How to Choose a CRM System for Your B2B Company?

Whether you already have some basic solution for customer relationship management, or it’s your first-time experience with CRM, you might be having a hard time choosing the system that fits your needs.

Is a basic CRM platform, like Zendesk, enough for your small business? Should you consider a more complex solution that’s based on Salesforce? Is your business ready for switching to a completely custom business automation solution? Read on to find the answers to these questions and finally choose a CRM system that fits your needs.

To share the most useful insights, we’ve talked to marketing directors and CEOs of companies of different sizes and featured their opinions in the article.

What’s a B2B CRM?

A B2B CRM (Business-to-Business Customer Relationship Management) is a software solution designed to help businesses manage and optimize their relationships and interactions with other businesses (clients, partners, vendors, etc.).

CRM focuses on long-term business relationships, streamlining sales processes, and maintaining strong partnerships between companies.

The concept of CRM by itself includes a wide range of actions that should be taken to build and strengthen your relationship with prospective and existing customers. It includes lead generation, lead qualification and nurturing, customer satisfaction analysis, nurturing campaigns creation and management, and more.

Why Do You Need a B2B CRM?

A B2B CRM system is more than just a tool; it’s a comprehensive toolkit designed to streamline customer relationship management activities. It helps businesses collect, analyze, and act on customer data to enhance engagement and foster better relationships with their audience.

What makes choosing the right B2B CRM software challenging is that it serves both sales and marketing teams, two departments that often work with customers at different stages of their journey.

Integrating a B2B CRM solution with platforms like WhatsApp Business integration simplifies customer engagement by allowing companies to interact with consumers directly through the app. This integration streamlines communication, record-keeping, and customer preference tracking, leading to more personalized interactions.

Sales and marketing teams often operate differently, with marketers building awareness and attracting leads, while sales teams handle qualification and nurturing. In some companies, marketers also handle lead qualification, leaving sales to convert high-quality leads and predict churn.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to “what does a CRM system do?” Every business requires tailored features from their CRM for B2B to align sales and marketing efforts, improve customer engagement, and boost conversions. The best B2B CRM offers the right tools to meet these specific needs.

Her’s the list of the most common tasks CRM tools usually perform:

• Compile leads’ contact information into lists grouped by specific criteria (Source, the buyer journey stage, industry, etc.).
• Qualify and score leads.
• Segment mailing lists.
• Assist with managing and grouping the information on leads and customers.
• Control and monitor the objectives of sales teams.
• Export concise, digestible reports.
• Set up email campaigns.
• Create and enable automated workflows that are triggered by leads’ and customers’ behavior.
• Streamline the relationship between marketing and sales teams.
• Ensure fast and effective customer service.

Off-the-Shell CRM Software Vs Custom CRM Solutions

Should you invest in off-the-shell CRM software or a custom CRM solution? That’s an essential business-level question.

Off-the-shell CRM tools represent turnkey solutions supporting common functionality that you can’t adjust. The key advantage of these tools is that you don’t need to invest in supporting, fixing arising issues, and upgrading them.

When you build a custom CRM solution, you get a system tailored to your business needs that’s either based on highly customizable software, like Salesforce, or built from scratch.

Interested in Salesforce implementation services? Let Synebo contribute to your best project. 

Developing a CRM solution has to offer multiple benefits, because it:

• Includes a set of features other CRM systems don’t include.
• Enables you to adjust or develop new features as your business grows.
• Presents an all-in-one solution so you don’t need to worry about maintaining multiple integrations or managing tools that don’t connect.
• Allows you to access more granular customer segmentation and better customer management.
• Can save your budget significantly. Although the development of a custom system is more expensive than the cost of a basic CRM tool, you won’t be paying for upgrades or buying additional tools every time you need extra limits or features.

The major decision you make when choosing between these two options is whether you want to adjust your business processes to make them fit off-the-shelf software functionalities or make the custom software fit your business processes.

Looking for a trusted Salesforce provider to kickstart your project? Drop Synebo a line and let’s discuss opportunities for your business. 

How to Choose the Right B2B CRM for Your Company?

Salesforce or Hubspot? Zendesk or SuperOffice? Cloud-based or on-premise? The only way to make the right choice is to carefully examine your needs and priorities. The following eight points will help you to do so.

#1 Know Your Goals

There are thousands of available solutions for managing customer relationships. Some of them do a better job of lead tracking others are stronger when it comes to organizing business operations.

What are the major issues you’re trying to solve with a CRM tool? Make an ordered list of your marketing and sales goals to identify your priorities. These might include:

• Track leads;
• Create comprehensive customer profiles;
• Track opportunities;
• Build a sales pipeline;
• Connect teams;
• Create and manage nurturing campaigns;
• Generate customized reports;
• Automate business processes, etc.

Each off-the-shelf CRM solution has its strengths and weaknesses. If you aren’t ready to compromise any of the goals your CRM platform should be able to accomplish, this might be the first sign you need a powerful custom-built solution.

