Top 5 CRMs For Manufacturing

Abhishek A Agrawal
January 25, 2021

Every product that we come across has been manufactured somewhere in the world. There is a complex yet magical process involved in transforming mere raw material into unique products. However, it isn’t easy to get the manufactured product into the consumer’s hands. If anything it is a super tedious process.

In recent times, the manufacturing industry has witnessed a massive digital transformation. Traditionally, a manufacturing company always responded to whatever a customer requires. But with the current landscape it has now changed its pace and evolved to be more customer intelligence-centric. Instead of waiting for the customers to tell them what they need, companies are now accurately predicting what will be in demand by leveraging the right kinds of tools and technologies.

Considering the long chain of distributors/retailers and complex sales cycles, it puts a massive pressure on the sales and marketing teams to figure out the requirements of the distributors’ and consumers, and manufacture products with intelligent insights.

The main challenge arises when this data is fragmented across multiple systems. Since different teams in most companies use various tools, they cause internal data silos, and unorganized data that is never adopted.

Ultimately, it doesn’t provide the clarity needed for making smart decisions and results in a disconnected customer experience.

In such a scenario, what is the best way for manufacturers to include customer-centricity in every aspect of their business process?

The answer is a CRM software for the manufacturing industry like CompanyHub.

Surprisingly enough, several manufacturing companies including the small scale ones have started leveraging CRM softwares. This tactful decision, enables them to make use of techniques like lean production and automation to meet future demand.

Considering the speed of change and the agility that a company needs to survive the fast pace of competition in today’s world, the role of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has never been more important.

 

Companies Are Leveraging CRM For Manufacturing Industry To:

  1. Streamline their business processes and deliver unparalleled customer service.
  2. Getting a 360-degree view of their customers.
  3. Improve sales management.
  4. Boost team productivity.

A CRM tool like CompanyHub specifically designed for the manufacturing industry with the quintessential manufacturing features can add value by creating a leaner organization that anticipates customer demand and meets it quickly and efficiently.

Here are a few reasons why the manufacturing sector needs a CRM:

  • Customer Analytics
    A CRM empowers a business to have the ability to gain complete insight into customer data across people and platforms at a practical level.

 

What does this mean for my business?

  • Better Lead Management
    One of the best things about having a CRM is that once you have your customer’s profile in your CRM software, the data can be accessed across multiple teams and departments. It makes the handoff from marketing to sales seamless and ensures a personalized customer experience across each stage of the buyer journey.
  • Market Segmentation
    When it comes to complex purchases, it’s likely that multiple people are involved in the process. A CRM for manufacturing enables you to segment your contacts into multiple buckets within a single account and provide them with personalized messaging, offers and a streamlined experience that leaves them delighted.
  • Sales Pipeline Helps Analyze And Improve Sales Processes
    Having intelligent insights about deals in your sales pipeline is extremely critical. Without leveraging a CRM, getting such insights is not only difficult, but confusing, as well.

    Most businesses that don’t use a CRM, end up using a spreadsheet to track each lead as it travels through the pipeline. However, that’s a super inefficient approach. It is too much of counterproductive manual work and doesn’t provide true visibility.

    But, a CRM like CompanyHub is designed specifically for manufacturing streamlines and simplifies the process. With a wide variety of pipeline tools and graphs you can get a visual representation of the data making it simple to understand and interpret. The most amazing feature is the ability to view summaries of the entire pipeline for the big picture view as well as drill into specific accounts. It provides a view of each stage, every opportunity is in and how much each deal is worth.

 

Synchronize Your Marketing And Sales Efforts

CRMs specifically for the manufacturing industry helps you synchronize your marketing and sales efforts via lead management. When your sales team tries to find new distributors and/or retailers to partner with, they need to focus on the ones most likely to convert.

As you target leads with marketing campaigns, the CRM tracks their responses and interactions. The system presents this data via tools like a hotness meter to show which contacts are worth pursuing based on their likelihood of converting.

 

Accurate Sales Reports

With a CRM tool like CompanyHub that is built exclusively for the manufacturing industry, the ideal time required to develop a product from the concept phase to market delivery can be dramatically cut short. Which in turn saves a company from investing in a bunch of manufacturing planning software.

  • Help Forecast Demand Better
    Accurately predicting what’ll happen in the future is one of the hardest parts of any job.

    Luckily for your sales team, a manufacturing CRM can do most of that work for them. CRMs track every order your customers place so you have a full record of what each customer ordered, when they placed the order and how much it cost.

  • This In Turn Leads To Improved Production & Promotional Activity Planning
    By leveraging a CRM, manufacturing companies can seamlessly generate accurate sales forecasts. Here’s how:

    1. It can easily learn about the buying patterns of each customer.
    2. It can determine both short term and long term trends, such as sales increases or decreases across several years.
    3. By computing several layers of data it accurately analyzes it and generates accurate sales projections that can be leveraged for the future.

