CRM software for construction

Construction companies have traditionally shied away from technology. Indeed, SelectHub found that just 4 per cent of companies leveraging customer relationship management (CRM) software come from the construction industry.

But fresh challenges are changing the status quo. Rising costs, supply chain issues, skills gaps, and narrowing profit margins all mean that many construction firms have got their backs to the wall. Fortunately, help is at hand.

CRM software can take the proverbial spanner out of the works by improving efficiency and boosting productivity. From winning clients to managing projects, CRM systems help keep everything on track, so you finish projects on time and within budget.

CRM software is all about helping companies maintain relationships with both leads and customers—typically by storing customer data and tracking customer interactions.

But don’t be fooled. CRM for construction can do so much more, including helping you manage projects, documents, contractors, and more. In short, construction CRM software helps homebuilders and construction firms take full control of their business.

You can think of a CRM system as an extra pair of hands, keeping everything organised and making it easy to access the information you need—whenever and wherever you need it. But let’s take a closer look at exactly what benefits you can expect from a CRM for construction.

Information management

Construction companies process huge amounts of information—from work orders and quotes to deals and customer data. As such, it can be tricky to keep everything organised and efficient. But this is where CRM systems come in.

A CRM for construction stores all your data in one easily accessible database. Centralising everything in this way makes tracking, accessing, and updating information a breeze. No more outdated spreadsheets and no more wasted time. Plus, you can access data whenever and wherever you need—even on-site.

Contact management

Maintaining great relationships with all your vendors, suppliers, distributors, and subcontractors is no mean feat. Fortunately, CRM systems store interactions, making it easy to verify details and ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

What’s more, nobody has to repeat themselves because no matter which member of your team communicates with your client, they have all the information they need to pick up right where your business left off.

Project management

Juggling multiple projects with different clients and contractors is hard. But CRM systems can do the heavy lifting. Not only do they store project information like deadlines and supplier details, but they also make it easy to see exactly how things are coming along.

Dashboards, for example, provide a clear overview of big-picture progress and make it easy to spot delays. But you can also drill down into detailed project views to check orders, move team members around, and see what still needs to be completed. Plus, you can even send estimates and quotes from within your CRM.

Put simply, a CRM for construction helps you track the entire lifecycle of your projects—all the way from initial tender to cutting the ribbon. For example, budget and time tracking features can help make sure everything is on track whilst a shared knowledge base can help establish standardised processes and best-practice workflows.

Document management

Every construction project requires a tonne of paperwork. From contracts and authorisation forms to health and safety protocols and work orders—construction firms have to create, edit, and store a huge number of documents.

Fortunately, CRM systems can help ease some of the burden by storing documents securely and making it easier to send them to the right places, e.g. via email. Plus, everyone has access to the latest version thanks to automatic data syncing. You can also use them to build custom templates, record changes, and log contract approvals. This frees up your team to focus on more high-value tasks.

Pipeline management

CRM systems help you take control of your sales pipeline by making it easy to see exactly where your leads and customers are in the sales cycle. This can help you make smarter, data-driven decisions, e.g. prioritising the best opportunities.

On the internal side, you can also track sales activities and see exactly what your sales team has been up to and what still needs to be completed. Accurate and reliable performance monitoring can help improve productivity by highlighting underperforming areas of your business.

Customer communication

Relationships are everything in business. But great relationships depend on great communication. Fortunately, that’s CRM’s forte. For example, when you have a CRM for construction, you can provide an omnichannel experience—messaging and talking to stakeholders and partners on whatever channel they prefer.

What’s more, customer profiles complete with contact details, customer history, etc. make it easy to personalise your interactions. For example, teams can use customisable templates to schedule appointments in half the time, adding a personal touch to each email.

Team communication

But it’s not just external communication that’s important. CRM systems also ensure that your teams are on the same page. Real-time updates mean everyone has access to the latest information, making it easy for team members to retrieve accurate information quickly, whenever they need it.

Plus, company-wide notifications make sure that everyone is kept fully up to date. You can even integrate your CRM for construction with other software and tools, e.g. Slack, to make it even easier for teams to collaborate and align goals. No more chasing down colleagues, just quick, clear, and relevant communication.

Automation

CRM systems can streamline countless processes to save you huge amounts of both time and money. For example, you can automate many repetitive admin tasks like standardised emails and data entry to ensure that nothing gets overlooked.

But you can also take automation much further with things like auto-assignment rules and automatic follow-up notifications. Both help make sure that the right team members complete the right tasks at the right time. You can even implement chatbots to offer 24/7 support and lightning-fast responses to all your customers and contractors.

Analytics

CRM systems help you grow your business by better understanding your data. Data analytics and reporting tools provide actionable insights, e.g. identifying important sales trends or highlighting where you need to improve to land those big deals.

And because CRM systems keep all your data in one place, they’re great at accurately predicting future performance—not to mention project requirements and timelines. This can help you build efficiency into your business by making plans and arrangements well in advance.

Every construction firm is different, so it’s important to take the time to find the right CRM for your business. Top tip: make sure it’s both easy to use and easy to deploy. After all, you can’t afford to waste time with an overly complicated system or slow rollout.

Zendesk works right out of the box and comes with a range of powerful tools to help you work better and smarter than ever before. From integrated calendars to detailed project notes, our solutions make sure every project runs smoothly.

But don’t just take our word for it. Let’s see how a company levelled-up their business with Zendesk…

Enercity

Enercity supplies more than one million people in Germany with electricity, gas, heating, and water. It’s no surprise then that the company handles around 20,000 customer service tickets a day. In the past, agents would have to switch between windows to reply to queries and it would take new colleagues weeks to get up to speed with the tools.

But those days are over. When the company decided to digitalise its entire sales process, it needed a flexible, intuitive platform that could bring everything together in a single tool. Enter Zendesk. New team members are now regularly up and running within just two days and agents never need to leave Zendesk’s intuitive interface.

The energy service provider also implemented Zendesk Messaging to make it easy for customers to get in touch. This straightforward solution has proven a hit with both customers and agents. So much so that the company is now also testing out Answer Bot to automatically solve simple queries. What’s more, enercity provides a range of self-service options using Zendesk Guide, which now handles more than 2,000 search queries a month, whilst Zendesk’s Reporting features help the team spot areas for improvement.