Custom CRM Software Development: How to Do It Right?
Updated 01 Mar 2023
11 Min
1640 Views
Customer Relationship Management system or CRM is a must-have software for many businesses, from e-commerce to fintech. Such solutions allow storing, accessing, and managing crucial information about the customers.
Quick stats:
- The CRM market is expected to exceed $80 billion in revenue by 2025.
- According to Forester, 50% of teams improved their productivity using a mobile CRM.
- In 2008, only 12% of businesses had cloud-based CRM. Today, this number is 87%.
The stats are quite impressive. So, how to adopt a CRM system?
- Out-of-the-box-solution. You can use a CRM system from SaaS vendors. However, this option usually can’t fulfill all business requirements as such software is built for the mass market rather than a specific company.
- Customize a CRM software. Customization means adding features you need to a ready-made system. But it can be expensive and time-consuming. For example, an experienced Salesforce developer earns around $117k per year. Additionally, you have to pay Salesforce at least $25 per user per month.
- Custom CRM development. You can hire custom CRM developers to develop a solution meeting your requirements and business goals. This option can cost you a pretty penny, but there's no additional fee for using CRM.
In this post, we’ll cover custom CRM software development for you to learn when you should create a system from scratch and how to do it right.
When Is Custom CRM Development the Right Choice?
You should go custom if ready-to-use CRM solutions can’t meet your requirements. Before spending money on custom CRM software development, it’s better to study pre-packed CRMs like Oracle and Salesforce.
There are more reasons to choose CRM development from scratch.
Various integrations
If you need a bunch of integrations, you need to research whether ready-made CRM supports them. For example, there’re integrations for emailing, social media, and messengers. To keep working with all the services you’re used to, custom CRM app development is often a better option.
Clear business needs
Most CRM systems are made for the mass market. That’s why they can’t meet your expectations and requirements. If your company needs some specific features, you should pick development from scratch. For example, custom-made chatbots can offer more persopined support for your customers.
Unique design
Pre-packed CRM tends to have several design templates, layout of buttons, tabs, and more. Each company has its own workflow, and ready-made CRM systems have a standardized (often very complex due to a large number of features) design and few options for customizing it. Hence, you can spend a lot of time and money on staff training.
Cloud architecture
It’s possible to build a cloud-based solution for anytime access. All the data is stored in the cloud, so your team can get the necessary data anytime they need and from anywhere in the world.
Interested in cloud-based application development? I’ve already covered tech challenges and steps to follow during cloud app development.
Reasons to pick custom CRM development
Custom CRM Development: Types of CRM Systems
Choosing custom CRM application development, you should decide on platforms. CRM systems can be built for desktop, web, and mobile.
- Desktop. Custom CRM developers can create desktop solutions for macOS and Windows with the help of C++ or C# and Swift or Objective-C respectively.
- Web cloud-based CRM. For the web version, software engineers often use Angular, Bootstrap, JavaScript, and Node.js.
- Mobile. Native apps for iOS and Android or cross-platform mobile solutions powered by Flutter.
Types of Custom CRM Solutions
CRM development requires a deep understanding of existing types of CRM. There are three primary types on the market — operational, collaborative, and analytical.
1. Operational CRM
There are a bunch of features for marketing, sales, and customer service departments. The most common features are lead and contact management, sales pipeline, and helpdesk.
Existing solutions: Hubspot, Salesforce
2. Collaborative or strategic CRM
These CRM systems focus on customer interactions with your business. They tend to analyze the customers’ behavior and give insights into communication with clients. For example, there are sales and purchase history, marketing preferences, and tech support interactions.
Existing solutions: Pipedrive, Copper
3. Analytical CRM
Such CRM systems help companies analyze the information about customers. There can be customer preferences, channels, points of contact, interests, and more. The system provides you with insights, statistics, and analytics data.
