those customers who are not yet ready to buy.

The highest priority customers in category “A”: they have a big budget, they need to buy urgently, and they are interested in the most marginal product that brings you the maximum profit. The A-B-C qualification works in any business.

How this advice helped in a dog ammunition store

The CRM system divided customers by dog breed. Then, in addition to mailings with basic products – leashes and collars, made a mailing with the sale of a marginal product – scented candles with the name of the breed the customer owns. The result: one mailing to a base of 300 customers, 127 sales in a week.

Connect widgets with popular messengers

Statistics from the past two years show that customers have begun to answer the phone less frequently. This will be a problem for those whose businesses haven’t adapted to actively communicating with customers through correspondence. Today’s CRM system tools allow you to connect any popular messengers to communicate centrally, so you can be in touch at any time.

How this advice helped in the online store of wallpaper

At the online store of wallpaper the managers could not cope with the flow of incoming requests. When messengers were implemented in the CRM, the employees began to process three times as many requests per day, because they did not have to be manually stored in the system: the messenger was already implemented, and the necessary contact was created automatically.

Set goals for managers

The CRM-system allows you to set sales targets for managers (number of sales, revenues, etc.). This way you can stimulate your employees to reach the required indicators. The system allows you to check current plans in one click on one tab and even track the probability of a deal depending on the deal cycle and sales stage.

How this tip helped at a fence sales and installation company

Before setting goals in the CRM system, managers struggled to keep track of payments made: they constantly had to reconcile them with the accounting department. After implementing the CRM system and setting up a sales plan right in the system, sales plans are being executed regularly, and employees understand exactly how much they will earn that month.

Create autotasks at every stage of the transaction

The immutable law of sales: “no task – no customer”. If there is no task or next step on the deal, the customer is lost. This means that the database of those who contacted you will not bring you profit, and sales planning is impossible.

Autotask is a task that appears automatically when certain criteria are met, which you specify when creating this type of automation.

For example, a customer has sent you an e-mail – a manager is automatically tasked to respond to it (without having to manually open and check the mail).

CRM-system allows you to create unique tasks in advance for different employees and departments at each stage of the transaction, so that at the right time the task will automatically pop up and the employee will not forget about it.

How this advice helped in a store of dog ammunition

The company introduced autotasks for warehouse managers who saw the incoming task of picking a new order. Prior to implementing autotasks, they had to check work chats and clarify exactly what should be in the order. This distracted managers from the order picking and packing process and created delays. Often there were errors due to cancellations or additional items appearing in the order. Now with the help of autotasking all details on the paid order were automatically sent to the warehouse, where managers immediately saw all the necessary information. This sped up their work and reduced the number of errors when the order was incorrectly assembled.

Integrate sales scripts

A sales script is a developed negotiation script that allows you to communicate as effectively as possible with the customer. To automate your call center or order processing, you can connect one of the sales script builder services. These services interactively prompt the manager for dialogue phrases during the call with the customer and allow you to dialogue more effectively, following the structure to bring any customer through the doubts to the sale.

How this tip helped at a window systems company

This manufacturing company has over 300 parameters and specifications when approving new window systems. With so much information, even experienced managers often made mistakes. After implementing the sales scripts, managers were able to communicate confidently starting with the probationary period. Even if they did not have time to learn all the specifications and did not know the intricacies of the business process – all the information was prescribed in the script.

The post 5 Tips to Increase Sales by Implementing a CRM-System appeared first on LevemCRM.

What is CRM marketing?

CRM is a business strategy to learn more about customer behavior and needs, to create a long-term relationship with your customers. Messages are not just sent out to the base, but are analyzed beforehand. For example, it doesn’t make sense to communicate promotions to a customer who spends large amounts on new collections.

CRM helps companies track and manage customer interactions. It’s a database that stores information: name, last name, email address, and a log of meetings with your company.

How CRM marketing works

A CRM system solves a company’s engagement, awareness, sales, repeat sales or subscription renewals. All of the data that users leave via website forms and incoming calls goes into the CRM. The information is then segmented according to preset parameters. For each type, an individual mailing script is developed with a certain number of messages. Scenarios are run through synchronization with third-party platforms and feedback is built.

These steps are present in any CRM package, but the most modern ones have add-ons and extensions.

