A recent report by national research firm provided insights on CRM for small and midsize businesses. This firm benchmarks best practices in technology-enabled business initiatives. Their findings provide actionable insights that allow companies to make smart business decisions and match their needs with vendor solutions.
In this recently published research, they ranked 15 different CRM solutions as either “Best, Better, or Good” in the categories of: Easy of Use, Features and Functionality, and Ease of Deployment. The entire scoring was rolled up into a summary category called “Overall Value” in which GoldMine Premium was ranked “Best” along with 4 other CRM products.
The basis for comparison analysis was broken down into the following areas:
- Reasons to Implement
- Value Drivers
- Challenges
- Performance Metrics
For copyright reasons I can not post this study. However, it is available for individual use. Contact First Direct Corp. at (800) 935-4386 for information.
From First Direct’s own experience, I have found the biggest determinant for success has much less to do with the software than it does the commitment to best practices of the firm using it. The effort put forth to plan and design the system’s configuration, user preferences, and various settings in the system to fit your businesses processes and needs is critical for getting off on the right foot. Training and coaching users is critical. Management has to promote usage and look for effective ways to leverage the system and data to derive value and reinforce usage.
Ultimately, a firm can be successful or fail with virtually any CRM product. The outcome is determined far more by the firm than by the CRM application. Still, the fact that GoldMine scored so highly in the research report I am referring to is positive reinforcement for an investment in GoldMine Premium.
