What does the best CRM software look like? The anatomy of a great solution

The word “best” is kind of subjective.

The best ice cream flavor, for example, will depend on your personal taste and brand of choice (though mint chocolate chip ice cream is close to perfection).

In the context of CRM software, “best” also depends on your needs, business size, budget, and many other factors.

So, instead of exploring a list of CRM solutions and defining one as “the best,” we’ll focus on what a great CRM platform should offer and what that looks like in the real world.

Let’s start with the basics.

What’s a CRM?

Imagine that you’re a local business owner in a pretty small town — the kind of town where everyone knows each other by name.

People come to your shop because they know you, like you, and trust you. You’re friends with your customers, and they enjoy your service.

Sounds good, right?

In a dream world, every business should feel like that.

Sadly, the internet has made business relationships more impersonal, generic, and unauthentic.

Most brands focus solely on social media, marketing campaigns, and sales automation. But customers long for and demand more genuine relationships. How can you make the shift?

That’s where a CRM platform comes in.

Let’s explore the point a bit further.

Why are CRM systems essential for success?

With the right CRM system in place, you can build a friendly business environment where you can offer a more personalized customer experience.

This is crucial.

Currently, 7 out of 10 customers only engage with brands that tailor their messaging to fit customer interests.

An even more surprising study reveals that 90% of the U.S. public find personalization very appealing.

It makes total sense.

Humans are egocentric creatures.

Customers don’t care about how good your marketing campaigns are or how well-known your brand is. All they care about are their desires, fears, frustrations, and goals.

To stay relevant in the hyper-competitive world we live in, you must embrace the fact that personalization is the future of business, and CRM systems play a huge role in that process.

With a combination of marketing automation, contact management, sales forecasting, and project management, the right CRM platform helps you build more solid customer relations and thus improve your overall results. 

Get started with monday.com

What does a great CRM software look like in the real world?

Now that you understand the importance of finding a great CRM tool for your organization, let’s discuss how to do it.

We’ll focus on 5 essential traits any effective CRM system must offer.

Let’s break them down.

1. Speed and efficiency

This might seem obvious at first glance. I mean, shouldn’t all CRM software solutions be quick and efficient?

Sadly, it’s not the case.

I won’t point fingers, but I know of many solutions that are too complex for the average user, leading to confusion and massive delays. Teams spend too much time trying to figure out the platform rather than working, which is counterproductive.

If a CRM system doesn’t help your team stay efficient, it’s probably not worth it.

The right platform must be a time-saver in your organization.

For instance, we at monday.com understand how busy today’s teams are. That’s why we provide you with a simple, intuitive platform from the start.

Our interface is so visual, anyone can start in minutes. You don’t need any type of training or coding skills to get the most out of what we offer.

Besides, with our workflow automation features, you can let our robots do the “dirty work” so you can focus on what really matters.

You can “assemble” recipes to automate:

• Status changes
• Notifications
• Recurring tasks
• Reminders
• Item creation
• Dependencies
• And much more

With monday.com, you can automate over 250,000 human actions, which gives you unlimited combinations to streamline even the most complex of workflows.

And if that’s not enough, we also provide you with ready-to-use templates for different use cases and industries. This way, you can start even faster.

In the context of CRM, we suggest you try out our fully customizable CRM template.

It’ll help you store and manage contacts, assign deals to specific team members, and see how such deals are progressing at a glance.

2. A great environment for collaboration

What do couples and teams have in common?

Lack of communication tears both apart.

Communication is the glue that keeps a team together and working cohesively.

Think about it:

At the end of the day, CRM systems exist to get rid of silos between marketing, customer service, and sales. These teams should work in tandem to close more deals, build better experiences, and get the most out of every customer interaction.

If those teams are disconnected and working separately, your results won’t be as good.

That’s why any CRM solution must offer a space that fosters communication, and not the opposite.

For instance, at monday.com, we offer a collaborative CRM solution.

From the moment you create an account, you can invite your team members right off the bat.

Once they’re in, you can assign them tasks, communicate in real-time, brainstorm, and measure how everyone is progressing.

You could create a board for sales reps where you assign them deals and measure the status of each.

You could then turn the board into a reporting dashboard and measure generated revenue by each sales rep. This could be helpful for tracking commissions or simply understanding how your team is working.

And that’s just a simple example of what you can do.

In practice, the sky’s the limit.

Said simpler: monday.com doesn’t just offer some collaboration features — IT IS a collaborative platform.

Here’s a quick overview of how you can manage your team with monday.com:

3. Flexible customization

Play is an essential aspect of work.

As Mark Twain put it:

“Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.”

When you turn work into play, you come up with new ideas, think outside the box, and innovate.

But what does this have to do with CRMs?

Well, most platforms out there aren’t designed for play. These CRMs force you to work in a specific way and don’t let you experiment, build, and design.

