Many CRM systems come as a ready-made solution. Companies install and use it as the authors made them. Take it or leave it with all the advantages and disadvantages these factory settings bring. What if the company needs more? What if the industry specifics or management's visions push it to non-standard solutions? Fitting such requirements can be a real hassle for boxed products.
There is no single universal software that covers the needs of all companies. Each company is unique. They do not differentiate only in the business area, but also in the way they organize their tasks, projects, communication with customers, or how they evaluate data.
Have you already tried a system that would help you with the organization and evaluation of data? You may have found out that most of the information still ends up in the Fax (Btw. Have you heard about online fax called CocoFax?) or Note sticker because there is no field for the data you need to record. The more data you store in the wrong fields, the more you will forget what each field means. Working with it will be chaotic. The chances of finding a system that will help you with the organization and at the same time fit your needs in the basic settings are simply poor.
If Excel is not enough
You can also try to record all the data in Excel. This is a fairly common practice. Maybe you are a bit of a magician yourself and can create practical and handy tables that make life easier for you and your colleagues. However, constantly switching between Outlook and Excel and searching for individual spreadsheet files will not get you to the desired information just as quickly.
In CRM, all the data is linked. Wouldn't it be better to stay in Outlook and open the details of a supplier or order, in which you would have all the necessary information arranged as in a sideboard? And what if you could design the shape of the sideboard as you need? In eWay-CRM you can create your own forms, individual user fields, and your own values in drop-down menus.
Customize eWay-CRM as you need
If a construction company needs to register and subsequently search for a supplier, for example, based on the type of material, CRM systems do not take this type of data into account. Many companies are happy with data recording in Excel because they can name individual rows and columns in virtually any way. But that's just a fraction of how you can customize eWay-CRM.
- Custom fields
There are many reasons to create your own custom fields. These may be specific building materials mentioned or you may want to record your clients‘ details such as date of birth or hobbies.
Based on the values from the Steel Type field, you can filter only those suppliers who have the material you need. Or you can plan a corporate event for important clients for whom you have noted in the new Hobbies field that they like to play golf or go to the cinema or football.
Create new custom fields in the so-called eWay-CRM Administration Center and then place them in the Form Designer where you need. Working with the Administration Center is intuitive, and tutorial videos are available on YouTube if needed.
- Form Designer
Once you have created your own custom fields, it is good to place them in the form exactly where it will suit you. You can have similar fields next to each other, just use the Form Designer to do this. Everyone simply wants to see only the data they need for work. If the form is too complex, it is sometimes rather difficult to find your way around it.
You may argue that there is a lot of information you need to record and have them in the Project. Let´s create your own form for orders, complaints, tenders, and other types of projects separately. Of course, different data is important for each type of project, and those you don't need should not distract you. You can also edit the workflow for Projects, which can be useful for tenders that have more steps than regular deals.
Customizing forms according to your company practices is as easy in eWay-CRM as creating custom fields. You can create individual types of Contacts, Projects, Tasks, and other items in the Administration Center again and then move the custom fields in real-time in the Form Designer where you want them. Once you are happy with the settings of the form, you will save it, and it will then be the same for the entire company.
- Values in Drop Down Menus
The last part of the eWay-CRM puzzle are the values in drop-down lists. In some custom fields, it is more convenient and clearer to have predefined values. And you can set up what you need again.
Let's stick to customers‘ hobbies, for example. If the custom field was in the format of a text field, different colleagues would enter essentially the same hobby in different forms - for example, cars and race cars. If you sorted the list of clients alphabetically, a client with a race car would be hidden at the end of the list and would not receive a free ticket to a major international car show.
You may want to keep your hobbies in the form of a text box because the interests of clients are different. So, let's focus on the Customer Importance field, where most companies only need core values - say Low, Medium, and High. If this field was text and one of your colleagues entered Small instead of Low, such a customer would later be missing from the filtered list of companies with Low importance.
If three levels of importance aren't enough for you to evaluate customer importance, as you have several VIP customers to whom you pay special attention, watch our tutorial video. See how easy it is to create custom values in Drop Down Menus.
System growing with your family
You may now think of the custom fields you need to create, and you know how to customize each form. If you invested in the development of your own customized software, it would certainly suit you now. But you will probably think of other adjustments in a week, a month, or a year.
As your business grows, so do your demands, and you will need to add more to your already high software development costs. Even though you must wait for these adjustments, this is not the case with eWay-CRM. eWay-CRM is flexible, and you can make all the adjustments yourself immediately, free of charge, and easily.