Brett Downes, founder at Haro Helpers, claims that nobody but you can perfectly understand your workflows:

“How you run your to-do list and approach tasks is key to determining what CRM would work for you. Originally I used a variety of Google sheets to track sales, marketing, payroll, etc. as I grew up using Microsoft Excel, but as I developed my business skills I found that Asana and Trello were more attuned to my instincts. Hence moving from sheets to HubSpot worked out for me.”

#2 Make a List of Essential Features

Co-Founder of Respona Farzad Rashidi says that it’s important to know what features are necessary for you specifically. He recommends putting together a list of your company’s needs. This will help narrow down the list of CRM systems. Then, include to it features that go beyond basic contact management such as Campaigns, Proposals, or Closing Deals tracking.

He also adds:

“One last thing: make sure you get quotes from multiple vendors based on price and the completeness of their solution so you’re confident in your investment with whichever vendor you choose.” 

Founder of Exploding Topics, Brian Dean adds that the first thing to consider is what you want the CRM system to accomplish for you. There are numerous quite sophisticated CRM options available, each with its own set of features. Most businesses, on the other hand, only use about a tenth of these features.

Steve Scott, CTO at Spreadsheet Planet recommends you to pay particular attention to the reporting functionalities of the platform of your choice.

“Robust reporting options are critical to your sales and marketing plan. Detailed reports can reveal how your consumers perceive your products and services (for example, customer satisfaction surveys); which sales reps are top performers in which areas; and which marketing channels are the most efficient in terms of reach and customer interaction. Make sure your CRM offers the reporting features you’ll need for a thorough analysis of your business.” 

#3 Consider Your Company Size

Abby Herman, Director of Strategy at Snap Agency, shares her story: 

She also adds:

“For example, one of my clients is a wedding planner and she wanted to have an on-premise CRM. This means she has 24/7 access to her data because she owns the software. The tool is expensive, but it pays off over time and that’s what she had in mind.”

#4 Who Are the Stakeholders?

Who is going to actively use the platform? Marketers? Sales? Customer support? All of them?

Take their opinions into consideration before making this decision. Talk to each team the tool will be useful for and ask about their routines and priorities. Are there any issues they’re experiencing most often?

A CRM system should help stakeholders solve their problems rather than impose new challenges.

#5 To What Extent Do You Rely On Automation Workflows?

A top-of-the-line CRM should do more than simply make your sales team’s job simpler. It should also relieve them of some of their more boring tasks, believes Eric Carrell, Chief Marketing Advisor at SurfShark.

“A CRM platform that is coupled with (or contains) an email marketing system should be able to send the necessary email sequence to a customer who places an order on your e-commerce store automatically. Another example: a CRM platform with an integrated appointment calendar may send emails to your sales reps reminding them of impending meetings.”

#6 Do You Need a Scalable Solution?

Think of where you expect your business to be in a year. What is its growth dynamic?

Small business owners make a common mistake of going after basic tools with standard, inflexible functionality that fits their needs here and now. In a few months, they realize the toolkit doesn’t solve their business problems anymore. Unfortunately, they already have too many processes being built based on the chosen platform, and they either lose their time and money invested to switch to a better solution or double their expenses and upgrade.

When you check pricing plans and features of different CRM solutions, consider what it’ll take you to access extended functionality. Maybe you don’t need a more expensive plan at the moment, but things will change soon.

You might think that you can switch any time, but that’s not the case. Each time you switch to a new CRM tool, you spend time and money to export all the data and adjust the business processes. That’s why you need to make sure that the CRM solution you choose can be easily upgraded to the next more sophisticated version.

#7 Pay Attention to the Necessary Integrations

“Anyone looking to adopt a CRM should validate that it will work with their existing software systems.”

Says Devin Ahern, Marketing Manager at Mid Florida Material Handling.

It’s most likely that your business operations already rely on quite a few tools and platforms. Make a list of all the marketing channels, accounting software, HR systems, lead generation tools, and other applications you use for your business needs. Make sure the CRM system of your choice integrates with them seamlessly or at least offers intuitive documentation for using APIs to build custom integrations.

#8 Onboarding and Support

Your vendor must provide everything you need to help you make the most of the platform’s features. Ideally, they should offer a customer support team providing a smooth onboarding experience, on-demand workshops, a knowledge base, and a live chat that you can use to report any arising issues and get help promptly.

Ryan Dalal, CEO & Founder of Word to PDF claims:

“The software business or seller is equally as significant as the product itself. For as long as you use the software, you’ll be reliant on the corporation for customer care and assistance. As a result, the vendor must be trustworthy. It must have customer support and help desk staff available at all times via all available channels and means, such as tickets, phone, email, social media, live chat, mobile, and so on.” 

What Are the Best B2B CRM Software?

