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Every agency has different requirements for a CRM. The choice to buy a CRM should not be rushed, whether you’re looking for new software or setting it up for the first time.
Let’s build the framework first before moving on to some questions you should ask before looking around for a CRM and the best CRMs for agencies.
What is a CRM system?
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a collection of techniques for controlling customer interactions at every stage of the purchasing process. Engaging consumers at all touchpoints will help you create better connections that will increase retention, loyalty, and sales.
Handling all of this manually may be challenging, especially as your organization grows. Because of this, 65% of companies make investments in CRM technology within the first five years of their existence.
CRM software improves procedures and automates monotonous CRM duties, freeing up sales and marketing teams’ time to focus on more important responsibilities. It centralizes customer connections, compiles consumer information from many sources, and provides useful insights to strengthen client-agency relationships.
Among the essential CRM functions are:
- Contact administration
- lead supervision
- tracking interactions
- Email synchronizations
- Process automation
- Pipeline administration
- predicting sales
- Analytics and Reporting
Before you begin trying out several CRMs, consider the following questions:
- What is the most critical feature you require? For instance, are you searching for a product to help you plan your multichannel marketing efforts or something to expedite your sales process?
- Are you searching for a CRM for your own business, for your clients, or for both? Your CRM will often cost more the more people you have using it.
- Which tasks would save you the most time and money if they were automated? Automation features vary amongst CRMs, such as lead scoring software or triggered email drip campaigns. Which ones are necessary, and which ones are optional?
- Which UI do you find most appealing? UIs are not all made equally. Some employ spreadsheet-like user interfaces with distinctive “views” that enable record sorting and filtering. Others replicate social media platforms with dashboards or newsfeeds that are accessible to all logged-in users.
- Do you actually require a new item? The likelihood that you are tracking client contacts on an Excel spreadsheet is “yes.” However, if your existing CRM is lacking a few capabilities you’d like to have, think about if you actually need them. A new CRM can be time-consuming and expensive to implement since no CRM is ideal.
Ask your coworkers and other stakeholders for their opinions. Find out what features in a CRM are most essential to your sales and marketing team. The finest CRM software for agencies should then be demoed once you have a list of “must-haves” and an idea of your budget.
CRM Software Benefits for Agencies
The advantages a CRM provides are clear from what we’ve just covered. Here are some key advantages of utilizing a CRM, since we truly want to focus on what a strong tool can do for your business:
1. Improved Contact Administration
CRM software is the way to go if you want to create thorough client profiles to encourage enhanced personalization for your business. It first centralizes consumer relationships, making them available to teams in charge of sales, marketing, and customer service.
More than that, it eliminates data silos within your organization, enhancing the operations of several departments and guaranteeing that all client interactions are documented in a single repository. For instance, the sales team may effortlessly locate the transaction, pick up where the marketing team left off, and advance without difficulty.
2. More accurate sales forecasts
CRM software helps create thorough profiles by updating client profiles as new information about them is received. Your sales staff has access to every aspect of the customer, including needs and location. Sales representatives may identify which clients will be profitable by using past data.
Additionally, CRM platforms that use predictive analysis offer insights for more accurate sales forecasting. Since less than a third of agencies utilize CRM for sales forecasting, it appears that few of them are aware of these advantages.
3. Enhanced Client Satisfaction
Since they frequently differ in terms of industry, services required, or hobbies, your agency’s clients anticipate tailored mailings. Utilizing personalization to your advantage is simple with a CRM. You may categorize your clients depending on a variety of factors, including services, deal sizes, and more.
Better personalization brought about by segmentation increases client retention and satisfaction. According to statistics, when personalization is prioritized, 90% of clients are persuaded to spend more money on your services and goods.
4. Consistent Increase in Revenue
Customer experience is now being used as a competitive advantage by 68% of firms. It is simple to comprehend the driving reason behind this trend thanks to Lisa Masiello. She makes the claim that “happy customers are your biggest advocates and can easily become your best-performing sales team.” You can keep track of your customers and learn more about them with the aid of a CRM. When you know them better, you can provide them with specialized services and attention to keep them satisfied. Additionally, satisfied clients are more likely to make subsequent purchases and even persuade others to work with your company.
Losing a client might have serious consequences, even forcing some businesses to close. Because of this, retainer business is essential for agency success, and a CRM may aid in the development of a strong retainer machine.
Are you prepared to adopt a CRM? Let’s examine some of the top CRMs available for agencies.
1. Insightly
A small firm or mid-sized agency would require exactly the degree of capability that Insightly offers. It provides various customization options, a great user interface (UI), connectivity capabilities with third-party programs like MailChimp, and built-in project management features. Because of the extensive features included in the free plan, many like Insightly.
