Negotiating a Good Price for Your CRM System

I have been asked by one of ISM”s clients for negotiating tips for a CRM system.  So, consequently, here are 10 negotiating tips that work in the current buyers’ market. You’ll either need to do some homework to determine the competitive CRM software pricing, or ask a consulting company to help.

1. Be sure to understand the need for each optional software module being recommended by the vendor: “What is the value-added for each of their recommended optional software modules?”
2. Include as many of the vendor’s optional modules as you can into the base agreement. This way, you can lock in prices regardless of when the modules will actually be used.
3. Be as definitive as you can in the agreement. Use your company’s well-defined business needs and screen designs as exhibits or attachments within the agreement.
4. List and define your deliverables/acceptance criteria within the agreement.
5. Spread your payments over the life of the agreement, which should be divided into phased deliverables/acceptance criteria. Here is one possible payment model: 20 percent of payment upon signing the agreement, 20 percent on the successful accomplishment of an initial set of deliverables/acceptance criteria, an additional 20 percent on the successful accomplishment of the next set of deliverables/acceptance criteria, and the final 40 percent upon the successful accomplishment of a final set of deliverable/acceptance criteria.
6. Consider requesting a site license for your company on a national and/or international basis.
7. Wait between 60 and 90 days before your final acceptance of the system.
8. The maintenance charges certainly can and should be negotiated.
9. Buy a block (of the company’s program and project managers’ time) or of the CRM vendor implementation consultants’ time to secure a discount rate.
10. Structure the agreement so your company initially purchases little more than a developer server license and about 15 pilot-user licenses.

On the top of pricing, here is an article concerning the current status of CRM pricing in today’s marketplace:   http://tinyurl.com/2bqzwsg

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