If you want to avoid gaps in your customer service, expand your bottom line, and lower your costs, then your CRM needs to fit your exact business needs. Whether you already have a CRM in place and you're looking to get more out of it or you need to implement one in your business, a CRM consultant can help you get the most out of that system.

Here's what you need to know about CRM consultants, the benefits they provide, and how working with one can help you maximize your customer relationships.

What Is a CRM System?

CRM system stands for Customer Relationship Management system. It is a software tool that allows businesses to organize customer data and easily access it whenever necessary. From onboarding new customers to maintaining existing ones, the best CRMs automate your customer relationships and increase your bottom lines.

Today, managing relationships with customers is a very complicated process. And if you want to compete in your industry, you need a reliable CRM software system.

CRM software connects marketing, sales, and customer service departments of a given company and organizes information about their activities and metrics into one cohesive system.

The goal of any CRM system is to improve business relations and customer experience. The companies that invest in CRM typically see a significant increase in leads, customer retention, conversion, and sales revenue. And businesses that use CRMs also benefit from more accurate sales reporting, improved sales forecasting, and maximized ROI of their marketing campaigns.

What Types of Businesses Use CRMs?

  • Both B2C and B2B businesses: Support marketing, sales, HR, customer service as well as supply chain and partner management.
  • Startups and Small Businesses: Provide extensible features at affordable prices, helping new companies compete against the bigger players in their industries.
  • Enterprise Organizations: Use advanced CRM features such as workflow management, sales and marketing automation, territory management, advanced analytics to cover every aspect in the business cycle and unify operations.

However, before you start to reap the benefits of advanced CRM software solutions, you need to understand the capabilities, features, and functions that make CRM systems valuable.

Afterward, you’ll be able to better determine which CRM software is the correct fit for your business. You can also hire a qualified CRM consultant to help you make the right choice.

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What is a CRM Consultant?

Your CRM consultant will help you set up the CRM system that will be optimal for your business. They help you navigate the pitfalls of deploying and optimizing your CRM. And they'll also work with your team to onboard the software and accelerate employee onboarding.

With a CRM consultant, you'll ensure that you get the most out of your CRM without the headache or frustration most businesses face when deploying a new system.

5 Benefits of Hiring a CRM Consultant

Your CRM Consultant is a critical asset to your successful CRM deployment. With the right CRM consultant, you'll be able to:

  1. Choose the Right Platform: Every business is different. And every CRM is different. A CRM consultant will be familiar with a range of products out there and can help you pick the best one for your exact business needs.
  2. Save on Expenses: Without the right guidance, you may end up stuck with a software suite that doesn't suit your business needs, pays more for features you don't need, or make critical mistakes that leave your business exposed to security issues.
  3. Get More Out of Features: Many businesses end up paying for features they never use. Or, they use them incorrectly. A CRM consultant will connect your CRM to your existing systems and ensure you get the most out of the platform.
  4. Optimize the Platform: There's a lot of work that needs to be done after a CRM goes live. Your CRM consultant will help you test, deploy, and optimize your new system.
  5. Train Your Employees: Employee adoption is critical for any new system to succeed. Your CRM consultant will have training procedures in place to ensure your team is quickly onboarding and has success with your new platform.

4 Types of CRM Consultants

There are a lot of different CRM systems out there. As a result, there are a lot of different CRM consultants out there that can support your business. If you already know which platform you want, it's best to work with a consultant that has expertise in that platform.

Here are the different types of CRM consultants out there.

1. Dynamics CRM Consultant

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based enterprise suite that offers ERP and CRM features in one place and gives businesses a comprehensive view of their customers and operations.

There are business applications to automate sales, marketing, customer service, finance, and operations. They can be integrated with existing systems and with tools like Outlook and Excel.

The biggest advantage of Dynamics 365 is that you can use it as a subscription, purchase subscriptions by role, and scale it up as your business grows. Plus, businesses can get actionable insights that are based on Predictive Analytics, Machine Learning, and Power BI.

An experienced Dynamics CRM consultantcan help small- and medium-sized businesses and corporations in different industries take advantage of the great potential of Dynamics 365.

