If you are reading this, then the chances are that you are already a dedicated businessman or an experienced developer! But before that, for the uninitiated…
What is a CRM?
Customer Relationship Management or CRM, as it is more popularly dubbed, is a system or an approach that analyses the behaviour of both it’s own as well as potential customers for reach, retention and increased sales.
CRM Systems are part of every major business venture in the 21st Century. In today’s digital world, software-driven CRM systems drive forward the sales and marketing to unprecedented peaks benefiting both the customers and the brands. They essentially convert the current business into future leads.
A sales CRM platform thus tracks the leads, manages the customer portfolios to craft accurate result-oriented strategies to customize the products as well as services and even hinder in house competition. Essentially a CRM is a one-stop solution to the mythical corporate harmony and
Though Custom Sales CRM is a part of many major industries, it’s majorly used in India by the upcoming proptech portals which embrace the latest tenets of Real Estate Technology. Within this sector, this again is used mostly by the residential real estate sector.
Being one of the core members of such an upcoming portal, naturally, the weight fell on me, and through this write-up, I want to share some of the insights I gained while crafting our custom CRM!
Easy to Handle
First and Foremost, the CRM will be used by the sales and marketing team, where most are not well-versed in the technical know-how of software or codes, hence it is our duty to make it as user friendly as possible!
This is often one of the most overlooked factors, many a time I have witnessed first hand, the complaints and the general dislike of the sales and technical teams for one another.
Remember, sales are the core of every business, and it is also the human face of the brand, where personalization is the key to profit. The technology is here to help the force leading the team and not to outdate them.
Plan Ahead!
Now let’s get a bit technical, the primary objective of your custom CRM should be aligned to the character of
1. Your Company
2. Your Sales Team
3. Your Brand
In necessarily that order! Some of you here might wonder, what’s the difference between the company and the brand? Well simply put, the character of the brand is what your customer base or your audience perceives you as. In contrast, the company’s character is dependent on what your company actually values!
Once that is cleared up, the structure of the custom CRM should be Full Panned, and the design script should connect to the entire structure from end to end. No strings should be left out( pun intended).
Utilizing the Website
An ideal CRM can be handled both by Online and Offline Factors. Offline Factor obviously meaning the sales and marketing team, whereas online means the leads dropped from the website.
The large pool of data compiled from the sales team often becomes the base or the foundation of the CRM’s analytical chunk. However, recent trends have shown that the customers themselves provide insights into what they need from the product. It is gathered through online surveys and lead forms in the website.
Creating a parallel backend system for collecting data and categorizing leads works wonders! The lead or the survey form must definitely ask the right questions to the customers, for engagement as well as customizing your products and services for better sales plus retention. But this will only work if the data is identified and classified accordingly.
Cost Reduction
The whole point of having a custom CRM is to increase sales, save time and eliminate extra effort put in by the sales team. Therefore, an Effective CRM should reduce the cost incurred while creating it.
Sales and Marketing Automation
The CRM will easily help in the automation of both these elements. Automation of these two factors actually includes detailed following up of customers, through marketing calls, SMS and email marketing. Hence one of the major elements in building a custom CRM is content.
Do not underestimate the power of content while both marketing as well as while collecting data. The CRM propelled marketing tools will be headed by the marketing department, and it changes according to trend. Thus it is essential to provide them with the necessary system or platform within the CRM to update these requirements.
The second is categorizing, rather than developing an AI integrated system from scratch, it’s better to craft a pattern recognition software that identifies nouns and words which tell us what the customers actually require! Sounds Simple right, but again it is often missed out by the developers a lot!
Going Mobile!
Yes, as cloud computation is up and ready for grabs across the world, utilizing it is a given but what I meant to say here was the development of dedicated Mobile Applications!
I know it is a norm amongst the developers to craft an app, but often it starts out after a while. Because of this, most of us tend to forget or ignore while crafting the original to leave room for features that work well in an app. Plus, it should be accessible to work from anywhere, as most of the sales happen out in the field. So basically, you should be future-ready while creating your custom CRM!
Security and Privacy
Both of these are of the utmost importance, that is why I kept it as the conclusive part of the write-up. A CRM handles the most precious of assets a company has, and that is the customer portfolios. In these days, data is more valuable than any other asset in the world. Thus providing a highly secure platform to keep it safe must be on the top of the list on any CRM system. There should be extraordinary and creative measures developed to safeguard the privacy of your customers.
A Custom CRM would be one of the many challenges a developer has to face in the current cutthroat era of competition. And to create one will definitely be a milestone to both developers and brands that seek to scale the heights of success.
Author Name – Abijith Ajayan
Author Info – Abijith Ajayan is currently working as the Product Head of the Bangalore based Prop tech portal Homes247. He is deeply interested to explore the latest avenues of science and technology .