 

Improve Product Quality

The manufacturing industry is famed for being one of the most turbulent and violently competitive industries. To survive it, a manufacturing company has to keep producing high-quality products consistently and efficiently. If the quality of the product is degraded or loses its quality it results in unhappy and unsatisfied customers, affecting the sales and revenue of the company.

  • Better understanding of customers’ needs leads to improved product quality and hence, better customer satisfaction
    With a CRM like CompanyHub it is really easy to gather and analyze data from multiple sources and figure out process errors in real-time that contribute to product defects. By leveraging sales projections and having insights into customers’ buying patterns enables you to leverage data intelligently and keep your customers satisfied with an unified experience.

 

Better Customer Experience

Manufacturing CRM systems let the customer support staff help the customer immediately and also provide valuable insights that help improve product quality and business processes over time. This streamlines the operations, lowers costs and increases profits.

  • Improved Customer Relationships
    Unified customer data under one platform is one crucial area where a CRM software improves customer relationships by letting you serve them intelligently. With a CRM, you can get historical customer data in a matter of seconds and quickly relay it back to any team you like.
  • Improved Chances Of Repeat Sales
    The power of having historical customer data in your arsenal can definitely help improve customer relationships. But, it lets you gain insights into deep customer behaviours like peak order times and purchase patterns for each customer. And with the CRM data mapped out by big data analytics tools, your team can make informed decisions not only when to sell, but also what to sell.

    By leveraging this data, your sales team can easily upsell and cross-sell to existing customers.

 

Efficient Supply Chain Management

For any manufacturing company, simplifying and optimizing business operations is a crucial drill. Failing to do so can result in overly complex processes.

By deploying CRM in the manufacturing sector enables manufacturers to gain detailed and useful insights about operations, inventory management, order processing, warehousing and distribution chains.

With an intelligent supply chain, manufacturers can deliver phenomenal results as it empowers firms to manage production schedules. Moreover, it lets you move products quickly from production to warehouse to the market.

 

Data Accuracy And Transparency By Synching Data Across Applications

CompanyHub and other similar CRMs let you access accurate data across multiple horizons, unified into one intuitive platform. It simply means that a CRM software has the capability to integrate easily to multiple third party apps and software like ERP, BI, HR — for added functionality and streamlined operation.

 

What additional features help CRM qualify as the most suitable choice for you?

  • Ease Of Use
    A good CRM has the most simple and intuitive user experience. Even if your staff is not so well versed with technology, the users’ ability to test new capabilities before rolling them out makes it really simple to use. With CompanyHub your employees can easily learn how to use it and get used to handling new changes.
  • Mobile Friendly
    What if your teams could access client information on the go? Customer relationship management on a remote device using mobile CRM programs and apps is crucial to improve the field service experience. By having a mobile app version of the CRM your staff can view data and receive valuable alerts about campaigns on their mobile or tablet.
  • In-Built Quoting System
    Believe it or not, but a CRM functions as an inventory database for your products. A CRM lets you keep up with quotes for the products that you sell individually. Easily gain insights into your product performance with customers and where sales are lost. Your teams can then access this data from anywhere, whether it’s a desktop or a mobile device, speeding up your payment process.

 

Top 5 CRMs For Manufacturing Sector

There are several CRMs in the market, but particularly for the manufacturing sector, you need to ensure that your CRM has the below features.

  • CPQ (configure-price-quote) application
  • Channel management.
  • Forecasting tools
  • Integration option
  • Business process management (BPM)

 

We have made a comprehensive list of the top 5 CRMs that will suite all your manufacturing needs

Most Popular

CompanyHub

To get everybody on board, you need a system that is easy to understand and simple to use. CompanyHub’s CRM for Manufacturing has been particularly made for those who wouldn’t call themselves tech-savvy. Their 360 view and easy drag and drop functionality suits employees of different skill sets, and makes it easy for all of them to use the software to its fullest.

  • Pros

    • Tailor-made specifically for every industry’s specific requirements
    • 40% fewer clicks and navigation time than other CRMs
    • 360 view and easy drag and drop functionality suits employees of different skill sets, and makes it easy for all of them to use the software to its fullest.
    • Simplified pipelines for each and every processes
    • Supply chain management
    • Reporting
    • User-friendly app for the field guys
  • Cons

    • Lack of landing pages
    • SMS support is not added to their automation feature yet
    • No white label support

 

Salesforce

This is a CRM that is suitable for companies of any size, that delivers sales and customer service capabilities for both the B2B and B2C domains. It helps businesses work more efficiently, and share business data via integration. Capabilities include real-time tracking, visual workflows, forecasting, marketing tools and reports. Equipped with a mobile app for iOS and Android devices and deployed in the cloud, it enables unrestricted access so users can work from anywhere.

