CRM Development in Brief – How to Build a CRM for Your Business from Scratch

CRM Solutions – What can you do for your business to skyrocket on the pedestal of the best enterprises? Right you are, you need to develop a system that will optimize your work, leaving time for more important tasks. CRM software development will solve most of your problems and sort out the details.

About CRM system and its features in brief

It is a program for accounting, processing, and storing information about your customers. It helps you to simplify the management of your business processes.

Goals achieved with the customer management system

• Reducing costs,
• Acceleration of processes,
• Improvement of product quality,
• Increasing transparency,
• KPI-based management,
• Standardization of processes.

Basic CRM features

• Contact management – keeps all information related to customers;
• Interaction management – tracks all sales and purchases;
• Task management – puts all the tasks on the board for overviewing or editing;
• Report generation – sends reports to customers, employees, and so on;
• File sharing – sends documents according to time and employee’s level;
• Email marketing – sends emails automatically;
• Calendar – displays all planned events;
• Reminder settings – reminds of upcoming events, calls, meetings, etc.;
• Touchpoint tracking – storages information of all interactions;
• Custom reports – create customized reports according to demographics, sales, lead types, etc.;
• Interaction with SMM – watches after all mentions of the company on social media.

2 variants of custom CRM solutions

If your business processes do not have unique features and are quite typical, the best choice for you is to install custom CRM software.

The First way

You can look for a CRM website that is ready for usage. It is relatively inexpensive and has a fairly impressive number of functions. If you deal with cryptocurrency, crypto-saving accounts are the best solution here.

Anyhow, such ready-made systems require you to customize the program you installed to the features of your business. When installing such a program, think of the system’s potential. Will it meet your requirements and cover your needs or not?

It is great if the CRM management system you found takes into account the all peculiarities of your industry. Thus, you can adjust your processes to this CRM and start acting within its functionality.

The main advantage of this approach is that you can get a cheap method done long before you. Firstly, it is working. Secondly, it is ready.

The minus is that when developing your industry, you can’t change the current program and adjust it to your needs. Your opportunities end on what the CRM developers have provided for you.

The Second way

It is nothing else but CRM software development. Here you decide what will happen in your system and how exactly the processes will proceed. To develop your system, you will have to immerse yourself in your business and develop from scratch the program for automation.

Of course, developing your program is more expensive than implementing a ready-made one. Also, the time frame for implementing your program is longer than the finished system. Here it is important to determine the short-term and long-term priorities. The third option is the requirements of your system. You should think in advance what are the most essential needs for your industrial processes.

Building a CRM Solutions for your business in 8 steps

Step #1 – Defining commercial goals

First of all, decide on the goals and tasks you solve at your business. You should have a full understanding of how does your industry work.  If you clearly understand this, modeling an ideal program will be easier.

• Processes automation;
• Costs reduction;
• Advanced analysis;
• Creating a better strategy.

Step #2 – Finalizing CRM Solutions roles

Here you should decide what types of users will be in your system. For example, a salesperson, an administrator, an operator, a manager, etc. After you have defined all of the roles, briefly describe them. Thus, you will understand what members do your business processes include.

• Define user groups;
• Determine user roles;
• Decide on access.

Step #3 – Check for the absence of legal restrictions

Before you start developing your system, get acquainted with the legal restrictions. They can influence the final choice of options and their logic.

• Privacy protection policies;
• Data protection;
• Local laws and regulations.

Step #4 – Choose the supported platforms

According to the needs of your business, you may require to create several platforms. So, choose the solution you like most and develop it.

• Web CRM;
• iOS support;
• Android support.

Step #5 –  Specify FRS & SRS

State your requirements on functions and software. Depending on the user types, they may differ.

• Document user types;
• Write user stories;
• What problems SRM solves;
• Define features for each issue.

Step #6 – Staff training consideration

Your employees should fully understand the features of this system. Think of their training in advance.

• Staff training course;
• Quick onboarding in CRM;
• Use guides and documentation.

Step #7 – Service support and improvement

Of course, there will be program or solution mistakes after you launch the CRM website. That’s why you should do everything possible to eliminate them.

• Bug fixes;
• Security updates;
• New features development;

Step #8 – Usage of Artificial Intelligence

Integrate Artificial Intelligence and save your time on data analyses, and so on.

• An integration;
• Machine learning;
• Other innovative solutions.