How to Develop a Bespoke CRM Software?
Automation is a new way forward, and CRM software development acts as a catalyst to the same!
While talking about automation and CRM software, it is evident that we are looking forward to business growth by focussing on client-oriented work processes. A good CRM software helps to improve business flow by enhancing customer support, monitoring marketing, and streamlining sales.
According to the CRM statistics, both custom and non-custom CRM software market will likely escalate up to $35 billion worth by 2023.
However, half of the companies that implement CRM systems are not using them to their maximum potential or cannot integrate them into their systems. Thus, businesses must know about the CRM software development that suits their needs.
Let’s talk about the CRM software, features of CRM software and how to develop a bespoke CRM software that brings you growth and efficiency.
What are CRM Software and custom CRM software development?
Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot and Zoho – if you are already familiar with those names, you probably know or have worked with some ready-to-use CRM software.
CRM software is an acronym for Customer Relationship Management software that helps businesses build strong customer relationships by improving their experience, conversation and problem-solving areas. CRM software also lets you check your sales and helps in customer retention by letting you offer quality business to prospects and customers.
CRM software involves information from different sources of your organisation, including website analytics, customer history, email, and social media analysis. Maximum features of any CRM software are mainly used by sales managers, marketers, support agents, and brand analytics to enhance their customer relationship by offering them a better service.
However, you can choose from a ready to use CRM software or have a custom CRM software development with the help of CRM software development experts.
A custom CRM is a platform built by software developers that are tailor-fit to your business needs and work processes. Custom CRMs are the best option when a company’s sales model is complex or doesn’t neatly fit a typical B2B sales model and wants to cater to the client needs in a specific way.
Out of numerous reasons of integrating CRM for your business, one of the main reason is that you can integrate it with any third-party apps, including accounting software, payment systems etc.
The Nucleus research ROI case studies on CRM states that the average returns from CRM have increased since 2011, from $5.60 to $8.71 for every dollar spent.
So, if you are looking forward to your CRM software development, here is what you should do.
What to Consider Before Building a CRM software?
Building CRM software is not a day’s task as it requires proper planning of the features, software and design before starting with the development process. Below are some key points to consider in CRM software development to make the development process effective and suitable for your business.
1. CRM as a platform or software
Most of the time, businesses prefer using custom CRM software solely for their organisation and the people related to the same. However, some people decide to sell the same as a service. If you intend to turn your custom CRM into software as a service, you should start considering the features and software background for this from the very first iteration of the product.
2. Features for CRM software
It is essential to know what you want out of CRM software development and how will you use it. Before starting the CRM software development, you must define clear goals for your software, define features, and discuss to the CRM software development company your expectations on how it should simplify your business process.
But keep in mind that if you integrate more features than you need, you might end up complexing the CRM software. Thus, try to incorporate features necessary to begin, and the advanced features can be added later.
3. CRM Roles
Since you have various fields in the organisation, it is good to define roles in CRM such as marketing, sales, and support. You must also provide access to the employees of each role into the CRM software so that they can access the information and use the CRM according to their field.
Defining the roles and limiting access will help you eliminate the risk of data breaches between other organisation departments.
Moving on,
Must-Have Features in a CRM Software
The features decide the work, success and growth of your business along with customers. Thus, it is important to have some key features in your CRM software to make it into an all-in-one solution for you and your customers.
Here are some vital features that can be used across diverse industries and companies to give you a head start.
1. File sharing
One of the crucial aspects of CRM is to make it easy for everyone to keep track of all the information. The file-sharing feature will help keep all the documentation in one place while letting you share them between departments of your organisation.
To monitor the access, you can also set access levels to prevent unauthorised employees from seeing essential files.
2. Touchpoint tracking
Touchpoints are the point of contact between the company’s representatives and clients. This feature will let you track the communication and allow you to store important information about customer activity.
Keeping an eye on your clients will improve the overall customer service and let you offer customised services.
3. Customer Pipeline
The pipeline view in CRM allows you to track all sales processes and know about the client journey. Through the pipeline, you can quickly know the client stage and spot where the client gets converted or is lost.
Moreover, the employees will never have trouble passing a client to another employee as they will have access to details of the deal.