How it differs from other types of marketing

To successfully guide a customer through the entire sales funnel, it’s best to prepare a technology trio: CRM, email marketing and automated marketing. The main differences between the tools lie in the tasks they accomplish:

• Automated marketing, like CRM, tracks customer actions, collects and analyzes information and simplifies communication. But this tool is more focused on managing marketing tasks, while CRM is focused on customer interaction. You can automate email-texting, phone calls. Some companies combine CRM and automated marketing into one service because they work more effectively together.
• The task of email marketing is to inform about offers. CRM marketing works primarily with customer data.

Tools in CRM marketing

CRM has many tools for different users:

• marketing analytics – tracking and analyzing business activity;
• personalized messages and targeted advertising;
• email marketing – promotion through emails;
• Mobile marketing – promotion through cellular communication;
• trade marketing – offers based on a broad analysis of customer preferences;
• event marketing – business promotion through public events;
• Loyalty programs – discounts, promotions, seasonal offers, bonus cards.

Pros and cons

Despite the complexity of integrating CRM, there are many reasons in its favor.
Consider the pros:

• Data organization. CRM helps to collect and organize information about old and potential customers. Clear and automated accounting system for each incoming application helps to spend the advertising budget in a useful way.
• Convenient communication. Thanks to the integration of CRM with other services, marketing and sales departments can track processes and interact with clients in one system. The company will have a complete view of every point of contact with the client.
• Business efficiency. Customer base analysis, audience segmentation and loyalty program development are features of CRM that builds effective communication with customers. You create a strategy based on unique user information and understand what to offer, to whom and when.

Additional effects from the platform implementation:

• Easy access to customer interaction history;
• movement through the marketing or sales funnel;
• Time and cost savings due to maximum productivity;
• recording of all the data of potential customers;
• control of the employees’ progress;
• attracting new customers.

One of the disadvantages – in order to implement and optimize CRM for the company, you will need a specialist, and this is an additional cost. In addition, you will not be able to see the effect immediately, because profit and productivity are growing gradually.

There are services with a similar set of functions, but a simple interface and basic marketing tools.

What kind of business requires CRM-marketing

CRM marketing is necessary for companies at the first sale and repeat purchase stage, for example:

• Insurance companies. A driver buys insurance and needs a new one a year from now. The company reminds them ahead of time so the customer doesn’t leave for another organization.
• An online clothing store. A user went to the website of an appliance store and asked the consultant for details about the product, but didn’t buy anything. The system records the customer’s phone number, site visit and product categories of interest. After a while the consultant calls him back and tells him about the sale or discounts.
• Auto repair shops. Drivers regularly go to auto repair shops to have their car serviced. If you collect the frequency of visits, you can send an offer with a personal discount for a service that the customer will need soon.

How to implement CRM marketing

CRM marketing is a competent combination of planning, business analytics and work with the customer base and communication channels. In order for this complex to have an effect, you need to work through each stage in turn.
Choosing the right CRM system

When choosing a CRM, pay attention to whether its features meet your needs:

• Ease of use – A good CRM should be intuitive and easy to use.
• Extensive tracking of a campaign’s marketing effectiveness. It’s important to track which methods are most effective in attracting customers, and which channels and devices within those campaigns work best.
• Analytics. Choose a system with the ability to create reports – so you can benchmark and see the difference in data compared to the previous period.
• Integration. Make sure your CRM is compatible with other technologies, and assess how complex the integration will be.
• Scalability. Consider whether CRM features and pricing plans can easily scale with your business and, conversely, whether there are flexible options for upgrading to an earlier version or saving resources.
• Communication tools. By integrating with email, social media and messengers, you’ll be able to receive notifications of requests and send messages directly from the CRM.

Audience segmentation

Customer profiles in the system vary because not all customers are equally profitable to the business. Companies need to segment their customers based on the value or profit criteria they bring in. A more profitable customer is a high value customer and a less profitable customer is a low value customer.

An organization’s CRM system should reflect the tastes, preferences, behavior, lifestyle, age, education, cultural background, physical and psychological characteristics of customers. After dividing customers by profitability and other characteristics, it will become easier to customize services and offers to maximize the overall value of their customer portfolio.

Setting goals, objectives and KPIs

To make goals measurable, key performance indicators (KPIs) must be assigned. This is a quantitative metric that a company uses to determine the effectiveness of achieving goals. It is the KPI that will show the workability of the CRM strategy.

The main goal of CRM is to retain a customer because it is cheaper than finding a new one.