2. SAP CRM Consultant

SAP CRM enables companies to provide a smooth and personalized customer experience across multiple channels by anticipating and proactively responding to their customers’ needs.

SAP CRM cloud-based solutions offer advanced capabilities in addition to core CRM functionality and provide technologies based on machine learning and big data insights to power real-time customer experience.

Your SAP CRM consultant will have knowledge SAP business suite and how it supports such areas as marketing, sales, and customer service.

3. Zoho CRM Consultant

Zoho CRM is cloud-based software for managing sales, marketing, and customer support in a single system. It offers a set of robust features such as intuitive user interface, sales pipeline management, AI sales assistant, workflow automation, comprehensive reporting, email marketing tools, analytics, social media tools, etc.

It also comes with a nice price tag that is very friendly to SMBs.

The best way to ensure that your Zoho CRM project is managed and implemented professionally is to hire a qualified and experienced Zoho CRM consultant.

4. Quickbase CRM Consultant

Quickbase is fully-customizable cloud-based CRM software that requires minimal technical training from end-users. It allows you to take advantage of a native drag-and-drop interface and form builders and quickly and efficiently develop custom CRM solutions based on the needs of your company without coding.

You can build apps by choosing a template and adding modules or starting from scratch. The Quickbase platform is scalable and accessible on any mobile device.

You can contact a CRM consultant that has experience in the development and maintenance of QuickBase applications to help you with planning and developing your CRM solution and extending its functionality.

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How a CRM Consultant Supports Off-The-Shelf Implementations

Implementing a CRM system is an important decision and is one of the hardest tasks for any business. You can’t just buy a new CRM platform with a variety of great features, install it, and expect that your business relationships become better at once and you win more deals.

In reality, CRM implementation is a rather complicated process with lots of challenges so you’ll need a lot of planning before you can start.

If you fail to develop an effective strategy, your CRM implementation can be a complete disaster and will cost you money and productivity.

But relationships with customers determine the success of any business and that means you need CRM.

In most cases, it’s quite reasonable to consider hiring an experienced external CRM consultant who can give you good advice on choosing the best option for your specific needs and provide guidance on CRM implementation.

Consultants typically actively participate in the implementation process and can help you at different stages, including business process mapping, choosing a suitable configuration, developing system integration strategies.

Your consultant can give recommendations on how you should optimize the application and take care of security. Besides, they will help you select the right methods to capture, extract, transfer your business data and analyze it.

How CRM Consultants Support Custom Implementations

Wondering whether you should start with buying a canned solution because it is fast and cheap or invests in building custom software?

Consider the following:

  • Off-the-shelf software is less expensive but as your business grows, the lack of customization may lead to inefficient manual processes and you’ll eventually need to invest a lot of money in the proprietary software so you could scale effectively.
  • Despite initial costs, building custom software is a smart decision if you want to scale effectively and the return on investment can be well worth it.

Why You Need a Custom CRM Solution

Building your own software that is tailored to your company’s specific needs can help make your business more scalable. Here are three benefits to having a custom CRM:

  • It can give you a competitive advantage and help you outperform your competitors who rely on off-the-shelf software.
  • You can build an integrated platform that keeps all your data in one place for faster, more accurate reporting.
  • Your team will be able to work faster and smarter with a custom system in place rather than having to rely on a helter-skelter collection of different programs.
  • As your business evolves and needs change to stay competitive, you will be able to shift technology strategies fast and succeed in the market.
  • You'll get the custom features you need to match your exact business and customer needs, giving you the power to build the best version of your business.

Choose The Best CRM Consultant

When you make a decision to build custom software, it makes sense to hire an experienced CRM consultant that will guide you through the entire process.

Luckily, the custom development team at Quandary can create a perfect CRM system for your specific business needs and according to your requirements.

You'll get a powerful application with advanced analytics tools that allow configuring reports for specific business units and roles. And with automated reports, you’ll get actionable insights for data analysis and will never have to use spreadsheets ever again.

(That alone is pretty awesome.)

See how we've helped our clients improve their businesses and get insane ROIs by checking out our case studies below.