Best Social CRM Software

What is Social CRM Software?

Social CRM software is a tool and social media that enables brands to foster customer communication through their social media profiles. In addition, it provides insights into customers’ interactions and actions to improve engagement.

It helps in offering a seamless response to the customers and integrating social media channels in the social CRM. It is a strategy to streamline the organization's processes and improve its profitability. Interacting with the customers throughout the day is possible when you opt for social customer relationship management.

The traditional CRM is the tool to manage sales, productivity, contacts, and much more. The business relationship is improved with conventional CRM. Social CRM is miles ahead.

CRM software has information about customers. Email, telephone, mobile, and other contact details can be accessed easily from the software. You can also access recent news about the company and store all personal information of clients as well.

What are the Benefits of Social CRM Software?

1. Improves your Business Process

   A Social CRM system helps in improving your process by making it transparent. You can improve your reach to the customer via all platforms. You get to get in touch with the customers via phone, email, or other interactive mediums. Consistency and efficiency of customer relationship management are carried over with the Social CRM solutions.

2. Internal Communication is Made Easy

   All your internal teams must be on the same page. Marketing, IT, and admin teams should carry the same idea. The real-time updates should be able to be viewed by all teams. The teams act in collaboration, and confusion and inconsistencies are made void. Consistent and confusion-free communication is the key to retaining customers when you own a business process spread across the globe. Social CRM tools can help you achieve the same. However, you can expect the tools to work better only if you have chosen the best Social CRM tools.

3. R and D of the Business Improves

   Social CRM applications make the process sophisticated. This means the research and development niche of your business gets more attention. The capabilities of your team are improved. The customer conversations are now the responsibility of your R&D team. It can develop innovative products or services that the market currently needs.

4. Competitive Intelligence

   What makes your business improvement cumbersome? Most of the time, it is because of the competitive edge. They can throw challenges, and often, you would be able to find how their conversions are successful hardly. With the best Social CRM tools, you can measure the factors which have been pulling you down. You can figure out the right marketing strategy for your business.

5. Improves Productivity

   The ocean of information is in your hands when you have the Social CRM applications and tools for your business. You get to know the customer's needs, demographics, contact details, etc. The leads and conversions are hassle-free when you have a wealth of information. Ensure your sales team uses the CRM tools and the data you acquire from the software.

6. Being Upbeat

   Want to know customer sentiments and feedback? The smaller gadgets ensure this can be done with a few clicks. Thanks to social media, you can make your brand accessible. You can reach their contacts with Social CRM solutions even if your customers don't tag you.

7. Improve your Customer Relationship

   Get to know everything about your customers through social media. Are they camping around? Has a customer changed a job? Or is there a bundle of joy that has popped in? Congratulate your customer, and build a deep relationship with your customers. Technology can be used to improve relations. Make use of the opportunity to reinstate your brand value among the customers.

What are the Features of Social CRM Software?

1. Marketing Tools

   Look for small business CRM software that has marketing tools. Do in-built marketing tools include SMS marketing, email marketing, and sales forecasting capabilities?

2. Call Center

   Call center features are excluded from low-priced plans. However, you can link them with the CRM software. If you want to improve the graph, your choice should be CRM software with call center capabilities.

3. Reports and Dashboards

   Reporting functionality is a part of the recent technology necessary for a business. The dashboard and reports can offer live status. Transferring the data to a compatible format with your system is also integrated.

4. Workflows

   CRM software needs project management, which is the primary task. There are built-in workflows that help with task management in any organization. You need to check if the application you require is in your chosen plan.

5. E-commerce

   If you plan to go online or extend the capabilities of the existing site, then you can find the inbuilt E-commerce features.

6. Lead Management and Sales

   It is easy to generate leads from various resources with CRM software. Website traffic, social media platform, and newsletter sign-ups are good examples.

Things to Consider Before Buying Social CRM Software

You can find leads and prospects when you deal with social CRM software. It helps maintain a relationship with existing customers and paves the way to acquire more customers. There are a lot of factors to consider when you are on the hunt for the best CRM software for your business.

