1.- Can you custom your contact repository?
As this might be obvious, it’s what a CRM should provide. You should be able to see a list of every contact added both manually or by automated ways. You need an intuitive contact repository, easy to use, effective when you need to search a specific contact, avoiding the scroll through hundreds or thousands of contacts.
Notice how important it is that you are able to customize the information you want to view so you can hide any superfluous information. A good CRM should provide standard fields of information such as Name, Address, Email, etc… but also you should be able to create the necessary fields with the correct information related to your business.
For example, let’s say you have a real estate business who sends appointment reminders and updates their contacts. It would be fantastic if you can store some relevant information regarding the type of house they are looking for, if the clients’ want to buy or rent, how much they want to spend, and so on. This way you could choose if the communication you are sending is the correct one for each of them and avoid useless information for a wrong customer.
2.- Can you manage lists?
If you have your contacts in different lists, then you can choose to send any of your communications directly to a specific list to select the contacts you need. You can then choose any list depending of which is their preferred channel, the product you launch or the information they need to receive. For example, in the example used for real estates, you can have a list of owners and a list of buyers so you can send information offering your services as a real estate agent to the owners to list their homes and then a list of houses in the market for those ones looking to buy a new house. You could as well create lists depending on how much the buyers want to spend so you send the correct listing to each potential buyer, etc.
This saves you time and helps you become much more effective avoiding to send the information to all your contacts instead to the correct ones.
Also, check that the CRM has a “merge existing contacts” option. This will allow you safe a contact with the same primary information field in the same record instead of creating multiple instances from a single contact. It’s the best way to ensure an organized CRM.
Make sure that one single contact can be in different lists, not only one. It is not useful if you have to upload the same contact different times to introduce it to a new list. Additionally, when this contact is updated, the information will be automatically update in all the lists this contact appear on.
3.- Are you able to organize Pipelines?
Organization is a must for a correct CRM management, whether for your contacts, lists and the interaction you have with them. You need to easily know where the contacts are placed within your engagement process at a glance and that is why a pipeline tool is so handy.
A pipeline is used to know where your contacts are in the communication process and can be updated manually as well as automatically. Every time your contact reaches a stage, the system updates the information and let you know it. If you are selling your product, a pipeline can tell you the stage where your prospect is from the very first call to the day he/she becomes a buyer.
If your sales process is composed of five stages, when the prospect moves from one stage to the next one, it does the same inside the pipeline. So you will know which ones are more interested in your products and where you have to focus your efforts. It is a very similar concept as a sales funnel, where most of the leads are on the top and the real buyers are coming out the bottom.
4.- Are you able to create tasks and execute them?
The ability to create and manage tasks to be completed on a contact-by-contact basis or within a general scope of the CRM is a useful feature that will help you in your daily basis communication. When you have several account managers set in your CRM, a task can be assigned in order to maintain engagement with the prospect, performed a better follow up process and contact your lead when required.
Set a deadline to complete a task and make sure your designed account managers is efficient doing the job on time. All account managers have access to the tasks and can visualize them but you can assign the calls to the one most efficient of them.
Once a task is assigned, the account manager receives an email with all the details, even the deadline or the level of priority, and can be set manually or automated through your campaign.
5.- Are you able to connect other tools?
This is the last essential feature in your CRM. If you have the possibility to connect your CRM with other communications channels such as email marketing your potential grows because it makes easier your contact selection when sending messages. You will be able to use your CRM lists to send bulk messages and at the same time add new contacts when they sign up through a form.>