Custom CRM software development: services, features & guidelines
Our custom CRM services
Consulting
Itransition’s consultants can share their expertise to facilitate the adoption of custom CRM software, helping your company draw up a development roadmap, estimate a realistic project budget, and select a suitable feature set, tech stack, and deployment model.
Development
Our team of software engineers delivers custom CRM solutions built from scratch and equipped with modules and features tailored to your business requirements, taking care of prototyping, UX/UI design, front-end and back-end development, and testing.
Customization
We can reshape a custom or platform-based CRM through various customization options, including functionality extensions, feature, and UX/UI modifications, or additional integrations, to adapt your existing solution to emerging business needs and technology trends.
Build your custom CRM software with Itransition’s guidance
The functional scope of a custom CRM
We equip your CRM solution with a comprehensive set of custom features and integrate it with other corporate and external systems through APIs, middleware, or iPaaS to expand its built-in capabilities and enable seamless data exchange.
Custom CRM features
Lead management
- Sentiment analysis of prospects’ and customers’ online activity to assess brand reputation
- Customer profiling and segmentation based on various metrics to fine-tune marketing campaigns and related budgeting
- Customer journey mapping to identify the touchpoints and marketing channels involved in early customer interactions
- Personalized marketing via targeted ads, tailored offers, and customized engagement strategies
- Lead scoring to prioritize prospective customers with the highest perceived value and maximize the conversion rate
Sales management
- Real-time data aggregation from multiple corporate systems and communication channels for a unified customer view
- Contact management to store names, addresses, telephone numbers, and other information in a unified repository
- Automated appointment scheduling and follow-ups to let sales reps focus on customer-related tasks
- Sales pipeline dashboards to monitor the progress of prospects and customers through the sales process
- Administrative task automation, including quoting, CPQ, invoice generation, and contract management
- Account history tracking to identify upselling opportunities based on customer information and past sales
- Sales team performance assessment and enhancement via KPI analysis and account-specific suggestions
Customer service
- Personalized recommendations of products and services to improve customer engagement and lifetime value
- 24/7 customer support through chatbots and automated email responses to facilitate help desk operations
- Integration with 3rd-party ServiceDesk solutions, such as Zendesk
- Automatic ticket categorization and routing to address customer queries more efficiently
- Proactive assistance via push notifications to update customers in case of delayed delivery or other issues
Custom CRM integrations
to supervise customer-related processes and harmonize them with other corporate workflows
to track customer journeys and purchases and enable dynamic pricing
and other in-store payment gateways to gather customer data from traditional sales channels
to enable user access to personalized services and relevant information
to automatically fill in quotes, invoices, contracts, and other documents with customer data
to unlock more advanced analytical and forecasting capabilities
Social media
to monitor user interactions and better assess sentiments towards your brand
to monitor your sales managers’ KPIs in relation to sales performance and customer feedback
Marketing platforms
such as Mailchimp and Bloomreach, to automate marketing campaigns and personalize customer journeys
Custom CRM development steps
Itransition offers full-cycle consulting and development services to guide your organization through all CRM implementation stages, from project planning to software engineering and post-deployment maintenance.
1
Business analysis
Our consultants carry out discovery workshops and software ecosystem evaluations to determine your goals and needs. Then, they help you outline your CRM’s functional and non-functional requirements, set up an implementation roadmap, and define the project’s budget, timeframes, and deliverables.
2
Design
We define your CRM’s usage scenario and user journeys and prepare a software specification detailing its architecture and features, along with wireframes and mockups. Then, we select an effective tech stack and deliver a PoC to ensure the project’s feasibility.
3
Development
Our team proceeds with front-end and back-end development, building the CRM solution through multiple iterations. We also set up all necessary software integrations via APIs or message-oriented middleware and handle code reviews and debugging.
4
Testing
Combining manual reviews and test automation software, our QA engineers execute functional, performance, compatibility, usability, and security tests to identify and correct bugs, UX/UI design mistakes, or other issues.
5
Deployment
We deploy the CRM solution to the hosting environment of your choice (on-premises, cloud, or hybrid). We also integrate the application with other corporate software and migrate data from your legacy systems to the new CRM.
6
Maintenance & support
Itransition provides your organization with ongoing training (demoing, tutorials, etc.) and support, along with maintenance services to fix technical issues and fine-tune the application over time. We can also enhance your software with new features and functional adjustments.
Custom vs out-of-the-box CRM
Before embarking on a rewarding but demanding CRM development project, you must decide whether to build your software from the ground up or purchase and customize an off-the-shelf product based on the following factors.
