7 Points to Consider Before Selecting Your CRM Solution

Whitepaper by Larry Caretsky, President, Commence Corporation

Customer Relationship Management is one of the fastest growing sectors of the computer software industry. In order to gain a competitive edge, companies of all sizes are looking for ways to improve how they market, sell and provide service to their customers.  Many are turning their attention to Customer Relationship Management software as a tool that will enable them to effectively manage their customer relationships before, during and after the sale.

The rapid growth of this sector has attracted dozens of software solution providers many who have taken advantage of the popularity of “software as a service” or SaaS, as a vehicle to deliver their solutions over the Internet. SaaS has paved the way for the introduction of a myriad of new product offerings from specific vertical industry solutions to pure play CRM vendors that sell their solutions across all industry segments, (enterprise, mid-market and small business).

In fact, there are now so many offerings that companies engaged in a CRM initiative have found the evaluation and selection process simply daunting. The challenge is simply trying to differentiate the products because so many of them make similar claims. But, just because these solutions appear alike, don’t be fooled into thinking they are. There are some significant differences that you need to be aware of before making your selection.

One of the ways to narrow the field is to utilize industry reports such as Business-Software.com’s popular Top 10 reports. Business-Software.com features research on a number of CRM solutions including the Top 10 Hosted CRM Vendors and the Top 10 Small Business CRM Vendors. Another resource that will help is to utilize the, “7 Points to Consider Before Selecting Your CRM Solution” outlined below.

To read the white paper (no email opt-in required), click here (PDF, 663 Kb)