Finding the right CRM for your company can be difficult, as each business has its own unique needs. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry is no exception.
SaaS companies are usually engaged in business-to-business (B2B) selling the majority of the time. They sell software to other businesses that can fulfill a particular need or solve a pressing issue that company might have.
So what kind of CRM software is right for a SaaS business? We’ll explore that, the benefits of this software, and how monday sales CRM can seriously boost your SaaS sales team’s productivity.
Defining CRM and SaaS
What’s a CRM?
CRM is short for “customer relationship management.” CRM is commonly used as shorthand for “customer relationship management software.”
A good CRM system is essential to any sales team, as it contains all the elements needed to create and manage relationships with potential leads and existing customers.That includes contact storage, email and message archiving, automated features, templates for different marketing emails, and more.
What does SaaS mean?
SaaS stands for “software-as-a-service.” SaaS products are largely intangible but meet some kind of need or perform a function essential enough that people or businesses will pay for it. Adobe Photoshop and Google Cloud are both examples of popular SaaS products.
What is a SaaS CRM?
A SaaS CRM is a CRM software solution used by a company that sells SaaS products. SaaS companies usually sell two types of software products: ones other businesses can use like a CRM system, or consumer software products like Adobe Creative Suite. In fact, most major companies use a CRM to interact with customers to some degree. In fact, you’ve been on the receiving end of a CRM whenever you’ve bought something or given out your email online.
Think about the welcome email you got when you signed up for that newsletter or the thank-you email you got after your last online purchase. Those were sent automatically via a CRM. Those are two of the most common use cases, but there are so many more ways a CRM can be used to nurture leads and interact with customers.
Other examples of a SaaS CRM in action include:
- Checking in with website visitors to nudge them toward an action, e.g. sending a popup as they’re about to leave the page without clicking through to anywhere else.
- Sending a sales rep an automatic reminder to follow up with a lead three days after the initial call.
- Emailing payment reminders when users’ bill is about to come due.
The benefits of a SaaS CRM
There are myriad ways this powerful sales tool can work for your business, and the SaaS industry is no exception. Add customization and that functionality increases even further. Here are just a few things you get from investing in a good CRM:
Marketing automation features
When you get a CRM that can automate tasks like marketing emails, you free up more time for team members to seek out and build new customer relationships. Building automation into your marketing pipeline is one of the many features you get with monday sales CRM.
App integrations
Connecting outside apps like email clients and payment platforms expands the functionality of your CRM even further, and lets you do more in one place without the need to flip between tabs or applications. The more integrations a CRM has, the more useful it becomes.
Customer support and insights
Communicating with leads and customers should be easy and efficient. After all, you’re not likely to keep anyone around long-term if they can’t contact you with an issue. Live chat, video chat, and messaging help you stay in touch, while analytics tools present customer data to your team in actionable ways.
Customer retention
SaaS products rely on long-term relationships with customers. Taking it back to the Adobe example, their customers pay a yearly subscription fee to access their suite of professional creative tools. A SaaS CRM lets your company maintain contact with and continue to deliver on people’s expectations even after the initial deal is done — which means you don’t have to spend five times as much money bringing in new people.
Pipeline management
Any CRM worth its salt will allow you to track and prioritize leads so you’re directing your team’s attention where it most needs to be. In its board-based interface, monday sales CRM allows you to create sales flowcharts that track the position of each lead, who owns the account, relevant contacts, and more. Read more about pipeline management.
What is the best CRM for SaaS?
The best CRM is the one that best meets a company’s needs. Any SaaS business looking for a CRM should consider:
- Company size
- Company budget
- Business goals
- Scalability
Many SaaS companies start out small and grow quickly. If your goal is to bring in as many new leads as possible as quickly as possible, a CRM with robust automation features to send out large numbers of targeted emails would make sense. It’s also important to choose a CRM that’s scalable enough to keep up with projected growth.
The more popular CRM programs all provide this to some extent. Take monday sales CRM for example: it’s customizable, provides a host of integrations with established apps, and has a library of templates to combine with automation features — all features that make it perfect for a rapidly growing enterprise.
Other popular CRMs include:
- Hubspot: SaaS CRM for larger enterprise businesses with a robust feature set
- ActiveCampaign: Affordable and scaleable CRM good for starter businesses
- Salesforce: CRM geared toward online retailers with in-depth sales reporting features
monday sales CRM and your SaaS sales team
Your SaaS business needs a CRM that can be customized and grow with you. monday sales CRM’s interface can be customized to fit your sales cycle and the size of your team, with features that let you easily track sales progress and performance like:
- Dashboard views to see your whole campaign at a glance
- Sales flowcharts to track team and individual metrics
- Sales automations
- Email integration
And more. monday sales CRM is designed to work and scale with you so you can use it for the long haul.
FAQs
Do SaaS companies need a CRM?
The goal of any startup SaaS company is to reach as many people as possible quickly, then convert as many of those people as possible into leads that stick around for the long haul. And to be successful they have to do it at a large scale. The feature set of a good CRM lets businesses do that in a fraction of the time it would take to do it manually with even the best staff. So yes, every SaaS company should use a CRM if they can.
What are the five types of CRM?
CRMs aren’t all the same — sometimes they’re designed around a particular feature set. The five main types of CRM are:
- Lead management: Designed to find and attract as many leads as possible
- Contact management: Used as a client database to better connect with existing customers
- Sales management: Designed to track performance and sales metrics while making sales processes more efficient
- Marketing CRM: Boosts marketing efforts by segmenting current clients and targeting them with marketing content
- Customer support/helpdesk: Strengthens communication with customers via features like live chat to improve customer service
What are the “four Cs” of CRM?
The four guiding principles of good CRM use, also called the four Cs of CRM, are:
- Currency: Staying up to data on customer records
- Correctness: Keeping customer data accurate
- Consistency: Keeping data consistent across all platforms
- Completeness: Documenting the whole of the customer experience
Boost productivity and streamline workflows with a powerful CRM
Any SaaS business needs to be able to adapt and grow sustainably. A good CRM can help you do that, and grow with you.
Whether you’re tracking sales metrics, bringing in leads, or nurturing relationships with current clients via a SaaS CRM, monday sales CRM can help. Set up a free trial today to see what it can do for you.
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