Organizations leverage sophisticated cloud-CRM solutions like Salesforce Sales Cloud or MS Dynamics 365 to transform their sales organization to manage customer relations, automate sales processes, increase seller efficiency, improve forecasting, automate reporting, and extract insights – all to shorten sales cycles, leveraging insights to make data-driven decisions, and driving sales.
CRMs are “mission-critical” software for any sales team, big or small. However, the complex interfaces of CRM systems and company-level customizations make CRMs difficult to use and implement.
CRM certificate programs are an excellent way for aspiring sellers to acquire hard skills to make their resumes more attractive. They are also a great way for large sales organizations to develop their team members with more technical CRM knowledge to become power users or fill internal IT needs like CRM admin, implementation, reporting, and architect roles.
What Is a CRM Certification?
CRM certifications showcase a person’s proficiency and skill using a CRM system. These certification programs are traditionally completed online and are tied to a specific CRM vendor, like Salesforce, HubSpot, MS Dynamics, or Zoho.
CRM certifications can be tailored for end-users (think sales, marketing, and customer success professionals) or technical and admin roles like solution architects, IT managers, implementation specialists, CRM help desk, and CRM application owners.
Adding a CRM certification to your resume showcases your knowledge of technical CRM skills with a specific vendor. It is an excellent way to further your career by landing a new job or filling skills gaps found in your organization that will help you get a promotion. Large organizations often cover the costs of these CRM certifications to upskill their team members.
Best CRM Certification Programs in 2024
Every CRM solution has unique training requirements. Here’s a list of the top online certifications for different CRM solutions to consider:
1. Salesforce Certified Administrator
- Get started here.
- Price: $200 per exam.
- Delivery: In-person and online options.
- Program Duration: 3-6 weeks.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is the most well-known CRM vendor with the highest market share. It’s used across industries, company types, and organization sizes.
The Salesforce Certified Administrator certification is a widely recognized program that showcases your deep understanding of its CRM and provides foundational knowledge for aspiring Salesforce CRM admins. It also provides additional certification programs to build off after you acquire its baseline certification, with paths like Salesforce Developer, Architect, and Consultant.
2. Salesforce Advanced Administrator
- Get started here.
- Price: $200 per exam.
- Delivery: In-person and online options.
- Program Duration: 6-8 weeks.
- Requirements: Salesforce Certified Administrator certificate
Continue down the SFDC path with the Salesforce Advanced Administrator program. It picks up where the previous certification ends, allowing you to develop advanced Salesforce Admin skills further.
The course covers admin and customization skills like role and access management, security, reporting and analytics, forecasting, management, cloud apps, integrations, and business logic. Its exam requires you to create advanced reports, build dashboards, and design custom sales processes with Salesforce’s Process Builder, Flow, and Workflow Rules.
3. HubSpot Sales Software
- Get started here.
- Price: Free
- Delivery: Online
- Program Duration: 2 weeks.
HubSpot is the king of SMB sales, and has a growing presence in the enterprise market. Its certification course enables new sales professionals to learn and master HubSpot CRM by building personal prospecting boards, generating reports, organizing contacts and opportunities, and defining sales processes.
It includes three training modules and you’ll need to pass a 50-question exam to obtain your HubSpot Sales Software certification. HubSpot Academy offers 15+ certifications, allowing you to continue your learning and master specific HubSpot admin paths.
4. MS Dynamics 365 Fundamentals
- Get started here.
- Price: Free
- Delivery: Online
- Program Duration: 1 hour.
MS Dynamics 365 is Microsoft’s enterprise CRM and is widely used across sales organizations. Its fundamentals certification enables new sellers with skills to use Dynamics’ sales and customer-focused modules and workflows, like how to create personalized customer journeys, how to assign roles, how to navigate sales lifecycles, and more.
It includes 5 courses, and users with need to access their knowledge post-training with an exam. It also provides a sandbox environment that allows you to interactively use MS Dynamics 365 to complete your assignments and learn with hands-on training experiences.
5. Zoho CRM Certified
- Get started here.
- Price: N/A
- Delivery: Online
- Program Duration: N/A
- Requires: Employee of a current Zoho CRM customer.
Zoho CRM offers a broad certification for its enterprise CRM that enables professionals with the technical skills and hands-on experience to master Zoho CRM. It also provides a post-graduate alumni network that connects companies with prospective employees with specific skills. To register, you must be a current Zoho customer.
6. NetSuite Certification
- Get started here.
- Price: Depends on level of program depth.
- Delivery: Online
- Program Duration: Depends.
NetSuite offers a certification program to its customers to upskill its users and create in-house experts. It provides paths for implementation specialists to roll-out NetSuite and integrate add-ons, paths targeting admins or application developers, or simply improve end-user productivity. User-level certifications are more simple to acquire, but admin-level certifications are longer programs that require exams to be passed.
7. Oracle CRM On-Demand Certified
- Get started here.
- Price: Depends
- Delivery: Online
- Program Duration: Depends
Oracle provides an entire marketplace of on-demand CRM certifications for its customers to upskill their users. It has certification paths for sales, marketing, and customer support roles, as well as more technical architect, admin, and developer roles.
8. ActiveCampaign Certified Consultant
- Get started here.
- Price: $2,000
- Delivery: Online
ActiveCampaign has the second highest market share in the SMB CRM market. It’s Certified Consultant program enables professionals to become an expert ActiveCampaign admin or implementation specialist. While its an expensive certification, obtaining the certificate enables you to join its consultant directory and earn custom badges for your LinkedIn.
9. Freshsales CRM Certification
- Programs:
- Price: Free
- Delivery: Online
Freshworks CRM provides an entire library of courses in its Academy catalog, helping its SMB customers to maximize its investment by developing in-house Freshworks CRM experts. It’s two most relevant certification programs are its Admin Fundamentals and User Fundamentals tracks.
Its Admin Fundamentals certification trains professionals on how to become a Freshsales CRM admin and application owner, with modules on seller onboarding, workflow customization, role and access management, sales pipeline management, territory configuration, and more.
Its User Fundamentals certificate enables new sellers with the basics of Freshsales, how to set up our dashboard, how to use its communication functions, and how to manage your leads.
CRM Software Clicks Better With Whatfix
Whatfix enables CRM application owners with the tools to drive CRM adoption and enable end-users through in-app guided experiences, on-demand support, and user analytics capabilities.
With Whatfix for CRM, enable your sellers and maximize CRM ROI by:
- Enabling CRM users with role-based in-app onboarding and training with Tours, Task Lists, and Flows that accelerate time-to-proficiency for new sellers.
- Supporting sellers with in-app performance support like Flows and Smart Tips on complex processes, new updates, or infrequently done tasks.
- Providing on-demand CRM user support with Whatfix Self Help to bring your SOPs and knowledge inside your CRM.
- Analyze in-app guidance consumption and identify common Self Help troubleshooting issues with Guidance Analytics.
- Build CRM sandbox environments for simulated hands-on training with Whatfix Mirror.
- Collect CRM end-user feedback with Whatfix Surveys.
- With Whatfix Analytics, analyze CRM end-user behavior to identify areas of workflow friction, inefficient processes, and optimal task workflows.
Ready to get started with Whatfix? Request a demo today!
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