Does your organization use Outlook to track appointments, Excel to map sales goals and projections and rely on email to organize communications? This type of structure is completely normal for many companies but it’s not the most effective or efficient way to handle these tasks.
CRM is a central hub for all sales related activities including follow-up tasks, sales goals, sales projections, staff assignments and customer communications. How your company handles sales related activities should be a priority. Better organization and communication can lead to more sales and a more profitable company. How exactly can a CRM solution help your business directly increase revenue?
- Increased efficiency of sales and marketing: If your sales and marketing personnel are spending time meeting, networking, calling and communicating with clients/customers, prospects, vendors and others, they are probably collecting a variety of information. CRM software allows them to quickly access accounts, add and share information and review opportunity activity history. They are also able to automate tasks like follow-up communications, lead routing, sales stage progression, quote creation and more.
- Increased follow-up effectiveness and organization: A successful salesperson is able to effectively follow-up on sales leads and opportunities. A good CRM system gives salespeople the ability to easily capture, manage, schedule and view tasks, appointments, emails and notes in one location. It also enables them to set reminder notifications ensuring activities and appointments aren’t forgotten.
- Identify product sales and competitive trends: CRM software can make it easy to compare historical sales results with current results. This will empower your business managers with the information they need to make changes based on marketplace trends and the competitive environment. For example: declining win/loss ratios for a specific product line may suggest new entrants to the marketplace, lowering pricing or quality issues. The ability to capture why a sales opportunity was won (or lost) can provide your organization with key information into company strengths and weaknesses.
- Nurture prospective and existing customers: A CRM system brings all of your customer related activities into a single location. This means you are able to nurture current and prospective customers effectively with marketing and follow-up communications tailored to their habits, activities and interests. This allows your company to stay in front of customers so when they are ready to engage, you are who they think of first.
- Share account and opportunity information throughout your organization: If you have multiple employees working with the same account or customer, they may not have all the information they need. This can be a particular problem if you have remote workers or offices in different cities, states or even countries. (Read about the growing trend of remote workers here.) CRM gives your organization the ability to easily share historical sales and activity history between employees, offices or locations. This allows your company to leverage information and relationships to open new doors and create new sales opportunities.
A good CRM system can help your business achieve new levels of revenue growth. If you have questions about CRM software options, implementation, training or support Oasis Solutions Group can help. Contact us at 502-429-6902 or oasisky.com