Pricing: Free plan, $29/month for Plus, $49/month for Professional, and $99/month for Enterprise
2. Podio
Podio is a CRM that also offers capabilities for social intranet, project management, workflow management, and product planning. Podio is a fantastic option for agencies who want to handle both creative projects and sales operations in one location because of all of its extra advantages.
Pricing: Free plan, $7.20 for Basic, $11.20 for Plus, and $19.20 for Premium.
3. Nimble
Nimble focuses on the uniqueness of each consumer, gathering data from social media and other sources to provide you with the most accurate, up-to-date profile information. This CRM is especially beneficial for businesses that offer email marketing (or rely on it for their own marketing efforts) because it has various email marketing features built in.
Nimble Business costs $25 per user per month when paid monthly or $19 per user per month when billed yearly.
4. BenchmarkONE
A CRM and marketing automation tool called BenchmarkONE was created exclusively with SMBs and agencies in mind. BenchmarkONE makes it simple to manage opportunities and increase sales with its configurable lead-scoring features, a suite of email marketing automation tools, and tracking tools. Customers like BenchmarkONE due of its live, dedicated customer service, easy setup (ranked #1 by G2 Crowd), and ease of usage.
Pricing: 250 contacts are included in the $0/monthly Lite and Pro plans, which are both free. Price is determined by interactions. users indefinitely. The price and discounts of partners are available to qualifying agencies.
5. EngageBay
Despite the fact that EngageBay may not be as well-known as some of the major names in the marketing automation and CRM field, it provides a robust collection of capabilities that may help small to mid-sized organizations at a far lower cost.
An all-in-one platform called EngageBay integrates capabilities for sales, marketing, and customer service into a single user experience. This enables teams to collaborate more easily and guarantees that no client is overlooked.
The user-friendly contact management system is one of EngageBay’s most noteworthy features. You can quickly follow a customer’s activity across different channels, add and update information about leads and customers, and develop customized campaigns based on their interests and preferences.
Additionally, EngageBay provides a variety of automation capabilities, such as workflow automation, social media scheduling, email marketing, and email marketing, which may save your team time and effort while assuring the success of your marketing and sales operations.
Pricing: Monthly rates begin at only $12.74.
6. Pipedrive
A sales CRM called Pipedrive is dedicated to motivating salespeople to follow up with leads and clients. It connects with a number of third-party email providers and other programs, including Trello, Zapier, Outlook, Gmail, Google Maps, and Google. Since it’s largely a pre-sale tool, it’s perfect for agencies with lengthy or complicated sales cycles.
Pricing: Free trial, $12.50 per user per month for Essential, $24.90 per user per month for Advanced, $49.90 per user per month for Professional, and $99 per user per month for Enterprise.
7. Salesforce
The leading CRM in the business, Salesforce, may be the right choice for you if you require a CRM with all the bells and whistles. Salesforce is a potent tool after you’ve invested the effort to learn how to use it, despite the fact that some users find the user interface and the variety of possibilities daunting.
Pricing: $28.33 per user per month for Essentials, $84.97 for Sale Professionals, $169.94 for Enterprise, and $339.88 for Unlimited.
8. Sage
Sage CRM is a flexible system that links the operations of your sales and marketing teams with those of the accounting, service delivery, and customer support departments. For larger firms with complicated or distant sales teams, it’s an excellent choice because it has lead scoring, email marketing, and territory management features.
Starting at $45 per month per user
9. Apptivo
Apptivo CRM is renowned for its “do it all” capability, which includes document storage, email marketing, lead and opportunity tracking, and more. Manage your interactions with customers from the beginning of the transaction to the end.
Pricing: $8 per user per month for Lite, $12 per user per month for Premium, $20 per user per month for Ultimate, and a quote-based price for Enterprise.
10. CRM HubSpot
The fact that HubSpot’s CRM is free may appeal to you if you own a small business or are considering using one for the first time. It’s simple to use, and although if it lacks certain more sophisticated capabilities (like a mobile app or proposal tools), it’s a wonderful way to maintain the order of your client information.
Payment: Free
11. Spiro
A dependable CRM program for small- and medium-sized businesses is Spiro. It’s a strong tool that enables you to automatically arrange and rank chances, as well as make contacts. It sets itself apart by offering a strong capability to identify discrepancies in your sales funnel and suggest sales actions to increase sales.
Pricing: depending on quotes
We wish you well as you think about a CRM for your expanding agency after reading this article. You may join up for a free plan here if you’d like to learn more about what BenchmarkONE’s agency-focused software can accomplish for you.