Existing solutions: Zoho Analytics, Salesforce Wave Analytics
Types of CRM systems
Custom CRM Development Making No Mistakes
Custom CRM software development seems to be a perfect option for many mid-size companies and enterprises. Out-of-the-box software can’t provide specific features each company needs to do their business effectively. That’s why CRM development can save a lot of money in the long-term.
Let’s single out the steps of CRM application development.
Step #1. Do Your Homework
To get a useful product, you need to clarify your requirements and business goals to a development team. Before starting CRM development, it’s better to communicate with employees from marketing and sales departments to figure out their problems and ways to solve them with a CRM system.
There are three primary aspects to focus on:
Business goals
You can prioritize your requirements to achieve better results. For example, your CRM system can manage data flows or automate routine processes for your employees. Your business goals impact the design, CRM type, number of features, and even tech stack.
Security
Depending on the type of data in your CRM, you should consider security. Also, there are general and industry-specific standards. For example, CRM software development for healthcare requires additional certificates like HIPAA and GDPR.
Data regulations
Storing and managing information requires considering a bunch of rules and regulations. Mind that they can be different depending on your region. Such laws tend to limit your ability to collect specific customer information (address, relationship status, and more). It’s better to pay attention to PCI DSS, GDPR, and PIPEDA beforehand.
How much does a CRM implementation cost? Check our relevant article on this topic
Step #2. Define Key Features
A CRM system can have a variety of features. Choosing custom CRM development, you can pick a set of unique features to meet your requirement.
To make this section useful, I’ve described only must-have features of a CRM system.
Email marketing
It’s better to integrate the email system for marketing purposes. You can track the communication with every customer. The email marketing feature is useful since managers get a lot of emails every day.
CRM can send emails automatically. Also, you can add an opportunity to introduce an email sequence. For example, if a customer opens the first letter, the system sends the next one.
CRM features example: E-mail marketing (Source: Dribbble)
File sharing
CRM development lets you create a convenient way to store and share documents. Having all the documents in one place, you can give access to various departments or even employees. Also, the system can track all the interactions with documents. So, you can see who has edited the doc.
CRM features example: File sharing (Source: Dribbble)
Sales process
The CRM system needs a convenient sales tracking system, so that you can see the status of each order. It lets sales managers see what stage each lead is at the moment (new leads, contact made, qualified, and so on). This feature also lets you spot the stage where your company loses customers.
CRM features examples: Sales process (Source: Dribbble)
Reports
One of the most helpful features of a CRM system is customer analysis. The system collects data about each client, including purchase history, residence, and marketing preferences.
Based on the collected data, CRM makes personalized offers for each customer.
CRM features example: Reports (Source: Dribbble)
Chatbots
Choosing CRM development, you can think of business process automation.
Chatbots are perfect for customer support since they’re available 24/7. They also can automate many tasks:
- Answer FAQs
- Set reminders
- Schedule meeting with colleagues
CRM features example: Chatbots (Source: Dribbble)
Step #3. Think of a Desirable Budget
It’s quite complicated to determine the price of custom CRM development since it can vary between **$25,000* and $350,000 (or even go up). Everything depends on CRM complexity and your requirements.
To figure out the CRM development cost, it’s better to consult with the development team. You should explain your business goals to the IT specialists to get a more precise estimate.
As you can see, the CRM development cost may vary. Let's take a look at the main price drivers.
- Project complexity. The more complicated features you add, the higher the cost will be. Custom CRM developers need more time to develop essential features, not talking about a higher qualification.
- Developers’ location. Development price varies based on the team’s location. For example, companies from North America charge one the highest rates in the world. On the contrary, Asian software development companies have the lowest rates, but the product’s quality and customer service are often questionable.
- Seniority level. It’s common to divide custom CRM developers into three categories depending on their work experience — junior, middle, and senior ones. In the case with CRM systems, it’s better to hire more experienced specialists — middle or senior developers.
To give you a hint, we’ve estimated a custom CRM system for wedding planning. To develop this CRM, you need two front-end developers and two back-end developers. In this case, the development takes 9 months and costs $157,100.