What else CRM marketing tasks include:

• Collect the necessary customer data;
• build a strategy to attract new customers and retain old ones;
• implement the delivery of personalized messages through the most effective communication channel;
• analyze the effectiveness of the work;
• optimize the strategy.

Gathering a database of contacts and customer data

It is important to get consent to send messages, otherwise the letters will be automatically sent to spam. Ways to collect information about customers can be different: filling out questionnaires offline or on the site through special forms, analysis of customer calls by phone or in person. There are basic and additional information that companies collect for the database. The main ones are full name, date of birth, phone number, e-mail. But you may also need, for example, make of car, hobbies, clothing size – the kind of data your business needs.

Selecting and setting up communication channels

Direct channels are used for communication: e-mail, SMS, robot call, push notifications, messenger messages, social media messages, pop-up, chat widget on the site.

It’s not necessary to choose only one channel. They can and should be combined. That way you’ll increase your effectiveness and your chances of reaching customers who prefer a certain method of communication.

Where problems can arise

One of the main challenges is the investment required to maintain a customer database. But beyond that, there are other challenges:

• Lack of resources. If you start implementing CRM and at any stage to reduce the budget, it will affect the quality of the result. It is better to assess your capabilities in advance.
• Inappropriate metrics. The wrong method of measurement and implementation is one of the main reasons for the ineffectiveness of CRM. Different metrics should be used to calculate different goals.
• Additional training. CRM packages are complex and contain many subtleties, so employees will have to be trained.
• Slow payback. Do not expect a quick return on investment in CRM-marketing – the first results will appear at least several months later.

Most CRM problems can be eliminated. You need to focus on your business needs, choose the right CRM, put the right resources in place, and adopt the right metrics.

Implementing CRM is a strategic business approach that integrates technology, internal processes, employees and data management across the organization to attract and retain customers. The system opens the door to working with more data with which to build a competent sales strategy.

The post How CRM Marketing Can Help Businesses appeared first on LevemCRM.

What is the purpose of segmentation?

Customer segmentation in CRM is necessary for a manager to work properly with different segments. There are 2 main segments – new customers who have not made a purchase and regular customers who have bought your product. Then comes internal segmentation with additional statuses.

For new customers you can make statuses such as:

• In the works – customers that managers are working with;
• Rejected – these are customers who refused to buy for any reason;
• Poor – the client called the company by mistake.

For example, you may have a “Rejector” qualification – a customer who refused to buy for some reason. For transferring a customer with the “Rejected” status to a customer, you can assign higher rates to managers in order to increase their motivation.

So, depending on the reason for the rejection, you can sign the customer up for a specific mailing in order to close the objection for which he refused to buy.

You can do the following segmentation for customers who have made a purchase:

• One-time – made a purchase once and won’t contact you again;
• Occasional – a customer who needs to call you depending on some condition (for example, season, after a certain time, etc.)
• Regular – buys constantly, every month, he constantly needs to work with you.

This division is also suitable for the B2B segment.

Different groups of consumers require different approaches. For example, news about discounts for regular customers will definitely interest your regular customer. For someone who is not yet buying products from your company, a similar offer will have little effect. That’s why it’s so important to segment the customers who come to your company.

How is segmentation done?

All the data about the customer is entered into the CRM-system and assigned a status. Specify the name, phone number, email address and other brief information about the client. Then projects and tasks are linked to the client, as well as transaction information.

In the process, the client’s status may change, depending on the frequency, age, and number of appeals. Further you will be able to use certain marketing tools for each segment. These can be: phone calls, e-mail newsletters, commercial offers, company news, notifications of promotions, etc.

For example, you can tell new customers about promotions, sales and offers that might be of interest to them. Regular customers will be reminded of accumulated discounts, bonuses and new products. This way, you can work with the cells of your base, offering the information the segment needs.

The benefits of customer base segmentation

With customer segmentation in CRM you can offer customers interesting information and suitable offers for them. Separate information for new customers, for one-time customers and other segments. By segmenting your customer base, your offers will hit the target more accurately. So, for example, during a season when there are a large number of requests, you can temporarily turn off the “Low-quality” segment and not work with it because it’s not your target segment.

Segmentation in CRM helps reduce the time it takes to process requests, strengthen business relationships with large customers, and weed out non-target audiences. You’ll be able to work better with your target segment and identify customer satisfaction with your product. In this way, your efforts can pay off, multiply the number of grateful customers and increase profits.

