CRM for a microfinance organization

For a microfinance organization, a CRM system is as necessary as having a website or mobile application. It records the details of transactions, helps to organize things and stores the history of interaction with each client: which manager he communicated with, what he was pleased with and what difficulties he encountered.

All this allows you to improve the quality of service and obtain relevant analytics necessary for successful business planning. In this article, we’ll talk about which CRM is better to use in the MFO niche—custom or standard—and what steps you need to take to successfully implement the system in your business.

The entire business model of microfinance organizations is built around attracting the maximum number of solvent clients. To achieve this, companies devote large resources to finding new sales channels, launching advertising campaigns and retaining existing audiences. And in order not to waste your marketing budget, it is very important to use CRM. Here are the main tasks that the system solves:

• Increases sales. Thanks to automation, the credit manager contacts the client as quickly as possible, while he sees the entire history of interaction and can make an offer to the borrower based on his real needs. CRM also tracks what stage each lead is at, which helps specialists close deals more successfully.

• Allows you not to lose customers. All leads automatically enter the CRM database and are transferred to a specific manager, so not a single application will be lost.
• Monitors staff performance. CRM keeps track of working hours and tracks how many leads the manager managed to bring to the conclusion of the transaction. This data will help you organize a more competent personnel policy in the company.
• Collects analytics. The system displays important business statistics in real time: how many clients are at different stages of the sales funnel, at which stage the largest number of leads are eliminated, how many transactions and for what amount were closed during the reporting period.

Depending on the functionality and possibilities for customization, CRM systems are classified into ready-made and customized.

• Ready-made solutions offer standardized and limited functionality. This is a mass market, that is, this CRM is intended for use in different companies and niches. You can customize it for your business to a very limited extent, so most often the opposite happens – the company has to adjust processes to CRM, and this is not always possible.

• An individual solution is created for a single company – yours, taking into account its individual needs, subtleties and internal processes. There is nothing superfluous in it: every button, menu and icon is designed for a specific purpose, so it will be much easier to train staff to work with the new software.

Our team specializes in developing custom CRMs, so let’s look at the second option in more detail.

It’s quite difficult to talk about the functionality of custom systems, since the decision to develop each module is made individually. However, let’s look at some basic elements that you will most likely need:

• Sales funnel divided into deals and stages. This is a key tool in any CRM to determine business performance. Every lead passes through the funnel – from the moment of first contact, to the conclusion of the transaction and subsequent retention.
• Data collection and storage. The system accumulates all data: customer base, interaction history, active and closed contracts for each borrower and much more. This allows employees to receive the information they need in a matter of seconds and use it in their work.
• API interface. Allows you to set up integration with instant messengers, telephony and social networks for comfortable communication with your audience.

• Work calendar. Helps managers competently organize working time: schedule meetings and calls with clients, schedule reporting submissions, etc.
• Thoughtful document templates. Filling out loan agreements manually is time-consuming, labor-intensive and prone to errors. It is much easier to launch a standardized document flow in CRM so that managers can receive an automatically generated document immediately after filling out and verifying the data.
• Analytics. The analytics system helps the business owner track key company indicators, make forecasts and plan development based on real data.

In our team, the CRM development process takes place in stages and consists of seven main steps:

• Collection of information. Any development begins with research. First of all, we carefully study your request and requirements, analyze the company’s business processes, and then offer options for solving problems using technology.
• Prototype. We design the functionality, UX and User flow of the future CRM, and then combine them into a complete interactive prototype. Such a mockup visualizes the logic of the system and makes it possible to quickly and with minimal time make the necessary adjustments. Next, we approve the prototype with the client and proceed to the main development.
• Design creation. Typically, a microfinance organization’s CRM is a technically complex product with many functions and modules. And the designer’s task is to make the system as convenient and intuitive as possible. To achieve the best results, we use modern trends in UI and offer the client several options for concepts.

• Frontend development. Frontend is the client part of the system with which end users interact. To implement it, different technologies can be used, for example HTML, CSS, JS or the Vue and React frameworks.
• Backend development. The backend works on the server side, and its main tasks are data storage and processing. At this stage, programmers write functional code, configure databases and perform all the necessary API integrations. If we talk about technology, there are options here too. For example, the backend can be built in Python, PHP, Java or Laravel, YII2, Django and Flask frameworks. The choice of stack depends on the technical requirements and features of the CRM.
• Testing. QA engineers carry out testing in parallel with the main development, thanks to which all bugs are fixed immediately and do not accumulate until release.
• Support and development. After commissioning, we offer post-release CRM support, which includes: technical support, elimination of bugs found by users and further development of functionality. As a result, your system will not lose its relevance and will always work stably.

By automating routine tasks, CRM will help your microfinance organization develop faster and serve clients better. In addition, you will reduce the operational burden on managers and free up their time to solve truly important problems.

To order CRM development from our team, fill out the feedback form, and we will call you back shortly to discuss the project.