Is Your CRM ‘Sales-Enabled’?
CRM, the term stands for customer relationship management. Formally defined CRM refers to a combination of strategies, processes, and tools that are used by businesses to leverage customer data obtained through the customer lifecycle to curate the best customer experience.
Initially developed to store, maintain and track customer inquiries, CRM software has long since paved its way towards assisting sales teams to manage leads - and for good reason. After all, the first point of access for both new and recurring customers is the sales team of your organization, and receiving the right support to close deals is vital in a highly competitive business environment.
Likewise, CRMs are also often a starting point for customer service teams to monitor inquiries, which gives the sales department sufficient incentive to use what has been already been aggregated. So how does the 21st century CRM facilitate a journey that is pleasant for both agent and customer? Here are three such ways.
1. Organizes every minute detail needed for securing sales
With multiple sales reps on the job and hundreds (if not thousands) of leads to pursue, it is difficult to accurately and efficiently keep track of every little detail. But those little details make all the difference. In fact, the most trivial bits of information can prove to be immensely useful when it comes to determining the potential of leads. While it’s virtually impossible to track every intricacy manually, the right CRM software can automatically record everything for you, and ensure you have all those key details at the deal-closing fingertips of your sales team.
2. Provides quick and easy access to potential leads
While your CRM software is perfectly capable of storing all details related to leads, customers, and targets, it’s now time to make the most of all this information to close deals. Today’s CRMs are capable of automating administrative tasks such as e-mail replies or notifications to follow up with high-profile leads.
3. Generates reports on your team’s progress while offering predictive insights
From which region did you score the most sales? Which brought you the least? What could’ve contributed to those results, and what can you do to further improve the achievement of your sales targets? The CRM software of today comes equipped with comprehensive analytical tools, which can provide reports based on your objectives, challenges, and anything else in-between.
What’s more, sophisticated reporting functionalities in most enterprise software systems make use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, which offer data-driven insights that aid sales teams to make accurate, impactful decisions for the future.
The benefits of having a good CRM tool cannot be denied. In fact, it won’t be wrong to say that it's a must-have for a business with big growth goals. The challenge, however, is to find the right CRM tool that will best suit your business needs.
Following are some qualities that you must look for in a good CRM software:
- A CRM that provides workflow and automation tools can be a great way to bring work efficiency and save operational costs.
- Since social media now plays an important role in the growth of any business and as a way of interacting with the customers, a good CRM must offer social media integration.
- Along with social media integration, email integration is also something that you should look for in a CRM.
- As the goal of having a CRM is to manage customer relationships more effectively, a customer interaction tracking system can do wonders in this regard. Lead tracking, lead scoring, and lead management are also some of the features that are essential to a good CRM. This is especially important if you want a sales-centric CRM.
- A good CRM must allow you to create sales pipelines and offer analytics and reporting in a way that makes the processes go smoother rather than complicating them.
- A contact management system and calendar integration and management system in a CRM are also important for increased productivity and efficiency
- Last but not the least, an easy-to-use interface and dashboard are a must.
At the end of the day, a good CRM is not the one that offers you more features but the one that allows you to get closer to your business goals. When looking to buy a CRM, you must be more solution-oriented than feature-oriented. In other words, you should ask yourself what solutions will a particular CRM provide for your business. For some businesses the primary concern might be improved customer experience, others might care more about reduced operational costs.
Following are some steps that you need to follow in order to select the right CRM software for your business:
- Identify your business needs. Ask yourself what the vision of your company is, what are your immediate goals and which problems you need solutions to.
- List down all the ways in which a sales-centric CRM can help you fulfill those needs. This will help you identify the specific problems you are looking to solve and lead you to the specific features you are looking for in a CRM
- Once you have an idea of what features you are looking for in a CRM, it is time to make a list of those features.
- The next step is to list down those features in order of priority. Ask yourself what features are absolutely essential and which ones can you do without. This will help you later in the decision-making process.
- Check your company budget and determine what price you are willing to pay for a customer manager software
- Compare CRM software available in the market.
- Short-list the best CRM from among them and then weigh the features offered by each one of the shortlist CRM against the price.
- Select the one that provides you with the most value.
Did this article inspire you to adopt a sales-centric CRM, or upgrade your current one? Allow us to guide you on which CRM software solution is ideal for your business! Please visit our CRM software page for our entire list of solutions.
