Tag Archives: software

Why “Ease of Use” is the Most Important Feature of CRM Software

What are the most important features of your CRM? You’re probably thinking customizable contact fields, analytics, or being able to email from right inside your contact screen. But you’d be wrong. The single most important feature of your CRM is ease of use.

A little over 70% of senior executives would trade functionality for ease of use. Too many features can be overwhelming. We may think we need the app with all the bells and whistles, but when we look practically at how we use our software, extra features can really get in the way. Muck up the works.

Ease of use, on the other hand, is one feature that will help make your team’s day-to-day workflow simpler, happier, and frustration-free.

So, just what are we talking about when we talk about ease of use?

Here’s a great breakdown of some of the hallmarks of primo usability:

  • Simplicity. Is it so straightforward your technophobe uncle could use it?
  • Speed. Is it quick as a bunny after downing a shot of espresso?
  • Lack of Disruptions. Is it a smooth operator?
  • Ease of Integration. Is it BFFs with your favorite sales tools?
  • Consistency. Is it as reliable as Old Faithful?

With those things in mind, it’s a little clearer why ease of use is so important. That list is pretty much everything you could dream of in a new tool for your team.

But there’s more!

Here are three big benefits of top-notch usability.

User adoption

When a CRM is easy to use, it’s its own best advertisement. It sells itself to your team so they want to use it. This helps you get over the initial hurdle of convincing your team that they need a new system to begin with.

The tools your team uses should make their job easier. And if learning your CRM is a job in itself, your team is going to take to it as willingly as a kitten to water.

An easy-to-learn, intuitive CRM, on the other hand, makes for smooth and happy sailing.

Satisfaction

And speaking of happy, an easy-to-use CRM is integral to your team’s overall job satisfaction. Your team will spend a lot of their time each day interacting with your CRM. For most teams, especially in client-facing businesses, their CRM is one window on their computer that’s  always open.

And as with any window you gaze through day in and day out, your team will notice the little imperfections in your CRM. The little daily frustrations, hiccups, and confusions in a difficult-to-use CRM are like the cracks, nicks, and bug guts on your car windshield. They make you a little less adept at getting where you need to go, they impede your ability to see the whole picture accurately, and they make the job of going places less fun.

With an easy-to-use CRM, your team can just cruise on through their work days. An easy-to-use CRM, like a spotless windshield, facilitates a big-picture view, helps your team focus on what’s most important (your clients and contacts), and makes them that much happier at their job.

Productivity

Happiness isn’t all you have to gain from a simple CRM. Your productivity will increase as well, because happy people work harder.

In a recent study, 70% of staff said poorly performing technology is a drain on their productivity rates. Poor technology is also demotivating and results in higher employee churn.

You may not think a complex piece of software would trip up your team’s smooth functioning or even contribute to turnover. But technology is, in many ways, another member of every business team. Overly complex tools impede performance — much in the same way a difficult teammate would.

An easy-to-use CRM is a team player. It does what a CRM does best, and it does it well: it speeds connection, streamlines workflow, and keeps your team organized. Above all, it supports your team to focus on what it does best: grow your business, build relationships, and get stuff done.

There you have it — the power of ease of use in a nutshell!

Looking to get down to basics? Check out our blog on all you need to know about CRM, geared right toward CRM newbies.

Caitlin got her roots in inbound marketing before it got its name. As a teenager in the 90s, she promoted her independently published magazines by writing about the importance of indie publishing all over AOL. Now, Caitlin is passionate about moving people and society forward. She follows thought leaders in the National Speakers Association, the staffing industry, and all human rights movements. She loves learning and helping people learn.

The 11 Essential Types of Software You Need For Your Business To Succeed

At KarmaCRM, we’re all about helping you become more productive with your business. Here are the 11 essential types of business software you need to do better, make more sales, and achieve business success:

1 – Call automation

When you’re a small business, you want to leave a phone number around. In fact, having a phone number present increases paying customers and user interaction, perhaps a sign that your company is reputable and ready to do business at any time. How do you deal with all those calls streaming in though?

Grasshopper can help by setting that phone number through a virtual management layer that helps a call leap through the cell phones of your employees. Customers call the main line you display and then the call hops from one mobile phone to another until somebody can pick up and talk, ensuring that your promise of caring for your customer comes true.

2 – Customer Relationship Management

You want to know as much as possible about your customers. There’s no better way to do that than to store notes and insights in a customer relationship management software. Think of it as a living database that gets updated every time your team contacts a customer. A CRM helps frame a collaborative effort for everybody on your team to nurture relationships together.