The time and cost of custom CRM development is APPROXIMATE. We’ve estimated only basic features. To calculate an accurate price, we need to know the project requirements.
| Type of work | Time | |
|---|---|---|
Features
| 1214 hours for back-end development | 1604 hours for front-end development |
Admin panel
| 97 hours for back-end development | 83 hours for front-end development |
Frameworks and libraries integrations | 144 hours | |
Total time | 3142 hours | |
Total cost | $157,100 | |
Step #4. Find a Team
CRM is a complicated system with a bunch of integrations, so you should hire a team of custom CRM developers.
There are three widespread options to hire software engineers:
- Cooperate with freelance developers
- Create an in-house team
- Find a reliable outsourcing company
Freelance developers
Freelance is becoming popular these days. However, CRM development requires long-term cooperation, while freelancers tend to switch projects and fail deadlines.
In-house developers
Hiring an in-house team, you can control the development process and have smooth communication. But this option is the most expensive since there are a lot of additional expenses like rent, hardware, software, taxes, and more.
Outsourcing company
Due to affordable rates and high quality of the final product, outsourced development becomes a good option for many companies. You can also hire a dedicated development team for custom CRM application development.
In our experience, in-house developers or outsourcing are the most suitable options for CRM development.
Hiring custom CRM developers
Step #5. Support and Maintenance
CRM is a complicated system with many integrations, so you need to support and improve your software constantly. So, it’s better to continue cooperation with the development team.
Usually, project maintenance stands for:
- Bug fixing
- Stability and performance improvements
- Code optimization
- Latest OS versions support
- Adding new features
- Supporting the latest versions of third-party services
Wrapping Up
At Cleveroad, we provide enterprise-level software development services, including custom CRM software development.
Recently, our team has developed a CRM system for wedding planning. The system focuses on the Hawaiian market to connect agencies and various contractors (florists, decorators, and so on). The document template editor, Stripe and PayPal payments, and full-fledged email marketing were among the required features.
Unfortunately, the project is under NDA, so we can’t share more details. But feel free to look through our portfolio.
You can hire custom CRM developers to develop a solution meeting your requirements and business goals. This option can cost you a pretty penny, but there's no additional fee for using CRM.
Operational CRM. There are a bunch of features for marketing, sales, and customer service departments. The most common features are lead and contact management, sales pipeline, and helpdesk.
Existing solutions: Hubspot, Salesforce
Collaborative or strategic CRM. These CRM systems focus on customer interactions with your business. They tend to analyze the customers’ behavior and give insights into communication with clients. For example, there are sales and purchase history, marketing preferences, and tech support interactions.
Existing solutions: Pipedrive, Copper
Analytical CRM. Such CRM systems help companies analyze the information about customers. There can be customer preferences, channels, points of contact, interests, and more. The system provides you with insights, statistics, and analytics data.
Existing solutions: Zoho Analytics, Salesforce Wave Analytics
- Various integrations. If you need a bunch of integrations, you need to research whether ready-made CRM supports them. For example, there’re integrations for emailing, social media, and messengers.
- Clear business needs. Most CRM systems are made for the mass market. That’s why they can’t meet your expectations and requirements. If your company needs some specific features, you should pick development from scratch.
- Unique design. Pre-packed CRM tends to have several design templates, layout of buttons, tabs, and more. Each company has its own workflow, and ready-made CRM systems have a standardized (often very complex due to a large number of features) design and few options for customizing it.
- Cloud architecture. All the data is stored in the cloud, so your team can get the necessary data anytime they need and from anywhere in the world.
- Email marketing
- File sharing
- Sales process
- Reports
- Chatbots
- Collecting requirements
- Analysis
- Product design
- Development
- Testing
- Deployment
- Maintenance
Evgeniy Altynpara is a CTO and member of the Forbes Councils’ community of tech professionals. He is an expert in software development and technological entrepreneurship and has 10+years of experience in digital transformation consulting in Healthcare, FinTech, Supply Chain and Logistics
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