HOW TO DESIGN A CRM SYSTEM

How To Design A CRM System That Is Perfect For Your Business

The success of any business depends on two major factors – whether there is a constant supply of a product or a service and, of course, whether there is a demand for the product. While the first point is fairly easy to manage, the second one is much trickier. CRM, or customer relationship management, systems are one of the most efficient solutions to this issue you can find. However, every project is unique which means that every project needs its own custon CRM system design. So, how do you create the best CRM system for your business?

What Are The Main Features Of The CRM System?

In order to understand how to make a personalized CRM system, you need to know the main functions and elements every CRM system has. CRM is a set of strategies that are aimed at maintaining a more efficient connection with your customer. The most important process for CRM is analyzing the data related to customers’ actions. This is why most parts of a CRM system are connected with different uses of data, such as:

• Collecting data. In order to have a successful business, you need to understand what your client wants. This is why you need to gather all the information you can to be able to analyze it and make predictions about the future needs and behavior of your customers;
• Storing data. The bigger your enterprise is, the more data you have to store for your CRM. There are many types of data storages you can use, but cloud storages are the most popular ones right now;
• Retrieving data. To make your analysis fast and accurate, you need to be able to retrieve any data from your storage quickly and efficiently.

In our modern age of technology, it is obvious that most CRM systems are either software applications or websites. This is why you can divide your system into two parts:

• CRM software. This part of the CRM design contains most of the system’s functions, including data organization, communication with customers, data storing etc;
• CRM dashboard. This application provides quick and organized access to all the data you’ve accumulated. It also often includes analyzing this data to help you with the decision-making process.

There are hundreds of different ways you can make this type of system; a lot of companies even offer free templates for you to use. However, there are some ground rules and tips you have to remember to make a successful CRM system. There are just a few of them below.

Tips For CRM Software & CRM Website Design

The first thing you need to concentrate on is a more functional part of your system. Designing a CRM system is very hard due to the amount of work you need to put into the CRM software design. So, here are a couple of tips that will make your work a bit easier:

1. Write specific tasks and goals you want to achieve with your CRM system

In order to make the designing process more productive, you need to define the end goal and as many intermediary points for your CRM as possible. Whether you want to pay more attention towards keeping your existing customers engaged or towards acquisition of new ones – make your decision and describe your basic strategy on paper. It is especially important if you’re outsourcing the development of the system.

2. Think about the needs of everyone who will use the software

One of the best things about CRM systems is that they allow fast communication between different departments. Furthermore, these departments can use the CRM system in their own way. The marketing and sales teams need data analysis tools, the customer service team needs communication tools to be a reliable intermediary between customers and the company, even the HR team can use CRM to speed up recruitment. As you can see, all of them need different instruments for their job, so talk to them before making the final design of your system.

3. Try using new, developing technologies to surpass your competitors

Innovation is the most important part of every competition, especially in business. So, if you want to be ahead of everyone, implement innovative solutions everywhere you can. In CRM system design, there are lots of ways you can use the latest technologies. Here are just a couple of examples:

• Cloud storages. As it has been mentioned before, using cloud storages is very popular right now as they are much faster and more reliable than local servers;
• Mobile applications. Instead of making a gigantic application or website, create a smaller portable program that will allow you to follow your CRM statistics using a smartphone or a tablet in real time
• Integration with social media. Social media is a big part of our life, whether you like it or not. It’s a great source of data and, despite the recent scandals involving them, using the data that lies on the surface will give you lots of insights about your customers.

Tips For CRM Dashboard Design

Although the CRM dashboard is not as important as the rest of the system, it definitely should not be overlooked. The dashboard is a very important tool that allows you to visualize a lot of data and conduct real-time analysis of changes in it. If you’re wondering how to design CRM dashboard, here are some tips for you:

1. Develop different dashboards for different purposes

As it has been stated above, different departments need different tools from the CRM system. Furthermore, they all need access to different information to make the right decisions. That’s why your main task before the start of the dashboard development process is to decide which information should be displayed there. There is another way of dealing with this challenge – you can make separate dashboards for different departments.

2. Do not make it too overloaded

Too much information can be bad, too. It would be pretty overwhelming to see the whole screen stuffed with graphs, tables and numbers. That’s why you should limit the number of elements displayed on the screen at the same time. This way your employees or colleagues won’t be too distracted and will be able to spot every minor detail in the data they see. Furthermore, you can make their screen customizable – let people choose what they can see and what they don’t need.

3. Carefully listen to the feedback

This one is simple – just listen to the people who use the program and fine-tune it according to their preferences. A perfect solution would be to create a prototype of the dashboard and let your colleagues decide whether they like it or not.

Conclusion

CRM systems are something that no business can survive without nowadays. So, if you’re ready to focus on your customers and let your enterprise grow, start designing your CRM system right now! Examples of CRM-systems developed by our web-studio.