Benefits of Base Segmentation

Segmenting your customer base in CRM will help you better target each of your customers individually. You’ll save your managers time and increase their efficiency. For example, if you have a sales season and receive a lot of requests, segmentation will help the manager which customers you should work with first and which ones you should leave for later.

The advantages of the base segmentation:

• Reducing the time to process the request;
• Competent construction of work with a segment;
• increase in efficiency of your managers;
• increase in the number of clients and successful deals;
• rational allocation of the company’s resources.

Segmentation in CRM allows the manager to have the right information about the client and facilitates the work with the buyer.

Segmentation as a tool for increasing sales

Segmentation of the base increases the efficiency of application processing and saves the manager time. It’s a way to help focus your company’s resources on serving the right target segment instead of wasting them on processing “empty” requests.

Customers with a “Bounce” status can be broken down by reasons for objection, such as: expensive, works with another vendor, and others. You can keep statistics on the reasons for rejections, identifying objections and customer needs. Then, based on this information, you can develop a strategy for company growth.

Segmentation in CRM can be done with a long-term perspective. For example, you can allocate a “Near Business” segment – these are people whose area of expertise borders on your field and they may become your partners in the future. You can designate them as “Substandard” and indicate that they are near business. When you expand your company or startup, the “Near Business” segment will be able to send you appropriate partnership offers.

The post Segmentation of the Client Base in CRM appeared first on LevemCRM.

At each stage of interaction with customers CRM performs certain functions, allowing to solve specific tasks.

• At the marketing stage, CRM capabilities allow you to identify potential customers by sending out product information, analyze customer needs and predict customer behavior through research and surveys, and maintain a history of each customer interaction for more effective collaboration.
• One of the functions of CRM is the automation of the sales process which allows you to control all stages of the transaction. Information about the status of the order is available in real time. CRM allows you to optimize workflow on transactions, schedule tasks, provides a quick exchange of information between employees and customers.
• An important function of CRM – customer service management after the completion of the transaction, which involves automating the processes of planning and controlling the delivery of goods, providing feedback, dealing with complaints, tracking service requests.
• Finally, the introduction of CRM makes it possible to automatically analyze the data on the work of the company, which allows you to quickly and competently plan business strategies.

It’s important

CRM capabilities allow you to develop effective incentive models for profitable customers, offering them discounts, bonuses and other benefits. This ultimately increases customer loyalty and strengthens the customer base. At the same time automatic data analysis helps to identify one-time customers, which saves company resources and reduces costs.

The post CRM Functions appeared first on LevemCRM.

The foundations of trust are effective customer management and an individual approach to each of them.

Good knowledge of the customer makes it possible to fundamentally change the business model: move from an ineffective strategy of searching for new customers for proposed solutions to developing solutions for existing customers, taking into account their needs. Such personalized service is a direct way to build loyalty, and thus to increase the value of the customer base and the company’s success.

Effective customer relationship management is facilitated by technological advances, particularly such an achievement as CRM. In a narrow sense Customer Relationship Management, which is translated from English as “customer relationship management system” is a software for storing data about customers, automation, control and analysis of all processes of interaction with them.

But understanding CRM merely as software would be too superficial. It is a whole business strategy aimed at strengthening connections with customers in order to optimize their service, which ultimately leads to an increase in the value of each customer and, therefore, to the growth of the company’s competitiveness.
Recruitment agencies: market, companies, servicesWhat recruitment agencies are leading the way, what has changed in the market, how are the changes

In an era of mass sales and fierce competition, the economy’s focus on product has become irrelevant. There are many manufacturers, the quality of goods and services is about the same, and so are prices. Personalization, that is, identifying and meeting the individual needs of the customer, has become the only way to build off the competition.

But this is easy to do when the number of customers does not exceed a few dozen. But what if there are hundreds of thousands of them?

And this is where companies come to the rescue of CRM trade and customer relationship management systems. Information technology allows to collect and store information about customers at all stages of interaction with them, to analyze the data received and on the basis of it to build the most successful models of relations. Thanks to automation the speed of business processes increases many times, which also affects the profit of the company.

What kind of business needs a CRM-system

Tasks solved with the help of electronic client management systems are actual for any sphere of business. At the present time CRM is most actively used in trade and services. Software is still in demand in the financial, insurance and telecommunications industries. CRM is actively introduced by enterprises of different branches of industry, by construction companies. They are widely used in the field of consulting and information technology.

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