The selection criteria and the vast range of solutions made possible through technology and expertise discourage even the most motivated. However, it is still possible to navigate this jungle successfully with the right guide.
Choosing a CRM solution primarily means addressing a triple challenge:
• First, address business challenges, which means: support the deployment of the sales policy, improve customer knowledge, develop new processes to enhance customer relations, effectively integrate customer data, etc.
• Next, integrate history and anticipate future developments, meaning be sustainable and compatible with the existing information system.
• Finally, respect the budgetary framework and schedule, in other words, remain consistent with actual needs.
So how can you succeed in this challenge and choose the best solution while respecting your constraints?
Best practices suggest organizing a call for tenders based on comprehensive specifications. However, this already represents an investment of time (and therefore money) that will require resources for drafting, distribution, candidate evaluation, and then selection. This is not always compatible with cost and time constraints.
Furthermore, the number of solutions available on the market complicates things (220 solutions identified in 2013). Between general-purpose solutions that are more or less open, innovative challengers, specialized experts, or even reliable values that are not necessarily finely adapted to your specific needs, you are sometimes forced to make a very broad call for tenders or choices that limit the relevance of the responses.
We believe that there are solutions to your specific problems (functional and technical), to your context (knowledge of the business, size of the company) and with which you will want to move forward.
The best solution on the market from the point of view of existing comparative analyses is not necessarily the most effective for you. The best solution does not exist in absolute terms: it is relative to your own situation.
That's why we built the CRM Quick Choice approach based on a benchmark of the 20 most relevant CRM solutions on the market, and a database updated each year. It meets two objectives:
• Formalize a CRM needs assessment based on our functional map of 300 items,
• Automatically filter your best shortlist from all existing solutions.
Over 2 to 5 days, and based on workshops with the business teams, we gather your expectations and needs (from the most common to the most specific), using our exclusive "CRM Functional Map" tool, reviewing over 300 functional items.
These workshops are also moments of exchange, during which we present the possibilities offered by CRM solutions, challenge your needs, and contribute to evolving your vision of CRM uses.
To identify the most suitable CRM solutions, we use our knowledge base, updated each year on over 20 listed tools. Thus, by comparing our ratings and the levels of expectation expressed in the workshops, you are assured of having a pre-selection of relevant solutions.
The final choice is always based on the fit with the project team, the budget, and the ergonomics, which allows for more than convincing feedback: 100% of the applicants on our short-list offer a suitable solution!
To learn more about CRMs and help you with your projects, find all of our methods and tools here:
