Factors That Need To Be Considered While Choosing Small Business CRM

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Well we have got the bad news for you – choosing a right CRM specially for small business can be a confusing task .

When comparing in respect to of the impact of CRM on revenue growth , you would probably get the best decision output . Some of the factors are listed below considering which you will more likely to take more informed decision .

How Fast Your Team Will Adopt CRM

Most of the CRM initiative in the company fails as the company employees fails to adopt it . They may be don’t want to upgrade their existing technology or find a CRM solution a little tidy job . This all will result in CRM investment go down as your employees are actually not using it .

Again if you are thinking of forcefully implementing it in your organisation , it will result in none other than poor quality data , which will ultimately result in downgrade of business leads which you were expecting .

For this a CRM software should be easy enough to be understandable and easy to use as their everyday consumers software .

The best way to overcome with this challenge is :

Choose widely used CRM – Design and user experience attract user to use the CRM solution . If CRM solution is not easy , it will hamper your employee daily routine and familiarity .

Choose all in one CRM solution – Look for the tailor made solution that do the most of the task automatically . Right from sending automated email to easy follow ups , it should be done by the CRM rather than manual taking of process .

Total Cost Of CRM Ownership

Some of the biggest cost while implementing of CRM solution in any organisation is the total cost is not visible at once , but it will be shown up from time to time thus forcing you pay for the CRM and loosing your pockets . Apart from the license fees or one time investment of the CRM , there are actually two other important factors that need to be taken care of :

Cost Of Implementation 

The cost of implementation depends on the vendor you are choosing from . Vendors may be of two types , mass vendors who are providing ready to use CRM solution on monthly renewal basis on the basis of number of user , and secondly the vendors who are offering you custom CRM development solution  in which you have to pay a large amount all at once . Well both the CRM providers are well equipped with tools that helps you get started with setting up the system and start using it .

Cost Of Maintenance And Support

In order to keep the CRM upto date and keep in tailoring according to your needs , you need to necessarily hire a full time CRM system administrator which will cost twice the cost of the licence of the CRM on annual basis . While the custom CRM solution might lake a little lesser .

Scale : Will It be Scalable With You ?

It is another important factor and this factor should be taken care of . Suppose right now your organisation is dealing with only 2-3 staff . What if it scaled up to more than 10 staff . Will your CRM system will be able to provide viable solution at reasonable cost ? You must move forward with a CRM that is ready to scale up with you for the next 3-5 years . Your CRM must have the capability of allowing user to see specific data in CRM , should have advance reporting module with automation module that helps organisation to minimise the most cumbersome task and hard followups . Also your CRM should be flexible enough in case you want to integrate it with other IT systems .

Also Read : Quick Checklist for CRM Software Reliability

Clear Outcome – What Is Your Expectation ?

We are really surprised to know that most of the business organisation are ignoring this step . They choose the CRM vendor without even seeing the output of the CRM implementation practically .

Yes is a critical software which helps you to maintain sales and customer relationship , without which your company pillars will stand nowhere in the marketplace . Setting clear goals and targets is the key to success for any business organisation .

The more specific your goal is , the better decision you will be able to take which means a better outcome . Are you planning to expand your business . They you may be in need of more leads to be materialised in order to increase a win rate , which can be achieved by choosing the best CRM solution .

Choosing the best CRM software development company can yield your growth and return on investment .

Winklix is leading software development company providing SalesForce customisation , Sugar CRM customisation and custom CRM development solution .

How To Get The Most Of Out CRM

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It has been seen that most of the time customer needs help of the customer to complete the purchase of the product . For any business organisation to run on the path of success , effective customer support is mandatory part . That is the reason , no matter what is the size of business , they all are loving to adopt Customer Relationship Management ( CRM ) solutions , which helps them to manage customer data , their order history , handling customer request and more .

CRM is a tool that helps the organisation to keep track record of customer information like order hostly , their preference and engagement and more . This facilitates organisation to know their customer at deeper level and showing the product or services that will be preferred by customer . CRM stores the information in central database which is easily accessible by all the departments of the organisation to make it more convenience for everyone present in the organisation .

To get the best out of CRM , it is important to focus on best practises that can facilitate us to get the maximum benefit out of it .

This article helps you to conceptualise most important things which you need to take care of while choosing your CRM . We at CRM software development company for over decades , and due to this experience we have prepared guideline to invest in new CRM .

Choose The CRM Required By You , And Not The Best CRM

Not every software is crafted according to your organisation need . It is always recommended to research on the CRM you are going to implement , rather than preferring the CRM solution often referred by your friends or business partner . Every CRM has their own pros and cons . So before finalisation of CRM solution you must check with all the requirement , and even if it does not contain some common features which is not required by you , you can choose that .

Also before choosing the CRM solution , you must also considered that whether you want local CRM , or you want cloud based solution . Whether you want to go on with monthly service contract , or want to invest one time upfront cost . Whether you are in need of customised solution ,  or common made features is enough for you .

So by keeping in mind of all the above points , you should take informed decision for solutions available in the market . It has always been seen that service contract may sounds costlier than upfront cost but may not support your future customisation and thereby increasing the cost .

Automate The Task Of Organisation

CRM tools are well designed to automate all the task of the organisation , thus saving heavy lifting of your business . For instance data entry , data entry is the real time consuming process if it is done manually , which can easily be automated by CRM . Taking the advantage of this automated system will not save your organisations precious time , but will also free up your employees and employing them in some other important task .

Training Of WorkForce About CRM

A good CRM system is not good until  you are aware of making full utilisation . So it is necessary to guide your workforce well about the benefits of CRM , why it has been implemented , how to use the same .

Periodic test to see how well they are been educated is crucial to ensure productivity does not go down .

Rules Are Important

For a CRM to function at its full potential , you should ensure that it is never being misused . For instance , you can put one rule that every lead lead data must be entered in CRM without any excuses . Enforcement of such types of rules helps data integrity , more transparency and smoother transactions .

Easy Availability Of Data Across All Departments

One of the major benefit of CRM is the data is easily accessible to all the department all the times due to centralised managed databased in CRM . By promising of data accessibility across all departments ,  CRM helps to avoid confusion which obviously may be the case when you are having to many cooking for preparing the single dish .

Assume if there is no CRM , it means once the customer raises any concern , the information may passed from one agent to another and then to another agent , which results in customer frustration and lost revenue . But with the help of CRM , a data entered by salesperson can be easily accessible by IT professional , or any one needy in the organisation within minutes , thereby facilitating best customer service possible .

Data Is Gold , Utilise It , Mine It

CRM are developed to handle mass amount of data . But what is the use of the data if you don’t have analytics of the data . CRM system has inbuilt feature to mine all the captured data and use that information to produce valuable conclusion which can help you to be future ready and make informative decision accordingly .

If your CRM does not allow you to analyse the data , then those information is nothing more than thus storing the data and consuming up your spaces !!

Also read : ERP Vs CRM Software

Choose Simple And User Friendly CRM

It is usually the case with many organisation that when they first encounter with the varieties of CRM solution , they want to invest in something that might be complex and far more than what is required by your organisation . Be careful with that and take the decision precisely – always choosing the best CRM that suits all your need is preferable . Choosing the features with lots of features that is none of the use for your organisation is ineffective for you . This step helps you and your organisation team member to take full advantages of your CRM , without wasting their time on unnecessary features .

Above all , you should always be willing to make changes in CRM in case required . The requirement  generates from your day to day operation and can guide you how they can be performed as per your expectation . CRM has more than the expected potential of performing well , but it will exist only if you successfully implement the CRM and do necessary customisation as required from time to time .

Winklix is also one of the best CRM software developer providing custom CRM software development , Salesforce Customisation and more .

How To Regularise Sales Process Through SalesForce

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None of the product can find their own customers until and unless it has been promoted well . With technology becoming more and more smarter and customers are becoming sophisticated , business should also take technological advantage of the recent innovations .This article is all about how a CRM implementation in the organisation can organise the sales process in organised manner using Salesforce Sales Cloud drawing salesforce consulting experience .

Lead Qualification And Assessment

When it comes to lead qualification , it plays an important part in lead conversion process . Gathering customer data and taking regular follows ups play a important role in lead conversation . In this regard the importance of CRM tool is very hard to overestimate .

  • Salesforce sales cloud helps creating customer data , tracking of important customer together with regular follow ups . Their artificial intelligence report will help you better understand which customer conversion rate is higher and you can start dealing with more effectiveness . As the same time , it saves the sales reps time as all data is present in centralised database and saves time which may gets consumed in copying and pasting from different documents or searching for different data which are stored in silos .
  • Data gathering and analysing from social media aids sales reps to focus on the most important leads rather than wasting time on the leads which will never gets converted as per their social records . As the same time sales reps will get to know the prospectus and desired expectation of the leads thus helping them to understand their customer in more effective way .
  • Einstein lead scoring is a tool for prioritising leads on the basis of sales readiness . This is calculated on the basis of the interest a lead shown in your business . It uses the tool of machine learning and data science to discover lead conversion pattern and priories the leads to be focused on first .

Also Read : SalesForce Einstein Api Tutorial

Proposal

Making a proposal for your customer without having a Depp knowledge of their requirement is like running in a dark . It is the most common mistake that any business does is absence of customer data , customer might be in need os some other product , and business give other things as not required by customer leading to failure .

  • SalesForce Sales Cloud functionality has an inbuilt functionality for creation of proposal as well . A sales reps can make customise quotation as salesforce keeps the data right from beginning and will help you determine which product suits best for that particular lead , thus contributing to positive customer experience .
  • Salesforce allows quotes from opportunity and its product and then each opportunity can have end number of quotes in relation to synced with opportunity . In SalesForce , your sales reps can create different quotes offering different combination of products , quantities and discounts on the basis of which customer can take effective decision .
  • Creating opportunity team in Salesforce Sales Cloud will help the marketing department to tailored the needs of complex proposal making by consulting with the engineering department , thus making the complex proposal easier to make .
  • Cross questioning of customer at the time of making the proposal for customer is also facilitated by SalesForce .

Handling Objections

No sales can go on a straight peak line . In reality the majority of sales go hand in hand with objection . Some of the common types of problem and the variety of solution offered by Salesforce is discussed below :

  • Need :Umm … It might be the case that a customer may not be in need of your product , which can be true in various aspects but at that time your sales reps can come down by communicating pros of solutions they offer and how it can actually benefit them by adopting the same  . SalesForce also provides for showcase of products together with its benefits and capabilities .
  • Budget : When it comes to budget of the lead , it is one of the hardest decision which must be taken care of . Is this respect a sales representative can provide the prospectus budget with best features offering . A SalesForce always proven as a  helping hand by giving you a 360 view of the customer gaining a better understanding of their preferences .
  • Time : A hard and fast rule of ” Buy now or you will regret the offer ” always proven to be effective . The best way to convert the leads is to be in contact with them at regular intervals . SalesForce allows to fix a schedule to make a contact with the leads as and when stated thereby reminding the sales rep to contact one account to another .

Follow-Up

Having your sales lead closed does not mean having a job done . In fact it is just the beginning of new fruitful relationship with customer which will be gained on the basis of trust , provided you manage to maintain thew healthy relationship with clients .

Salesforce cloud facilitates the add on functionality of taking follow up with the clients on the due dates and making friendly reminder if client has not been contacted yet . At the same time sales reps can schedule meeting and see responses of meeting on Salesforce classic and SalesForce mobile app. SalesForce shows events and reminders on a single reminder window and can be personalised as per the needs .

In SalesForce it does not matter when the lead is converted into deal or not , if it is converted then it will take the regular follow up , but even if it is not converted into deal , it keep the track record of the lead and keep sending them promotion offers and mails in order to continuously engage with the lead , with a hope that it might be converted into deal later on .

Understanding Competition

Understanding what your competitors are offering and how you can actually take advance by offering your customer a eye catchy offer can act as a helping hand in maintaining competitive edge and always be a step ahead of your competitor . Some of the ways in which you can see a eye on your competitors are :
  • Reviewing how your competitors are reaching customer
  • Quickly checking out of competitor website .
  • Offering better pricing and offer than competitor .
  • Buying and enquiring of product directly from competitor .
  • Following competitor on social media .
SalesForce has a competitor module which helps you to track competitors by listing the name of the competitors . Creating a pick list of competitors and keeping a strong eye on the same can benefit you in numerous of ways . This will help sales reps to get the overview of the pricing offered by competitors to customer and sales reps can deal with customer accordingly by offer them great offer on the same product . At the same time sales reps can also get to know about advantage , weakness and other things of competitor.

In A Nutshell

Boosting your sales requires investing in right tool and smart technology . SalesForce cloud has the full potential to manage the whole sales process till the closure of the deal . In case you are looking for customised solution for your different sales stages , you may hire a salesforce consultant to customise the salesforce as per your need so that you can take the full benefit of the same .