Custom CRM
Off-the-shelf CRM
Features
Features
Bespoke functionality in line with your unique business requirements and CRM strategy
Fixed modules and features established by the CRM vendor
Costs
Costs
Higher upfront investment to fund your CRM software development project
Higher long-term costs for software licensing fees and necessary customizations
Adoption timeframe
Adoption timeframe
Slower implementation since your team has to design and develop the solution from scratch
Faster adoption as the solution is ready for deployment, but customizations can slow down the process
Deployment
Deployment
Hosting environment (cloud, on-premises, or hybrid) selected by your company
Deployment models decided by the CRM software provider
Support
Support
CRM fine-tuning, troubleshooting, and user support performed by your in-house specialists or an external team
Maintenance and updates included in the software subscription or available for an extra fee
Integrations
Integrations
Flexible custom integrations set up by your IT staff
Native integrations with compatible third-party platforms and SaaS applications
Modifications
Modifications
Extensive customization possibilities to adapt the CRM functionality to emerging business needs
Limited customization and configuration options within the vendor’s predefined settings
Control
Control
Full ownership and control over the CRM during its development and after release
Little or no control over the application
Change management
Change management
Minimal workflow and tech stack adjustments, as the application is designed with your operational scenario in mind
More extensive changes to your business processes and technical environment to take full advantage of the new CRM
Potential risks
Potential risks
Project budget overruns and long-term maintenance burden for your in-house team
Vendor lock-ins, unexpected licensing costs for premium services, and lack of essential features
When to opt for custom CRM
Consider building custom CRM software if one or more of the following conditions match your business scenario:
Functional & performance gaps
Out-of-the-box solutions lack the features, security measures, or scalability essential to meet your business requirements, user needs, and established workflows.
Expensive customization
Filling the functional gaps of packaged software through customization is too expensive or impossible due to technical limitations.
Long-term TCO increase
Licensing fees for off-the-shelf CRM are likely to increase in the long run, especially if pricing is based on the number of users that can scale up as your business grows.
Difficult integration
Boxed CRM solutions are difficult or expensive to integrate with your existing corporate software ecosystem, including legacy applications.
Streamline your sales cycle with Itransition’s CRM solutions
Custom CRM development costs
The budget to complete a custom CRM development project can range from around $90,000 for an entry-level tool for small businesses to $300,000+ for an enterprise-oriented CRM solution with advanced capabilities. After assessing your specific business case, our consultants will provide more detailed estimates based on the following cost factors:
Key challenges of custom CRM and how to overcome them
Full ownership of your customer relationship management system and superior control over software implementation are top priorities for many enterprises, but they typically translate into greater effort and accountability. Here are the best practices we follow and the relevant services we provide to address common custom CRM challenges.
In the short term, building custom CRM systems is typically more expensive than adopting out-of-the-box or SaaS solutions, and costs can snowball during the project due to technical complexities. Also, companies risk overlooking licensing fees for third-party development tools, hosting environment, and hardware or wasting time and resources to develop unnecessary functionality.
- We provide project budgeting and license optimization consulting, helping you define a suitable feature set and select cost-effective technologies like open-source tools and deployment models.
- We offer different engagement models and related pricing systems to best meet your expectations.
- We adhere to the Agile approach to project planning, managing, and tracking to reduce the initial delivery timeline and support iterative product improvement.
- We apply DevOps methodologies (CI/CD and test automation, microservices, incremental build model, etc.) to streamline the development process and reduce product delivery costs.
Compliance & security
CRM solutions process sensitive data, such as personal data and business-related information about customers, leads, and offers made, which should be protected from leaks or cyberattacks and managed according to relevant standards and regulations. While CRM vendors typically take care of these aspects, adopting custom software implies that safeguarding data and the application itself is up to you.
- We equip your CRM with solid cybersecurity features, such as identity and access management, multi-factor authentication, user activity monitoring, dynamic data masking, and encrypted data exchange.
- We perform regular risk assessments via penetration testing to identify and address potential vulnerabilities.
- We build CRM solutions compliant with the data management standards and legislation applicable to your industry.
- We help you implement data governance policies defining how data assets should be managed and shared across your company.
Maintenance efforts
Despite accurate testing, software solutions can be affected over time by glitches and degraded performance due to latent defects, changes in the software environment, and other reasons. If your organization opts for a custom CRM application, maintenance, updates, and troubleshooting will fall under the responsibility of your in-house staff or contracted specialists.
- We complement our CRM consulting and development services with post-implementation, long-term assistance that covers:
- Adaptive maintenance to adjust the application to your evolving software ecosystem and usage scenario
- Perfective maintenance to improve the CRM functionality and performance through code optimization or new features
- Corrective maintenance to fix glitches or bugs compromising the software operation and user experience
- Preventive maintenance to ward off future problems and improve maintainability via code refactoring or backup
FAQs
What are the advantages of using a custom CRM?
Unlike off-the-shelf CRM software or applications built on top of CRM platforms (Salesforce, SAP, etc.), a custom CRM solution offers unique features built according to your business workflows and corporate needs, including compliance with specific security requirements.
This results in minimal process adjustments, along with easier user buy-in and adoption across your company. Furthermore, you’ll have full control over your product and avoid licensing fees, achieving long-term savings.
How long does it take to build a CRM?
Building your own CRM solution from scratch can take over 2,000 work hours over a 6-month+ development timeline, but figures can vary widely based on the project’s complexity.
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