Find out if the CRM software you have opted for is built for the size of your business. Do you need to consider if the employees can easily use it? Your answer to the question decides which online CRM software you should opt for. You need to opt for the software which makes it easy to integrate the software you currently use.

If you are in a dilemma with the plethora of social CRM applications in the market, then here are things you need to know before picking the right one.

1. What area do you need the CRM for? 

   CRM software helps in improving productivity. Studies prove that sales increase by 29% when using CRM software. The sales forecast improves by 42%, while productivity moves up to 34%. There are a lot of CRM tools available in the market. But, where you do, you need them to improve efficiency is something you need to decide. Does your sales staff spend hours filling in data? Or do they spend considerable time finding contact details? An analysis of this helps in identifying the best social CRM tools. The simple tasks which take hours can be eliminated, and the same man force can be focused on getting more leads.

2. Is the social CRM software mobile-friendly? 

   You cannot expect CRM software designed for a website to work on a tablet or a smartphone. When you want the sales representatives to perform better, it is essential to go for the CRM application, which is mobile-based. This is because the software still works efficiently when they are on the move. Companies that use mobile applications for CRM software have improved their sales performance.

3. What does the Software Offer? 

   Understanding CRM software is cumbersome. When you are not investing time in understanding it, using it becomes intimidating. Spend some time analyzing various software available on the market. Analyze the features, and check if your business and team can use them easily. You should be able to allot time to check if the training can ensure your staff uses the software as efficiently as possible. The company you choose the buy the software from must include training as part of the strategy.

4. Is it Compatible? 

   Customer relationship management has various parts. You can use one for email marketing and another for SMS marketing. If you want a new application or a Social CRM system, think about integrating the latest software with the existing application. The software with many built-in integration options should be your choice if you have a huge business. You can use multiple applications for your needs.

5. Does it let you Generate Reports?

   Will you be able to get multiple reports? This is one of the capabilities of CRM software; you should care about. You should be able to get adequate reports and work on various metrics based on the reports you receive. You should be able to maximize the benefits of using CRM software. Only if the reporting capabilities are higher can you trust the CRM software!

6. Check out the Customer Reviews

   You can quickly identify the best Social CRM system based on customer reviews. If you can get personal recommendations, it is easy to find the right option. You can discover how the software works, its downsides and pros, how easy the integration process is, and if it has helped improve sales and productivity. Also, get to know if the customer service is efficient and reliable.

7. Cost of the Software

   The package you decide to buy is the factor that determines the cost of the software. Try to find out if all the modules/features of the box are vital for you. If not, you can always get the required modules/features. This can also bring down the cost of the software.

8. Budget:

   You need to ensure that all activities you do are budgeted for. The pricing model that fits your business size and needs is what you need to seek. The costs are set per user and month. When you look for more features, you will be paying more. When there are additional users, again, the plan is expensive. If you don't have a budget plan, you need to narrow it down to the needed features.

   If you are convinced about the Social CRM tools and software, check if you can try the software for free after narrowing down your search based on these factors. It is, after all, a big investment for your business. So, spending weeks analyzing the right CRM software is not a crime. Examine if the software meets your business's needs during the trial period. If not, check if the plans can be upgraded to get the results. If not, you can try another software.

The Principles of Social CRM and Its Need

Usually, when there are discussions about CRM, it can be related to technology, strategy, and process. When it is about CRM technology, it is a cloud-based product. The technology analyzes and interacts between the company and the users. CRM strategy is a business philosophy to manage customer relations. The process of CRM is adopted to nurture business relationships.

Social media has changed the approach to customer-centric business. Some tasks can now be done through the Social CRM applications. These tools and applications of the best Social CRM tools help transport the business approach from company-centric to customer-centric. The principles of social CRM are -

• Collaboration

• Transparency

• Advocacy

• Mutual value and co-creation

If your business needs to survive in the competitive world, Social CRM solutions are the most important technology you will need. With sales CRM software, you can be aware of the current trends and improve leads to flow and sales. Understanding the need for social CRM integration is crucial. The sales team can understand the sales forces better, and the marketing team makes forecasting easy. Conversations with customers can be maintained and used at any time using CRM. The HR team, supply chain management, and every other team can find CRM useful. Get to know more about this here.