User Review
( votes)The Architectural Engineering and Construction Solutions (AECS) Market is forecasted to grow by $4.7 billion during 2020-2024. In the USA alone, the engineering and architecture services market entails 110 thousand companies with total revenue of $290 billion.
In it’s A/E industry trends overview, SEH puts client experience as the major decision driving factor, ranking it as the 2nd most vital aspect out of the ten trends molding the architect and engineering niche in 2020.
With the rapid development of the industry, the benefits of architect project management software and CRM for engineering companies are becoming even more invaluable, bringing exponential efficiencies to the multi-billion industry.
Let’s review some of the best CRM software for architects, check out a few of the industry-specific architect/engineer software solutions, and eye some universal CRMs.
This CRM for architects and engineers guide will be handy for top management, marketing professionals, and sales enablement teams of the A/E realm.
Types Of CRM Software For Architecture Firms & Engineering Companies
When it comes to choosing a CRM for the construction industry, one thing is important to understand.
There are many existing software solutions and CRMs that are:
- Niche-specific, or job-specific (this is the most narrowly specialized software, for example engineering CAD software or architecture software)
- Industry-specific (are developed for a specific industry, for example, construction management software).
- Universal Customer Relation Management software solutions (these are CRM software that is designed to be applicable across the board, usually covering the marketing automation, sales force automation, pipeline management, email communication, contact management, lead generation)
Features of Job-specific, Industry-specific, and Universal CRMs for A/E
Naturally, the more specific a software solution, the less demand there is for it, as it cannot be applied in other jobs or industries. Such systems usually automate very specific nuanced processes that are pertinent to this very job only and cannot be extrapolated on any other processes.
The narrower the application of the SaaS solution, the more expensive it may be. Bigger companies will ensure to select a vendor of the job-specific and industry-specific solution with the utmost care, as it becomes part of the company standard and has the potential to boost efficiencies significantly.
These systems will be developed by the people associated with the industry with a great understanding of all intricacies of the A/E processes and have a lot of construction expertise embedded in them.
Naturally, big A/E companies like Stantec, Jacobs, HOK, CallistonRTKL, and HDR are the target audience for the developers of the job-specific and industry-specific software solutions. Smaller companies may choose to save budgets on expensive solutions or opt for a more basic offer.
Job-specific functions for architecture software:
- 2D drawing
- 3D modeling
- Drafting
- Bills of material
- Building information modeling
- Contract management
- Project management
- Quote/protocols
Job-specific functions for engineering CAD software:
- 2D drawing
- 3D modeling
- Design analysis
- Design export
- Mechatronics
- Collaboration
- Presentation tools
- Available in chemical, civil, electrical, and mechanical versions.
Industry-specific features of construction management software
- Budget tracking/job costing
- Equipment tracking
- Incident reporting
- Subcontractor management
- RFI & Submittals
- Estimating module
- Change orders
- Accounting integrations
- Available for commercial, contractors, and residential use
Universal CRMs, on the other hand, are designed to be customizable and agile and are able to bring efficiencies across many industries.
Due to the ubiquitous demand, CRMs of wide applicability will have a relatively low monthly price, for example, Nimble CRM starts at $19 per month per user.
Another advantage of Customer Relation Management solutions is the ability to copy the best practices from other industries onto your organization with narrow specialization. Because things are done in specific ways for a long time in certain areas, they may become a routine that is habitual but not 100% effective.
When exposed to a hierarchy of a software solution that is used in many industries, routine processes may be reviewed towards improvement because of the fresh angle of view.
Universal CRM features:
- Marketing automation
- Email marketing
- Document storage
- Contact management
- Pipeline management
- Task management
- Territory management
- Quote/proposals
- Social media integration
- Lead scoring
- Segmentation
- Calendar & Stay in Touch reminder features
Examples of the Best CRM For Engineering Firms & Architects
Best Job-specific Software Solutions for Architects:
Top Job-specific Software Solutions for Engineering Companies:
Best Industry-specific Software Solutions for Construction
Nimble CRM Function For Architects And Engineers
Nimble CRM is one of the software solutions that are used in industries across the board as a content management database, task manager, team pipeline monitoring tool, calendar & marketing automation engine.
The main advantage of universal Nimble CRM are:
- Customizability- users can use custom tags and segments to create an individual traceable data point out of any entry. This allows CRM to build reports, assign tasks, and monitor such data at their own discretion and as per business needs.
- Intuitive & user-friendly interface- it’s a click-along learning curve. If you know how to create a Facebook account, you should be able to master Nimble CRM in no time at all.
- Powerful Social Media integration- we engineered Nimble CRM with an acute understanding of the consequential role social media has taken upon in the lives of billions of people over the world. All contacts uploaded to Nimble are enriched with social media and corporate data available across the internet. This way Nimblers are never stuck for icebreakers or things to discuss in the matter of small talk.