When it comes to choosing the best B2B CRM software, businesses have a wide range of options tailored to fit their specific needs. From sales automation to customer engagement, the right B2B CRM system helps companies streamline processes, improve customer relationships, and drive growth. Let’s review the best solutions on the CRM market:

Salesforce CRM

Salesforce CRM is one of the most popular B2B CRM software solutions, offering extensive customization and scalability for businesses of all sizes. It is ideal for companies looking to manage sales, service, marketing, and analytics under one platform.

Features:

• Customizable dashboards
• AI-powered insights with Einstein Analytics
• Lead and account management
• Workflow automation
• AppExchange marketplace

Pro & Con: A key pro of Salesforce CRM is its high degree of customization, making it adaptable to various industries. However, the con is its steep learning curve, especially for smaller teams or new users.

Microsoft Dynamic 365

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a comprehensive B2B CRM system that combines CRM and ERP capabilities, offering businesses integrated tools to manage sales, operations, and customer service in one platform.

Features:

• AI-driven sales insights
• Lead scoring
• Customer service automation
• Integration with Microsoft Office 365
• Predictive analytics

Pro & Con: A major advantage of Microsoft Dynamics 365 is its seamless integration with other Microsoft tools, enhancing productivity. On the downside, its complexity and higher cost can be a barrier for smaller businesses looking for simpler B2B CRM solutions.

HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is a user-friendly B2B CRM software that offers a free version with essential tools for managing contacts, sales pipelines, and marketing campaigns. It is ideal for small to mid-sized businesses looking for an easy-to-use solution.

Features:

• Contact and pipeline management
• Email marketing integration
• Lead tracking and nurturing
• Task automation
• Reporting dashboard

Pro & Con: A significant pro of HubSpot CRM is its intuitive interface, making it easy to implement and use. The main con is its limited functionality in the free version, requiring upgrades for advanced features.

Freshworks CRM

Freshworks CRM is a powerful CRM for B2B that focuses on sales automation and customer engagement. It helps businesses streamline lead management, automate workflows, and engage with customers effectively through AI-powered tools.

Features:

• AI-based lead scoring
• Sales automation
• Email and phone integration
• Customer engagement tracking
• Reporting and analytics

Pro & Con: The standout advantage of Freshworks CRM is its strong AI-powered sales automation, which boosts productivity. However, the downside is that it lacks some advanced features compared to other best B2B CRM solutions.

Zendesk

Zendesk is a versatile B2B CRM system designed for businesses prioritizing customer support and service. It helps streamline communication with customers across various channels, offering ticketing and support solutions for managing inquiries efficiently.

Features:

• Multi-channel support (email, phone, chat)
• Ticketing system
• Customer interaction tracking
• Knowledge base creation
• Analytics and reporting

Pro & Con: A key pro of Zendesk is its powerful customer support capabilities, making it ideal for businesses with high service demands. However, it’s not as feature-rich for sales management compared to other B2B CRM solutions.

Groundhogg

Groundhogg is a lightweight, open-source B2B CRM software that integrates seamlessly with WordPress, allowing businesses to manage marketing and customer data within their website platform. It’s ideal for small businesses and startups.

Features:

• Email marketing automation
• Lead scoring
• Contact management
• Task management
• WordPress integration

Pro & Con: The biggest pro of Groundhogg is its WordPress integration, making it easy for small businesses to use without heavy costs. The con is that it lacks the depth and scalability of more advanced CRM for B2B systems.

Method CRM

Method: CRM is a highly customizable B2B CRM system designed specifically for QuickBooks users. It streamlines accounting and customer relationship management, making it easy for small businesses to track sales, invoices, and payments in one place.

Features:

• QuickBooks integration
• Customizable workflows
• Lead and contact management
• Sales tracking
• Invoice management

Pro & Con:
The standout pro of Method: CRM is its deep integration with QuickBooks, making it perfect for businesses relying on QuickBooks for accounting. However, its customization options can be overwhelming for users needing simpler B2B CRM solutions.

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is a flexible and affordable B2B CRM software that caters to businesses of all sizes. It offers a wide range of features, from automation to AI-driven insights, and is highly customizable to meet specific business needs.

Features:

• Lead and deal management
• Workflow automation
• AI-powered sales assistant
• Multichannel communication
• Analytics and reporting

Pro & Con:
A key pro of Zoho CRM is its affordability and scalability, making it one of the best B2B CRM options for growing businesses. The con is that some advanced features may require add-ons, increasing the overall cost.

Wrapping Up

Is there a tool that fits all your requirements? Whether you represent a small business or an enterprise, you need a robust CRM solution. Even you feel you don’t need advanced functionalities for customer relationship management at the moment, consider your business growth dynamics when choosing the right solution for your company.

Here at Synebo, we have substantial experience integrating business with Salesforce CRM. With more than 8 years of experience and over 1000 projects delivered, we can cover all your Salesforce CRM development needs. 

Ready to build a custom CRM system? Reach out to Synebo.