Living Entrepreneurship Blog / Babson Entrepreneurs

Custom CRM Solution & Your Growing Business

As our business grows, different problems and opportunities demand different solutions – what worked a year ago might now be not the best approach. All too often, avoidable mistakes turn what could have been a great business into an also-ran.

To manage our growing business I decided to build a customized CRM for the team. Using customizable CRM software can gain those small bits for you and streamline many processes. Look at it this way: You aren’t dumping the process you had before; you are putting it into a place that is more accessible, structured, and of course secured!

The degree to which a good custom CRM platform benefits the business varies, depending on the business’s nature. For us, although the process of putting together a CRM platform that we desired was very challenging, the results have been far more rewarding. We struggled in the processing of having our CRM platform up running, but so far we all agree this investment in the CRM was totally worth it. Our CRM puts us in control. It was customized, and still is as we move along, in consideration of our operational needs, and more importantly, a balance between the needs and wants of different sub-groups in our company.

Leveraging mobile technology, we log info on the go, and support team in the office is instantly available to assist account reps out in the field. Managing virtual teams has become a lot more efficient and easy. Going live with data, having them easily pulled in and out of our CRM platform, also brings accountability. Cloud storage keeps us organized and flexible. Email notifications keep us on track with tasks. Reporting and data analytics have been key in navigating resolutions for our internal issues and customer support. So far the results of running our business on a CRM tailored to our needs are significant.

Investment in a custom CRM solution for the business is not a decision to take lightly. Lots of thinking was dedicated to this process of bringing our company live with the CRM. We took into consideration several items: Who do we have working for us that will use the system? How techs savvy are our employees? What do we want to get the most out of the CRM? What is our budget? Can we afford this opportunity cost spending time on implementing our custom CRM rather than closing sales? Etc.

Bottomline, timing your CRM investment is key. And always evaluate your business’s CRM candidate solutions keeping in mind how it should align with your business goals and strategies for growth.