We’re a bit biased, but we believe you’ll quickly see that KarmaCRM is the best value on the market. You can have up to 15 users collaborate together for $41/month–a per user cost of $2.75 a month, a fraction of most CRM systems out there.

3 – Email management

Do you feel like you’re drowning in email? One of the ills of the digital age has been the increase in unwanted communication because of how easy it is to email. Sometimes, it feels like there’s just not enough time to open your inbox, nevermind respond to it!

Missed emails can be the death of your business. Each email could represent a new growth opportunity that you haven’t seized. To be on top of your inbox, you’ll need a business software tool like Boomerang that can automatically tag your emails and resurface them if either you or the sender doesn’t follow up within a certain amount of time.

4 – Freelancer management

Need somebody to step in and help you out for a bit? It can be hard finding the right freelancers that can help get you to the next level, or can help you with a task you’ve been dreading.

Fortunately, services like Fiverr help you get people for creative tasks for $5 or slightly more, and platforms like Upwork can help you locate quality freelancers willing to work for you on a hourly rate. You can grow quickly with other people working for you.

5 – Payment processing

Have you ever needed to take credit card payments? Jack Dorsey of Square founded the company to help process payments seamlessly. With a wireless square hardware piece that can attach to any tablet, the company helps you collect payment at a fraction of the price of regular credit card processing. It handles all your receipts as well.

If you’re looking for online credit card collection, look no further than Stripe. This business software tool will help you process credit cards in the blink of an eye and automate away all the pesky security and communications issues that usually come with customer payment. You’ll be able to collect credit card payments for online services provided you have some friendly developers to help you out.

6 – E-Commerce

Have you ever wanted to sell your goods online? Take a look at Shopify, the full suite e-commerce solution that makes building an online store as simple as blogging.

Go from having no web presence at all to a website dedicated to selling your wares online.

You might want to have some help with this, but you don’t need to hire technical people. The Shopify interface is set up so you can build everything yourself even if you have never written a line of code.

7 – Accounting

Accounting is always a pain point. You need to record how your business is doing, but it can be a mess of a paper trail. Web accounting platforms like Freshbooks and Wave help simplify that pain by offering you a seamless way to record invoices, payments, and more. By giving you analytics and allowing for collaboration between different team members, accounting software can make sure that you’re not too busy counting your sales to make even more.

8 – Internal Communications

Ever wished you had a central place where all your team could get together and talk with one another? Slack is as close as you’ll get. The super chatroom allows people to interact with one another seamlessly, allowing everybody on the team to reach out to one another individually or as a group. Chat channels can be curated to talk about general, random or business-specific topics.

You can integrate a whole bunch of business software solutions so that the Slack chat room becomes populated not only with your team’s communications, but also its actions. Imagine a searchable dashboard that could show you what your team was thinking and doing, a stream of Google documents being made along with the communication and context around it. This is what Slack and internal communications platforms offer now.

9 – Social Media Management

You should be on social media. It’s one of the most important channels for a business to differentiate itself and reach new customers. How do you manage all those different social outlets though?

A business software tool like Buffer can help you schedule all your posts at once. You can then analyze exactly what results they’re bringing for engagement and clicks.

10 – Social Media Monitoring

With all the traffic that’s happening around your brand online, you need to analyze different customer conversations and engage with people.

Check to see what people are saying with monitoring tools like Mention. These business software tools pull in conversations around the web into an easy-to-view dashboard with easy export capability so you can analyze exactly what’s happening around your brand online.

11 – Swag management

Every small business needs swag for different reasons. Maybe you want to do local events. Maybe you want to hand them out as gifts. Whatever the reason, company t-shirts and pens are often one way to say that you’ve made it as a company and as a brand.

It can get cumbersome dealing with individual orders, especially if you don’t know where to start. Fortunately, services like Printification help you manage everything from design to order fulfillment so you can get to handing out swag faster.

With software for call automation, customer relationship management, email management, freelancer management, payment processing, e-commerce, accounting, internal communications, social media management, social media monitoring and swag management, you’ll be well on your way to business success!

What kind of business software do you think is essential to your business? Comment below 🙂








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I’ve been hacking at various business ideas since I was 16. I’m a full stack developer and love crafting user experiences. I’ve been nose deep in code since I put the legos down, and built several successful businesses in the process. I’ve lost some hair, gained some experience and throughly enjoyed the journey.