Customer Relationship Management systems or better known as CRMs are an essential part of small businesses to large corporations. It helps keep track of your customers/clients, your staff, projects, communication, financials, and even receive payments. It is a system to make your workflow effective. For more info on what a CRM is please click here for an in-depth guide to CRM.
For about a year now, I have researched so many CRMs for my business of video production. Usually, most of them have trials so you can test run it. What I found was many have great features that I can use but also many have flaws that just aren't the right fit for me. Of course, you have to weigh in the costs of CRMs as well as the learning curve. From what I found out is, if you're not tech-savvy, many CRMs are really difficult to learn. For me what I needed was a system that can communicate with my clients all in one place, integrate with my email and calendar, take payments, write up contracts with an online signing feature, automation features, and pretty much show me the projection of all my projects. I started out by using a simple app that creates contracts to sign and pay online. However, all the rest of the data collection, communication, and organization have been by other separate apps that can be susceptible to errors. Especially if you happen to miss something like say a gig. That would be disastrous. However, using a system that doesn't make it more to do but is able to help you is essential to running a business. After researching and trying several CRMs, I find the best one that suits me is called Studio Ninja. This is a CRM specifically for photographers built by photographers. At first, it seemed immature in some features but they have definitely been updating as fast as they can with new features and is so far the perfect solution for me. So depending on your workflow I would try several CRMs until you find the one that works for your type of business. It can be a Godsend but it can also be a pain. Especially if you have to spend so much time trying to figure it out. By then, one will just give up on using it.
For those that are on the search for the best CRM for your needs, you can start here.
For video and photogenic services check here.
Hope this helps!
-Paul Rodriguez