CRMs for Architects
What is a CRM
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and describes a set of tools that help businesses manage their most important asset: their customers.
CRM software is a platform that lets you manage the entire life cycle of your clients, from sales and outreach to promotions and customer support.
Should you use CRM software as an architect?
The goal of using a CRM is pretty straightforward – to grow your business by optimizing and unifying everything related to customers. Improving sales tactics, converting customers, leaving customers more satisfied, upselling, getting more referrals – you can reach all that by properly using a CRM tool.
Larger architectural firms have a CRM solution implemented and tested. Still, even if you are only starting your practice or working independently, you need to have a customer management platform.
The point is not to chase the latest sales technology with a steep learning curve but to have a simple and scalable tool that will ensure maximum customer satisfaction while focusing on the work you do best.
We’ve specifically developed PlanMan to address the basic CRM needs of architects and let you grow your business.
Benefits of CRM for architects
An adequately set up CRM will help you achieve several specific benefits, some of which are not so obvious. For example, we’ve observed our clients make significant progress after switching their customer communication to PlanMan, and this is what they have reported:
1) A CRM helps you know your customers better. That, in turn, helps you position and market yourself better and tweak your service to address specific needs your real customers have. This is essential for independent architects that need to stand out from the competition.
2) Better customer service thanks to clear communication, transparent updates, instant chats, and other features our client communication module allows. Satisfied clients result in more referrals, and we all know that word of mouth is architects’ most powerful marketing channel.
3) More sales as you turn your prospective client follow-ups into a system. Architects that keep their leads in Google Sheets and use a separate email client for sales pitches and follow-ups are never systematic about their sales. However, emailing becomes easy when all the messages are several clicks away in the PlanMan’s dashboard.
When is a CRM an overkill for your practice?
Suppose you are only starting a practice and focusing on delivering quality work for your clients. In that case, you may not need to spend your time and energy setting up advanced CRM suites like Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics 365. The large, customizable, and, in essence, generic one-size-fits-all CRM products will not help you reach your goals as fast as you need.
Most of the time, as a small practice or a freelance architect, you won’t need stuff related to sales department management – simply because you won’t have that many salespeople cold-contacting your leads. So all the sales KPIs, forecasting, and data modelling – won’t matter much to you.
PlanMan is explicitly built for architects – so it’s perfect for more personal, transparent, and document-based communication rather than a mass mailing.
What CRM features are a must for architects?
Our users usually report that everything related to client management is more important than the rest. Since most of them are getting new clients from referrals, doing a stellar job and being transparent is the #1 way of getting more work.
Is PlanMan a CRM for architects?
PlanMan is way more than a CRM, as our goal is to focus only on the needs of architects and city planners. So we’ve added the essential CRM features that will help you grow your business, but we didn’t limit the tool to them.
There are document management, project management, and accounting modules, and we can safely say that PlanMan is an optimal all-in-one solution for architects.
Start your free trial today and see for yourself!