Open-Source CRM Makes Business Success Easier With These Five Features


Open-Source CRM Makes Business Success Easier With These Five Features

There is nothing more important to a business than its customers. They are the force that fuels the growth of any company. Maintaining loyal relationships with them is crucial for achieving success in any industry. Yet, as a company’s customer base grows, it becomes virtually impossible to handle all the necessary tasks and manage interactions with customers without the right tools.

In the modern competitive business climate, customer relationship management (CRM) software is more of a necessity than ever before. Having evolved from simple platforms that simply organized contact data, modern CRM systems take center stage in managing sales, marketing and customer support.

These days, open-source CRM tools are becoming increasingly popular thanks to their high level of functionality, cost-effectiveness and ease of use. This software is not just for small businesses anymore. Many large corporations are embracing open-source CRM platforms because of their advantages over traditional CRM software.

Since there are so many open-source CRM options available on the market, it may be a nightmare for a business owner to choose the right platform for their company. To make this process a bit easier, we’ve prepared the top five features to look for in open-source CRMs:

  • Customization friendliness. There’s no universal CRM solution that will be a perfect fit for every company. Therefore, if the platform doesn't provide the ways to be adjusted to the requirements of your business or industry, its implementation is deemed to fail. The ideal software offers the ability to customize the user interface, dashboards, layouts, labels, etc., so that they will be as intuitive and easy to use as possible for every employee in your company.
  • Ease of integration. As a rule, companies use multiple applications and services to manage customer data and business processes. To avoid the situation in which all these systems work in silos, it’s better to choose the CRM platform that can be seamlessly integrated with your mailbox, billing software, calendars, marketing systems, etc.
  • Sales process automation. When it comes to sales, CRM platforms allow a business to standardize and automate a whole host of mundane tasks and processes. In the long run, the optimization of lead nurturing, customer data management and personalization of buying experiences always result in increased sales and revenue growth.
  • Simplified collaboration. One of the most remarkable advantages of CRM platforms is the ability to improve cross-department data sharing and cooperation. The right software helps centralize information about your customers, marketing activities and customer support inquiries in one place. As a result, your employees will gain the full picture of customers and become more productive.
  • Actionable data insights. An effective CRM system is not just there to collect and store data. It also allows companies to analyze this information and provides insights into key sales, marketing and customer service metrics. Equipped with advanced reporting tools, the right CRM platform will help determine market trends, evaluate the company’s performance and define the strategies that work best for your business.

At a certain point, managing business data in spreadsheets or even manually becomes wastefully time-consuming and inefficient. Open-source CRM software can become your lifeline if you are drowning in a sea of poorly organized spreadsheets, siloed mailboxes and to-do task lists. The right CRM platform will help to bring order to your work routines and automate plenty of your business operations.