Finding the best WooCommerce CRM

Published on August 16, 2017

In this case study we take a detailed look at finding a WooCommerce CRM. It covers the steps that Mike from Epic Plugins and Epic Themes took to find his way to the best CRM for WooCommerce.  Over to Mike and how he settled on using Jetpack CRM for WooCommerce.

Why do I need a WooCommerce CRM

The first thing that I wanted to share was my epiphany. I’ve been selling WordPress plugins and themes for quite some time now. I started using WooCommerce back in 2015 when VATmoss came in for digital product sellers. WooCommerce has loads of useful extensions and it was the obvious choice at the time for an eStore solution.

It was only half way through 2016 though that, by chance, I started a new project. This project was a CRM for WordPress. This was born out of the need for a simple to use CRM which was self hosted and didn’t have spiralling costs. The purpose of the CRM was initially for a “bricks and mortar” business working for clients. So it had the following:-

  • Customers
  • Quotes
  • Invoices
  • Transactions

It was good back then, but it’s moved on massively in the past year.  Through my involvement in the project I’ve helped to shape it into the best CRM for WooCommerce. Through the use of ��a select number of extensions, Jetpack CRM powers up your WooCommerce customer data into a easy to use CRM.

Where did I start?

When deciding to take on this project, the first thing I did was have a look at other solutions out there. I personally didn’t use a CRM at this point so I was a bit sceptical that it was needed when I first agreed to work on the development.

Surely there’s CRM solutions already on the market for WooCommerce. There was a plugin on CodeCanyon, but it was very limited in it’s scope. I could call customers, or email them but it didn’t do anything worth paying $55 for. The main thing it did was created WordPress Users out of the WooCommerce orders and tabulate them.

I also had a look at some of the other WordPress plugins out there claiming to be CRMs. None of them had a strong WooCommerce integration at the time. Jetpack CRM comes with an easy to use WooSync extension. It takes less than two minutes to be up and running with Jetpack CRM and WooCommerce when using WooSync.

Finally, there’s the “traditional” software as a service solutions. SalesForce, High Rise, etc. These were too expensive for me. I didn’t want to be paying $20 per user per month, for a ton of features I’d never use.

There was so much I wanted to do with my WooCommerce CRM data and I don’t like logging into different platforms, so I ended up choosing Jetpack CRM for my WooCommerce setup.

What makes a good WooCommerce CRM

Finding a WooCommerce CRM which you want to stick with isn’t easy. I’m lucky in that I can develop Jetpack CRM into the perfect CRM for WooCommerce. It didn’t start off like this though. When I decided to drive the development of the CRM for WooCommerce there was a process I undertook to help make sure it would be the only CRM I’d need.  The main thing was I wanted to look after the customers that had spent money with me.

Look after your woocommerce customers

If you use WooCommerce and you haven’t seen Jetpack CRM in action or haven’t used it yet, here’s the process which helped me to decide on the features needed to make this the best woocommerce crm it could be.

  • It needed to create customer records, but not WordPress users
  • It needed to display which customers had purchased what (a “total value”)
  • It needed to be able to tag transactions with what they had ordered
  • It needed to have the ability for me to email select customers, based on what they had purchased
  • I wanted a “baremetrics style” dashboard for seeing sales progress. Importantly what each customer brought in on average

Having that list, meant I could sell more to my existing customers, and understand what they’ve purchased. For any customers who had purchased one of my products with add ons, I could see whether they’d purchased the add on or not.

If they haven’t purchased the add on, I could send them a tailored email to remind them about it. All great sales tools for an Entrepreneur wanting to increase the value of his business.

What about Lead Generation

This was what I was missing at the time too. I was collecting subscribers to my Mailchimp list, I was sending out broadcasts, I was creating automations. However I wasn’t capturing these leads into my CRM. Also it was really hard to see in Mailchimp and even ConvertKit which I use now, which customers had purchased.

I could use WooCommerce + ConvertKit to tag people who had purchased but it has the following drawbacks

  • I couldn’t see what they’d purchased.
  • I couldn’t see when they made the purchase
  • I couldn’t see their total value.

So I needed to also start capturing LEADS into the CRM and following up with them about my products. Then as I convert more leads to customers I am able to see what tactics work and which tactics do not work.

Why WordPress for a WooCommerce CRM

It’s worth touching on this part too. I wanted to run a CRM which sat alongside my install of WooCommerce. Having a self hosted CRM just works. I can control the features I want to use (through the extensions) and I don’t have to login to another website.

I just login once, and see all my customer and lead information in one place. It makes it so much easier when it comes to making website tweaks. If I have a customer reach out about struggling to do something with a product, or asking an FAQ. I can easily switch to the product and add that FAQ.

I don’t have to log into a different site, it just works. Not to mention self hosting the CRM means I’m not paying per user, per seat for a CRM like SalesForce. I can also be safe in the knowledge that using a WordPress based CRM is going to work well with WooCommerce as it shares the same admin dashboard.

The hidden benefits of Jetpack CRM and WooCommerce

The great thing about using a product like Jetpack CRM is that it evolves over time. The main benefit of using Jetpack CRM with WooCommerce is being able to turn your WooCommerce Orders page from this

Into something like this that has total value, how many transactions and filters by lead or customer as well as tags to be able to filter by the product which has been purchased.

What’s more, is you can then use extensions such as the Mail Campaigns extension to be able to email in bulk certain people who have specific tags.

For example I can email everyone who has purchased the Social Gallery Pro and sell them the add ons. It makes using the WooCommerce data much easier to work with and helps to understand and develop your business going forwards.