CRM (Customer Relations Management) Technology was previously thought to only be relevant for enterprises, but has now been on the rise in terms of being used by small and medium businesses across industries. Right now even small companies are starting to see the importance of using this to handle interactions between clients, customers and prospects.

Cloud or SaaS-based technology are starting to be hugely popular with businesses that are starting to grow, that being the fact that alleviate the problems that comes with installing and upgrading infrastructure to keep up with the ever changing demands.

As you decide on your options, you’ll need to keep in mind what’s the best way to hit your company’s marketing, business and sales needs as it grows. Here are some of the features small and medium business should look into in terms of CRM:

Access all of your needs in one big centralized solution

It can be a tough task to enter, track and update contact and customer information, more so if      those are store in disparate systems. The correct solution delivers all of your business needs to    track and manage contacts and interactions while at the same time making it easy for the        managers to     keep their mind around the pulse of all the activities.

2. Managing Customer Life Cycle

For you and your customers to get the most out of it you will need a solution that can help you             manage relations over a long span of time. Making it easy to keep in touch and interact with             customers, that’s what the best CRM should offer.

3. Gain more capabilities on the go

A solution that runs in the cloud and can keep up with your business, without the need to install,             maintain and upgrade hardware and software while giving you entry to a lot of applications and             features, that’s what you need to look for.

4. Finding the correct customer without the hassle

The best solution will help you find new prospects and companies that map your standards,             unveil relationships between different companies and give suitable information about contacts.     With fast access to contact information, getting in touch with prospect customers is just as easy             as pressing a button.

A lot of small and medium businesses are starting to get into SaaS-based CRM technology to answer their needs not only now but also in the future. Not all solutions are created the same. By finding the right solution to answer their unique needs, they can set themselves on the great path to success.

to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools marks a company’s progress to professionalism and multiple ways to profit. This here is a simple guide for those companies thinking of making this critical step in their development.

Before computers, there were a lot of combinations of manual tools salespeople used to track prospects and multiple contacts with those prospects needed to make them customers.

Some companies planning to succeed and grow realize that properly managing customers is the key to long term growth. They always notice even the small signs that possibly indicate a step up to CRM is already needed to improve how their customers value them.

Technology, process and people. These three are the foundations of a good CRM system. Smart companies take time to analyze their sales process, take note of where some improvements are needed, and start building new processes with taking into consideration employee training and also software application.

You need to take time to define each departments expectations of the new processes, make sure that they don’t adrift too far from other departments and the capabilities of the software involved, and not forgetting to make sure that those who are ahead will not create unmanageable expectations.  Also never forget to keep watch of the software vendor, as their product enthusiasm may outrun the abilities of your particular installation.

“You will need to expect a bumpy ride” – is the real-world segue from expectations to the transition to a CRM system. “It’s terrible, it’s somewhat getting better, it’s somewhat worse that what we thought, we’re home safe” – the process feels just like riding a roller coaster. The group that is most affected by the new CRM system is the sales department, they tend to suffer the most. Other employees who have used a different system will be complaining because the system at your company is different than what they know. With time and proper training all of these hassles for your transition time will be cured. They” get to know the software as use it over time.

Finally, social media interactions and call-center support will all be in one place, including all your other customer information. From initial contact to prospect to customer to long-term customer, you’ll be able to see the entire sales acquisition process, isn’t just that amazing? That is the best result of the CRM process.

The value of using Saas (Software as a Service) or cloud-based business applications has many proof of points. The return of investment is fast due to the fact that they offer fast deployment. With just a few hours a business can be smoothly running with basic deployment on SaaS CRM applications. And not only that, with a lower risk cost model of monthly or annual subscription it’s just that light on the budget.

But jumping into just any SaaS vendor for SaaS deployment for housing critical data and critical business applications can prove to be a serious risk.

There are many factors to consider when making that decision to deploy cloud-based business application specially when it comes to CRM systems. You would want to make sure that you are choosing a vendor with enough financial viability to best insure that you will have an issue-free and flawless experience over the long time you will be using their software. Plus, getting the best feature set for your business needs is one thing to consider.

Some assume that a product from “known companies” will mean getting an issue-less experience. However its not always like that. That’s because no matter if it’s a small or big company they can always terminate the support and/or development of their product. Choosing a vendor that can give you solid protection in case of prolonged downtime and problems, with the ability to run it anywhere is the best way to plan for this kind of disruption.

End users of SaaS need to understand that maintenance, software upgrades and outages are the three major areas that can affect your business, that’s because many arguments for deploying cloud-based applications is that it “just works” without necessarily needing the help of IT all the time.

IT is more likely responsible for the upgrades and maintaining the software they deploy, and are taxed with planning for unlikely changes; however the business is what feels the negative effects.

Also one thing to consider is that you should make sure that the provider doesn’t use your customer data for its own purposes, when another vendor hosts your data. For example, some CRM SaaS vendors tend to use customer data to power data services such as contact lists.

Now there are so many factors like usability, cost of operation and usability before you decide on a business application. Choosing the wrong vendor can have bad circumstances that can be unforeseen. Make sure you ask the correct questions to any potential vendor to avoid crippling downtimes and productivity impacts. And make sure to get written business continuity from all your SaaS service providers and either baked into an SLA or as a stand alone document.