- Universal application- the fact, that Nimble is an all-purpose CRM makes this software’s functionality all-encompassing yet precisely targeted. We have seen our features used by hundreds of thousands of businesspeople from medical, educational, marketing, construction, design, legal industries. We keep enhancing and polishing all features and functionalities as best for our users based on empirical practice.
- Scalability- Nimble virtually builds itself for you once you upload your contacts. Due to the modular design of functions and dashboards, this CRM solution for architects and engineers can be scaled with the growth of your company. The fixed flat per-user pricing makes it transparent and easily accruable into your marketing plan.
With over 140 thousand professionals using Nimble daily to save time, increase efficiencies, and optimize daily routines, we are confident of the platform’s value. That’s why we offer all users to try Nimble free for 2 weeks without ever having to take the card out of your wallet.
How To Use Nimble CRM For Architects And Engineers
Track & Enrich Contacts to Build Relationships As a Team
As an architect or an engineer, you have so many contacts in your email or any other digital form of Rolodex, like LinkedIn or Twitter. You have partners, vendors, assistants, team, existing clients, bosses, potential clients, and industry experts. The list is endless.
With Nimble’s extensive elaborate contact management suite, all the contact data that gets into this CRM system for architects can be:
- Automatically enriched (inclusive with social media activities)
- Segmented as per existing categories (location, gender, company, etc.)
- Custom-tagged to further create a separate reporting based on the tag,
- Used to assign a task to
- Used to group-mail a marketing message with open-rate tracking
Those are just a few possibilities helping Nimble aficionados to breeze through their daily routine tasks saving hours for strategic and revenue-making activities.
Plan & Automate Your Marketing
Marketing is expanding like Coke with Mentos in it, overtaking more and more space in the lives of pretty much every department.
Because the marketing funnel expands over the entire customer journey, it involves a complex network of well-coordinated activities of colleagues from different departments.
Marketing cannot exist without a myriad of sophisticated analytical tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Google ads, and others.
This is when a CRM that can be integrated with other software solutions via (Zapier or other 3rd party platforms) serves as a mission center for all processes marketing.
With a sophisticated email marketing feature embedded in Nimble, group emails can be templated, scheduled, and tracked for open rate and other vital KPIs.
Powerful Task Management Module
Nimble is the first thing hundreds of thousands of pros open on their desktop to get an insight of what’s waiting for them on a given day.
A robust task management module allows users to assign, distribute, delegate, schedule, open, monitor, measure, and close tasks.
Pipelines can be custom made to ensure a great fit for the industry, making Nimble more of perfect architects’ and engineers’ CRM.
Email Marketing: From Hating Emails To Loving Them
Do you know the feeling when you got yourself a new toy and cannot help admiring just how cool it is? This is the type of relationship Nimble users have when they first see the omnipotent email marketing features.
Nimble users love the option to have templates available for all teams to use, send group emails, schedule emails to go out at certain times, monitor open rates, and more.
If you are one of those people who hates your inbox, chances are you will appreciate the intuitiveness and all the time-saving features of your Nimble email mission control.
Customer Big Data
If you are a data freak, Nimble is your safe harbor. It turns any data point into a dashboard or a visual graph. Picking up on trends is no longer the privilege of the math geeks as visual data representation helps to spot the peaks and the dips to the most untrained eye.
Reporting and analysis features are a powerful strategic center that will help you architect offices to understand your customer, conversions, timeframes, and pricing better.
When entrepreneurs look at the data, they acknowledge the problem. It’s like saying “Hi, I am Mike and I am an alcoholic”. This is where things start improving.
Document Management And File Sharing
Documents, contract templates, letters, and memos that you use over and over again are always within reach with Nimble. Ideal for Office 365 users, this CRM is integrated with DropBox and Google Drive.
Sharing access with your select team members, clients, and vendors is intuitive as it is quick.
Integrate With Other Applications You A/E Office Favors
Nimble CRM is part of the 2000+ Zapier apps that are integrated for the smooth data exchange.
Data freely flows between the systems and syncs for seamless user experience, it’s like you are using one system, not dozens of them.
Lead Management & Lead Generation With CRM
Marketing automation and lead generation go hand-in-hand.
Due to its powerful lead generation functionality, Nimble CRM is often a choice for many bigger architectural and engineering companies as a valuable addition to their tech stack on top of industry & job-specific software.
Choosing CRM For Architects And Engineers: Why Nimble?
Nimble CRM has garnered well-deserved popularity with users across many industries. With 140+ thousands of users, our development team constantly strives to offer more features to the anyway extensive suite of functions.
With flat pricing starting at $19 per month per user, the CRM budgeting is easy and predictable.
We are confident our product is as worth every penny and so are your newly found efficiencies when you start using it. This is why we are happy to provide an offer that’s hard to refuse: please enjoy a 2 weeks free trial on us.