  • Pros

    • Provides AI-Driven Insights
    • Adapts to Business Needs
    • Aids Partner and Channel Management
    • Delivers Personalized Engagements
    • Streamlines Quotes
    • Unifies Business Apps
    • Enhances Sales Performance
  • Cons

    • Ability to personalize prospect and application pages so that fields can be customized to individual preference
    • Needs improvement in reporting systems
    • Hard to use or intimidating for a newcomer or employees who are not so tech savvy

 
Most Promising

Sage CRM

Sage CRM can be used for processes across the entire organization. Manufacturers use it for opportunity and lead management in the sales department. Additionally it is good for collections tracking in your accounting department, scheduling across the organization but for your service delivery department as well.

  • Pros

    • Integration to your accounting system allowing sales to view accounting info and accounting to view sales info.
    • Integration to third party applications. Integrate CRM to your marketing and support apps to create a 360 view of information about customers in one place.
    • Workflow Automation around our key business processes.
    • Reporting and Dashboards capabilities providing visibility into performance quickly and efficiently.
  • Cons

    • Outdated Interface. Needs to be modernized.
    • Better integration to other applications from the cloud version.
    • Screen size could improve, excess scrolling.

 

Hubspot

HubSpot’s CRM is a customizable, cloud-based system that helps increase sales and automate sales processes, saving time at every stage of the funnel. Its unique features enables customer and prospect nurturing, improves lead conversion rates and facilitates efficient pipeline management. Capabilities include quote generation, communication management, automated reminders and follow-ups, standardized email templates, effective metrics, dynamic dashboards and more. It is available on mobile devices and caters to businesses of all sizes.

  • Pros

    • Unified CRM
    • Improved Lead Identification
    • Enhanced Lead Connection
    • Efficiently Managed Pipelines
    • Mobility
    • Improved Lead Conversion
    • Smooth Integration
  • Cons

    • Costly once once premium functions are added
    • Not so easy to configure for more complicated companies

 

ZOHO

Zoho CRM incorporates lead management, marketing automation, contact management, multichannel forecasting, territory management, and a host of other capabilities. Built with conversational AI, it supports users by predicting lead and deal success, offering a voice assistant, and suggesting activities to automate based on behavior analysis. You can easily leverage workflow automation to streamline manual tasks and stay on top of performance with real-time reporting and analytics.

  • Pros

    • Centralize Your Communication Channels
    • Track Performance With Real-Time Data
    • improve Performance With AI
    • Support Mobility
    • Customization and Integration
  • Cons

    • The user interface is clunky and dated looking
    • Workflow automation limited to Professional Tier

 
Rising Stars

Netsuite

An easy to use CRM that is perfect for companies that have multiple processes and many employees who get in touch with customers. In a scenario if an organisation has a well established structure and needs a tool to efficiently maintain finance, administration, and other teams to have access to CRM data this tool is perfect.

  • Pros

    • Inventory reconciliation
    • Multiple options to automate the processes and save time
    • Easy to navigate while assisting customers / agent friendly user-face
  • Cons

    • Not as user friendly for customer service agents
    • Easier API with agent friendly ticketing systems
    • Agents are able to add functions without having to get help from developers

 

Creatio

Creatio is an easy to use CRM that simplifies marketing, sales and services efforts for seamless business functionality. Users can utilize customer service management and take consultation from leading experts in the industry. It unifies a BPM engine and CRM functionalities to power operational tasks. Key features include contact and lead management, email marketing, pipelines, dashboards, project management, SLAs and a contact center.It offers mobile access for Android and iOS devices that can be used for updating and adding contact, account and opportunity information, making calls, and sending SMS messages.

  • Pros

    • Sales Forecasting
    • Business Process Management
    • Document Flow Automation
    • Customer Segmentation
    • Customer Portal
    • Website Behavior Tracking
    • Email Marketing
    • Email Reporting
    • AI and Machine Learning
    • Low-Code Platform
    • Integrations
  • Cons

    • Integration to third party tools is limited
    • Changes are easy to do, but they normally require compilation
    • The security is very detailed and can be aligned to every model. But, some changes applies just to new records, not to historical information
    • Analytics tool is simple to use and powerful, but it still requires some additional features, like calculated variables and export

 

What To Do Next?

We’ve established the advantages of manufacturing CRM systems, how to determine if your manufacturing business can benefit from a CRM and what essential features to look for and some of the top solutions available.

We recommend that you start by exploring CompanyHub’s main CRM features. This will give you a better idea of what to expect from your average CRM vendor.

Sign up for a free trial of CompanyHub and create, control, and communicate better with CompanyHub’s CRM For Manufacturing.
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