Friday, December 01, 2006

Host CRM. Am I making the right choice for my business?


Check out few areas where Hosted CRM scores over traditional on-premises CRM:

For one, hosted CRM, or on-demand CRM, as they are commonly referred to be highly cost-effective compared with the on-premises applications. For small businesses, investing huge amounts on CRM application may not be a financially viable option. Hosted CRM’s on the other hand are extremely cost-effective. For just minimum monthly subscription amounts, and without investing in expensive hardware and custom software, you can access and use the suite of feature-rich CRM tools as per your business requirements.


Cost-effectiveness does not mean that you compromise on the quality of the solution. Hosted CRM solutions generally come with all the high-end features of an on-premises solution. Also, you have the additional benefit of anytime, anywhere access, without time of space confines.


Hosted CRMs serve as comprehensive collaboration tools, using which you can streamline your key business functions; sales, marketing and customer support. You can track and manage sales tasks, marketing processes and improve business-customer relationship without being physically present at your business location.


On-demand CRM solutions are hosted and run on a secure server maintained by the provider. This relieves small business owners from additional responsibilities such as application maintenance, upgrades, system security, etc., which is taken care by the provider itself.


Lastly, hosted solutions do not have extensive deployment and customization requirements. Also, the applications generally have a user-friendly intuitive interface, which makes it extremely easy to access and use.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

How to choose the right CRM solution for your small business?


So how to make the right choice? – Firstly, Don’t fall for all the hype put across to you. You need to focus on finding the right kind of solution that is simple, cost-effective, and yet provides the right blend of powerful features to manage your business customers


Gaining an in-depth understanding of your company goals is perhaps the first step to buying the right CRM solution for your business. Study your business nature; identify how important your customers are to you, and how you want to manage them. This influences the customer service levels, and to a great extent helps to identify the kind of customer support system you specifically require. Always bear in mind that your customer database is continuously growing. Look for a permanent solution to manage your entire customer support functions.


Can the CRM be easily integrated with your existing business structure, is perhaps the next question to ask yourself. Don’t forget cost effectiveness. It is advisable not to overdo the cost aspect. The right solution should definitely fit within your budget confines.


Quick deployment, ease of use, inexpensive installation and maintenance, rapid customization, reliability, assurance, redundancy, protection and choice, are few other areas you need to focus upon while choosing a CRM for your business.


Remember, choosing the right small business CRM solution is definitely not easy. There are literally hundreds of competing vendors to choose from. Worse, they all appear to be similar at a glance. Focus to find the right CRM solution that will help you Find, Keep and Add customers to your growing business.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Why does Small Business Require CRM?


Small business CRM solutions help to consolidate customer data and make it easy for you to manage business customers. Implementing and using CRM system helps you to easily maintain costumer records, streamline customer interactions and without difficulty optimize your services to meet specific customer needs. You can focus on each customer individually and offer effective one-to-one services. This improves customer satisfaction and develops customer loyalty, which helps to expand your business and increase business ROI.


Take a look at key benefits of small business CRM:

  • Helps you to streamline business processes

  • Enables you to automate sales and marketing functions

  • Improves customer service and support activities

  • Helps you to optimize customer experience

  • Expands business and drastically improves business ROI