A Small Business Guide to CRM

The first crucial step in choosing the right small business CRM software is to properly assess your business needs. Are they basic, exotic or somewhere in between? What about cost and complexity -- on-site applications or cloud-based services? As you can see, questions abound.

When you're shopping for small business software, it's handy to have a buyers' guide to help you wrap your mind around the initial questions to ask. This small business CRM guide will walk you through the thought process and help you make a more-informed buying decision. Check out the full story at eCRMGuide.

If you own a small or medium business, entering the CRM software market can involve a system-wide implementation of a new business suite, or it can simply be the equivalent of dipping a toe in the water with the addition of a basic contact manager.

In either case, it's easy to dive into a solution that later turns out to be too small for your company's needs or too expensive to customize.

"I think it's really important for companies that are going down the CRM path to make sure that they know what they need before they even look at a vendor," said Brent Leary, co-founder and partner at CRM Essentials, "Do a really serious and honest analysis of what you're trying to accomplish, what your challenges are -- what are you trying to fix? Is it something related to losing customers, or is it something related to finding more customers or keeping them longer?"

Read the complete Guide to Small Business CRM