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Advice for businesses looking to invest in CRM software.
CRM software helps businesses move from a manual to managed stage. This PC Mag article offers advice on what to look for -- and how to choose CRM software for your business.
"Tracking customer information in a spreadsheet, for example, may sound reasonable, as you could simply put the spreadsheet on a server and then let everyone modify it. In practice, however, it doesn't work. As sales personnel make deals in e-mail messages, trade phone calls, or otherwise hurry to close accounts or track support issues, the spreadsheet falls out of date very quickly. Once that happens, fewer people will update it. Soon, it becomes useless.
"Oram explained that CRM software helps businesses move from that 'manual' stage, to what SugarCRM calls a 'managed' stage. That means repeatable sales processes, a source of shared data, and some basic measurement and data visibility that lets salespeople figure out who existing customers are, and how to close sales with new ones."
This article was originally published on August 4, 2010