Once you’ve established that you need some CRM software, the big question becomes whether to develop an in-house solution, or go with some commercial software.
Here are six benefits of choosing a commercially-developed package.
Avoid development costs
This is first because it ties into every other consideration. Developing a bespoke solution is incredibly expensive. In addition to development time, you will need substantial testing time, as well as continuing support for a product that only your team knows how to fix.
Reduced IT burden
A bespoke solution will need in house hosting, which means additional servers and IT infrastructure. It will also need continuing support, which means identifying bugs and potential security vulnerabilities, all of which add substantially to the burden on your IT department.
Improved resilience
With a commercial membership management solution, such as one provided by https://www.satori-membership-management.co.uk/, one option will be a hosted solution. External hosting takes place in secure and resilient data centres, which will have much higher uptime than almost any in-house hosting, while being maintained by dedicated hosting staff, rather than your own team.
Increased employee productivity
According to the British Chamber of Commerce, 91% of businesses have at least one employee working remotely regularly, and almost one in five businesses have half of their employees working remotely (http://www.cbronline.com/news/cloud/aas/flexible-working-revolution-drives-smb-cloud-adoption-4638542). Commercial membership management software will have remote access and apps for commonly used devices, giving your employees access, regardless of their location.
End-user focus
When developing a bespoke solution, it is much easier to consider the information that’s important to your business, rather than the end-user experience, even when your business is customer focused in every other way. Commercial software will draw from a much higher level of development time on the end user experience, as well as feedback from a larger user base.
Modularity and flexibility
An obvious advantage of a bespoke solution is that you can add exactly what you need, but with most commercial solutions, this is the case as well. Most software will be developed on a modular basis, so you can easily add or remove features almost seamlessly, instead of needing large amounts of development time to make minor changes.
