Think a bespoke CRM system is beyond your budget? Think again. Tailoring your customer relationship management approach doesn’t need to be a major investment, and the pay-offs can transform your business.
In a previous blog post, we wrote about the value-add of investing in a bespoke customer relationship management system. But there’s a major myth surrounding tailored CRM, which we’re very keen to set straight.
Many organisations believe their budget won’t stretch to include a custom system for storing customer data and client interactions. When, in truth, to design and build a CRM platform that works for your particular requirements is an incredibly savvy business decision — one which provides payback in terms of improved customer service, and seamless internal processing, almost right away.
And as for the initial outgoing?
That doesn’t need to be as high as you’d think, either. The development and running costs of a bespoke CRM platform are far lower than you’d expect, for three key reasons:
No CRM engine is built from scratch
Whilst a tailor-made CRM system will have idiosyncratic features, designed to fit your needs, it will not need to be built from the ground up.
A great comparison to draw here, is that of a new car: once you’ve chosen the make and model of the vehicle you’re going to buy, you can add certain features — seat warmers, backup camera, bluetooth connectivity — to make that car your own.
The car you drive home from the dealership has been truly customised to meet your specifications, but the body shell and engine are the same as the next buyer’s.
After all, it simply wouldn’t be economical for car manufacturers to offer mass-market product customisation at such an early stage — the lead times would be too off-putting, the process would clog up the factory floor and, ultimately, the whole thing would end in business model failure.
Sure, in rare cases a super-car may be designed entirely from scratch — and the same can be true for a CRM system. But 99% of the time, there’s a ready-to-go body and engine, which you can choose to drive away as is, or add extra features to.
And CRM, you can also remove unnecessary features, if that suits your needs more.
If your current client management platform — be it Oracle, SalesForce or HubSpot — is too noisy or distracting, bespoke CRM helps cuts out the clutter, so you can focus on the details which grow your business.
With a customised customer relationship management system, it’s about having exactly what you need, and nothing more.
There are many existing plug-in modules to make use of
Bespoke CRM doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel.
True: your customers are unique, and how you manage your interactions with them will be different to your next competitor. Also true, though: no matter what you need to do, to nurture your customer relationships, chances are you aren’t asking for anything out of the ordinary.
So, the customisation process is made much more efficient by using existing plug-in modules — whether it’s automating text messages or bridging to your e-commerce store, these bolt-ons already exist. It’s simply a case of synching them to your CRM system.
To continue the car analogy: you can fully design your CRM dashboard to feature all the data sets and measurements you need. That way, you get a single view of what’s powering your business, without a lengthy development roadmap or associated costs.
Bespoke CRM systems are adaptable, to suit your changing needs
Decided you need to capture more, or less, data about your customers?
No problem.
As no CRM engine is entirely built from scratch — and because there’s a menu of plug-ins to use — it’s quick and easy to add in new data fields, or take them away: whichever you need.
What’s more, with GDPR and the ever-changing data landscape, adaptability is a key need when it comes to customer relationship management.
This means the comparable cost between a bespoke and an off-the-shelf CRM package isn’t really as simple as one initial investment versus the other. If you want to grow your business, introduce a new audience type, hire new staff members, or open a new communication channel… all of these changes are easy to accommodate in a bespoke system.
And flexing what you have already is far more affordable than going back to the drawing board with another off-the-shelf system.
At the end of the day, a bespoke CRM platform puts you firmly in the driver’s seat (okay, that’s the last one — we promise!), taking your business where you want it to go.
So now you’ve got a bespoke CRM system in mind, what do you need to do next?
What are the most important components you need to make your customer relationship management system even better than it is today?
Should you be automating some of your marketing efforts? Do you need to collect more intelligent geolocation data? Are your clients’ needs growing more complex?
Only you and your team are best-placed to decide the requirements of your CRM engine — but we can help you build it.
Get in touch with Business Equip today, and we’ll have you up and running with an effective, bespoke customer management platform quickly and well within your budget.