That’s why when you stumble upon a roadblock such as new processes, data regulations, bigger teams, etc., you won’t know what to do — these platforms kill your creativity.

Even if you know what to do, you can’t customize the platform to fix the problem.

In other words, any great CRM solution must be customizable enough so you can make quick changes, design new workflows, and experiment on new processes with ease.

At monday.com, we’re doing our best to build a platform where you can play.

From the moment you create an account, you get access to:

• 30+ column types to structure workflows and set specific functionalities
• 20+ dashboard widgets to visualize different aspects of your customer data
• 200+ templates for different use cases and industries
• 40+ native integrations with some of the tools and apps your team relies on
• 8 data visualizations to see your sales pipeline from different perspectives

All of these elements come with built-in drag-and-drop functions, so you can play and build a platform that feels like it’s yours.

This gives you the flexibility you need to adapt to the constantly changing business environment we’re experiencing and solve new problems with enhanced efficiency.

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4. A single source of truth

You’ve probably heard that “information is power.”

I’d change that phrase to be: “the right information, supported by a clear goal, and turned into action, can be powerful.”

In a world where teams get information from too many sources, you need a way to centralize all that data into a single place — a place where you can analyze and use it to make smarter decisions.

No matter how many leads you have or how many sales calls you bring in, without a proper system in place to interpret such information, it’ll all be worthless.

Now, the point here is twofold:

First, make sure the customer relationship management software you choose integrates with the most vital tools you already use. If it doesn’t, you’ll have a hard time collating all that info and then manually moving it into your CRM.

Second, choose a platform that offers powerful analytics and reporting. This way, you can use customer information to improve your decision-making.

For instance, at monday.com we offer both.

As we stated previously, you can integrate over 40 platforms in different areas, including marketing, sales, customer service, and more.

And in case you can’t find a specific tool or app, we also offer a Zapier integration so you can set a custom rule.

We even offer powerful and fully customizable reporting dashboards where you can visualize customer data in a way that makes sense to you.

5. Scalability

Many CRM platforms can’t handle your growth.

Sure, those platforms work well, as long as you’re a small team getting started with lead generation. But as soon as you start adding more team members, expanding your customer base, or just growing in some way, they don’t “fit” anymore.

Avoid those platforms like the plague.

The goal of any CRM tool must be to help you grow smoothly.

With monday.com, you can start with as few as 3 team members. As you grow, you can start adding more users — we call them “seats” — and grow your way up to 200+ team members.

Whether you’re a freelancer trying to get more clients or a large corporation wanting to improve operations, our platform will fit your exact needs (and expand whenever you want).

How to build the best CRM software for your team with monday.com

As we stated previously, “best” is mostly subjective.

So, what’s “the best” online CRM software?

One that’s designed by you, for you.

Here’s where monday.com comes in.

Let’s quickly discuss how.

What’s monday.com?

monday.com is a fully customizable Work Operating System (Work OS) — a platform where you can design your own digital workspace.

Sure, you can use monday.com to build a custom CRM system, but that’s just the beginning.

Companies in different industries use our platform with different goals in mind, including:

• Saving time: like Playtech, which saved 3 hours/person per week thanks to monday.com.
• Driving sales: like Entrepreneur, which increased overall digital sales by 23% after adopting our platform.
• Improving customer engagement: like Deezer, which increased customer engagement by 483% in weeks.
• Building more cohesive teams: like ThoughtWorks, which improved global team collaboration by 73%.

And many more.

Currently, more than 100,000 teams use monday.com to work more efficiently. You can read more success stories here.

But you’re here to learn more about CRMs, right? So let’s quickly talk about what we bring to the CRM table.

CRM features

Some of our top CRM features include:

• Sales pipeline management: oversee the progress of all your deals and keep a close eye on your sales team’s performance.
• Lead management: store and manage unlimited contacts and track any customer interaction with ease.
• Lead capture forms: create customizable forms to capture relevant information.  
• Order management: track, manage, and process orders in a single place.
• Customer support: streamline your customer service processes and deliver a better customer experience.
• Team and task management: assign specific tasks to team members and see the status of each at a glance.
• Project management: manage entire projects from start to finish.
• Workflow automation: get access to automation recipes to get the most out of your efforts.

To get a more thorough understanding of our CRM features, we suggest you watch this short video:

Time to choose the right CRM for you

Now that you know what a great CRM looks like, it’s time to put that info into action to choose one for your team.

Whether you’re a business owner, the leader of a marketing team, or a sales executive, the right CRM software will help you drive more growth to your organization.

With monday.com, you not only get access to powerful features to manage your customer relationships efficiently, but also the opportunity to build a platform that feels yours and fits your exact needs.

To start, why not try our fully customizable CRM template and experience the power of a flexible Work OS for yourself?

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