4. Email Integration
Did you know that many CRM software allows automatic mailing to clients using different letters for different customers?
CRM Email integration with the system will allow you to stay in touch with your customers at any given time. Especially if you send a lot of emails and newsletters, this feature is for you.
5. Mobile application
CRM software with support for smartphones is one of the vital features of custom CRM software development. Working on the go improves the efficacy and enhances customer interaction by providing access to salespeople from anywhere in the world.
Get in touch with the expert CRM developers who can build CRM software supporting mobile with the most advanced technologies for every platform.
6. Invoice and Bills
If the primary goal of your custom CRM is to make it sales-oriented, then you can include the invoicing options like:
- Automatic signature
- Invoice history
- Quick invoices
- Status tracking
- PDF invoices
7. Social media Integration
Many clients and customers like to interact through social media to see their business on the social platform. Social media integration can help you track mentions on social media and measure clients’ interest in their brand. This will ultimately improve the customer service and let you interact with your customers via their favourite channel.
8. Analytics Reports
Custom reporting of clients, sales and marketing is a source of insights and one of the most insightful features of the CRM. You can view the sales, leads and market on a real-time basis with the help of CRM software.
9. Third-party integration
With the help of third-party integration, you can integrate all the apps you want, right from the accounting software to payment gateways.
By developing a CRM system, you ensure that all the important tools can be included in the company and are connected with documents and syste88m.
10. 24*7 Chatbot
Automation is the holy grail of building a CRM system, and chatbots are significant aspects of automation. This automatic chat software’s can:
- Answers to client questions
- Talk to your customers 24*7
- Sets reminders
- Organises meetings with clients
- Suggests customers
While you are gathering the information about CRM software, you should also know how the development companies proceed with the development.
Knowledge about the CRM development process helps you stay in loop with all the development processes and eliminates the chances of skipping the crucial steps.
Custom CRM Software Development Process
To make your CRM software successful in the long run, there is a set of protocols that must be followed by every development company rather than starting with the development right away. When you are aware of the process, you can analyse each step of development and get a clear view of the project progress.
Step 1: Software Designing
Software designing mainly focuses on the UX and UI aspect of the software. Ensure that you get in touch with a good software development company that understands your business and offers you a solution that works well for all your work processes.
The designs can be time-consuming or straightforward depending upon your business, features, functionality and the customer base that you cater to.
Once you have a workflow scheme, a user interface elements library, a description of functions and a working prototype for your designer, its time for the next step.
Step 2: Developing and coding
With the help of design, prototype and workflow, the development team can start working on the framework to bring your CRM software idea to reality.
Once the framework is in place, the developers will start working on the software architecture and coding. Ensure that you stay up to date with all the progress of your project at every stage of development.
Step 3. Quality testing of the software
Software testing is one of the most crucial steps post the development completion. The quality testing comprises software presentation for the consulting team and load testing conducted by QA experts.
Before approval of the system, you should bear in mind that most CRM systems have different apps designed for different types of work. These apps are interconnected in the CRM in a single platform.
Step 4: Software launch and monitoring
After completing all the essential steps, launching and integrating the CRM software into the system is the final step.
The launch is divided into two parts, where one of the parts is database integration. Another focuses on the program installed on all your organisation’s devices and accustom the staff with the new software.
Recommended Read – How CRM and ERP Integration Can Benefit Your Business?
That brings us to the most common question,
What is the cost of Bespoke CRM Development?
The development costs of any software depend upon the incorporation of features, adding functionalities, length of the development process, integrating API’s etc.
It is, however, hard to estimate the cost of building a custom CRM software without any project details. Thus, it is wise to touch with the CRM development company and tell them about your requirements for a cost-effective quote.
Here’s how Matellio can Help With Your Bespoke CRM Software
It is now evident that custom CRM software will be the best investment for your company and drive growth with a significant ROI. But it is important to get in touch with expert CRM developers through a good development company.
Matellio understands your concerns and offers you the best bespoke CRM software development with cost-effective development, faster turnaround time and post-launch support.
With the experience of developing numerous CRM software for various industries, including e-commerce, healthcare, finance, etc., we know exactly what you will need. We promise to deliver you the same.
