There are compelling reasons for you to consider an online CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution: You can access your business 24x7 from anywhere with an internet connection; the price sounds right and online applications are quick to deploy and maintain. The growing popularity of online software applications is not abatting, and online CRM solutions are leading this trend.

But online software applications, sometimes referred to as hosted, OnDemand, SaaS (software as a service), web based applications, are not suitable for everybody.

Firstly you need bandwidth - lots of it. If you don't have access to broadband internet, hit the 'back' button now, don't bother reading any further and remove any online CRM applications from your wishlist. Bandwidth constraints are sure to frustrate and deter your users, setting back your CRM initiative considerably.

CRM applications are often used real-time with your client on the other end of the phone, waiting as you navigate your way around the system. It defeats its purpose if this is unbearably slow. Simulate a few typical real-world situations when evaluating the software

As many businesses look to reduce their overheads, the one obvious area for cutting costs is the real estate that accomodates the sales department. These guys should be on the road selling, not sitting behind a PC or hanging around the water cooler.

There are a few questions you need to ask yourself, and of your potential vendor, before you even get to looking at feature specifics:

*Can you import your data easily? Your existing records that currently reside in Excel; your imminently redundant contact manager, accounting system or other database - can they be imported/converted to the online CRM solution?

*How customizable is this software? Can you create your own user-defined fields and reports?

*Do you to need to synchronize your data with other software or devices, like MS Outlook, or your Palm? If so, does this online CRM support this?

*As the amount of data your database needs on their server will affect your monthly premiums, get some indication of projected costs. How much disk space does each record typically take up and how many records do you think your database will grow to in 2 or 4 years?

*How comprehensively can you retrieve your data from their server?

*Can you work their online CRM in offline mode as well, or is your business expected to grind to a halt every time the net is down? Do they offer an in-house version that you can run on your own server and PC's?

*What is the minimum duration of their contracts? Will you be locked into a one year agreement whether you like it or not?

*How is your data backed up, and how often?

*Can you maintain your own copies of your database?

*How reliable are their servers? Are they housed in a datacenter? What sort of uptime can you expect?

*What are their security policies? How secure is your data from prying eyes and hackers, and can you prevent your own users from downloading/exporting the data from the system?

*How, and how frequently, do you back up the data?

*What are your client side system requirements? What hardware configurations, operating system and versions are required of you?

*How long has their business been in existence, and can they furnish you with reference sites?

Fortunately online CRM solutions are relatively quick and easy to deploy and test so you can arrive at a decision fairly painlessly.

Once you have satisified yourself that the proposed online CRM solution meets these basic requirements, you can start matching their feature sets to yours.