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When doing business with your company, clients want to feel as if they're respected individuals, rather than faceless numbers. Unfortunately, as sales grow and companies expand, businesses sometime struggle to give clients the individual attention they desire. In fact, there are many companies that unknowingly treat their clients as if they're faceless numbers.

It's not that businesses intend to lose track of their customers; oftentimes they just don't have the technology to stay organized. Using sales and marketing software helps businesses to stay organized and keep track of their customers. This ultimately allows companies to give more attention to clients and have more-tailored marketing campaigns.

CRM software is a type of sales software that keeps businesses organized by collecting and sorting its customer data. With CRM software, sales representatives have more access to information about clients and are more prepared to close sales.

A recent Top Tech News article discusses CRM software and explains how it can improve businesses' sales process. The article references Mike Gualtieri, an analyst at Forrester Research, who asserts that CRM software can improve customer engagement efforts:

“Effective CRM analysis enables marketing managers and customer service workers to treat people as individuals rather than faceless members of market segments, Gualtieri said. That kind of customer knowledge can lead to more-tailored marketing campaigns and improved customer engagement efforts.”

Without CRM software, sales representatives essentially have no concrete information about their clients. They're simply going off their memories and past experiences with the clients and hoping their intuition can help them land a sale.

CRM software provides sales representatives with data and information so they don't have to rely on memories and intuition. Sales representatives are therefore more informed and educated about their clients, ultimately leading to more sales.

If you would like more information about CRM software, contact us.

When your business depends on making a sale, whether it is a product or a service that you provide, a lot of your time and attention is spent on the process of closing the deal. Sales Process Improvement can help your company spend more time building relationships with your clients and prospects, leading to increased customer satisfaction and repeat business, as well as referrals. One of the easiest ways to improve your sales process is by using CRM (customer relationship management) software.

A CRM system (ACT!, Salesforce, Hubspot) can help ensure that you are giving your clients and prospects more attention, while reducing the amount of time wasted by poor record keeping. By having all the client's or prospect's information in one place, along with your notes, tasks, and status of the deal, you are better able to focus on what you do best: closing the deal.

CRM software can also keep track of the number and type of deals in your sales pipeline, so that your company is better prepared to estimate the value of the sales pipeline, to control your delivery obligations, and to make sure that your customers' needs are met in a timely manner.

Depending on the system that you choose, individual orders can be tracked from lead through sale through delivery, sales tracking will also allow trends and purchase patterns to be analyzed for trends, again to better meet customer's needs and orders. Your company can also use the information to develop marketing initiatives and other forms of business development.

Sales tracking allows each individual salesperson's performance to be evaluated on objective criteria. Keeping this information in one place will also ensure continuity in the face of employee turnover.

Need more reasons to use a Customer Relationship Management system? To talk more about this, or anything else, please Contact us. Thanks.

Relationships between sales representatives and customers are crucial for businesses. While it's more of an old-fashioned strategy, some companies still rely on these relationships for future sales.

It's okay if companies have this strategy, but they have to invest in order to fortify it. Placing the entire weight of a business' sales on the shoulders of sales representatives just isn't fair. You can't expect them to memorize each little detail about clients and close every sale.

You can, however, support sales representatives to lighten their burden. Sales tools, such as ACT!, Hubspot, or Salesforce (CRM software), make it easier for sales representatives to stay organized. This way, they can look back on information about the past sales of a client and utilize it in future negotiations.

A recent Small Biz Trends article talks about the benefits of CRM software. The article explains how the software can help keep representatives organized by creating a contact list and making information easily retrievable:

“When dealing with hundreds or even thousands of customers, it’s easy to become disorganized and overwhelmed. Fortunately, the right CRM software makes it simple and intuitive to keep customer information organized and retrievable. By maintaining a contact list, it gives you quick access to a wealth of information like customer email, telephone, buying history and birthday.”

CRM software takes some of the weight off of sales representatives' shoulders. They no longer have to memorize and record each sale or order. The information is organized and presented in a way that's easy to interpret and understand.

Companies can still rely on their representatives for sales. An investment in CRM software simply hedges this bet. Sales representatives are better equipped to do their job, which should translate to more sales for the company.

If you are interested in CRM software or would like to keep your sales representatives organized, contact us.

CRM software is particularly effective in the financial advising industry. Now more than ever, financial advisors rely on statistics to make the most prudent decisions. CRM software makes this possible by collecting, organizing, and presenting data.

A recent Tech Page One article discusses the benefits of CRM software for financial advisors . According to the article, CRM software improves the overall business process while still reducing costs.

“These systems boost productivity and reduce costs. They allow advisors to store data so that it’s easier to access and analyze, to monitor communications with clients within their practices, and to execute transactions. Some leading firms in the advisory space say that they’re handling four times their previous workload with the same-sized staff. Others say that they’ve linked their CRMs to dramatic growth in assets under management and revenues.”

Data collection is the most important benefit for financial advisors. They not only have access to more data, but it's also presented in a way that's easy to access and understand. This gives advisors a significant edge over their competitors.

Improved communication also comes with CRM software. Nowadays, clients want to consistently be in touch with their financial advisors. Communication now plays a more important role than ever, and financial advisors have to respect this. CRM software like ACT! or Hubspot make communication with clients easier and more organized.

CRM software also can be integrated into the transaction process. This makes transactions easier for both advisors and clients. The system is easy to monitor so businesses can instead focus on the data and communication aspects.

All of these benefits combined make CRM software an essential component of a financial advisor's practices. Despite all of the services offered, CRM software is a long-term investment and will even reduce expenses.

If you are a financial advisor and would like more information about CRM software, contact us.

Staying competitive in today’s global economy relies on the latest technology platforms to improve sales and customer relations. That means using old marketing methods like combing through Outlook to create an email list for that next campaign, or using Excel spreadsheets for sales reports and earning projections, remain inefficient and unproductive.

Customer data: location...location...

For one thing, consider all of the locations where your key data resides, from documents and files kept on-premise among numerous PCs to notes attached to documents ‘filed away’ in the cabinet behind you.

When that key customer calls, salespeople need immediate access to his purchasing history, and what other products or services (cross selling) he might be interested in.

All of this must happen in a behind-the-scene manner, so the attention during the phone call, for example, is on the customer versus trying to navigate upteen windows to piece together the client’s profile.

Still use ‘Outlook’ but more efficiently…

ACT! Software lets users enter contact information quickly, and utilizes the ‘Outlook Integration’ feature to instantly create a new contact info right from an Outlook email.

Create ‘groups’ with similar profiles…

Sales people normal work with many clients with similar needs; rather than view multiple screens for info, ACT! allows the creation of a Dynamic Group: it will list all the clients meeting a certain filter set by the user.

Outside sales can benefit with ‘BatchGeo’...

A widely popular add-on, this module shows a map location of clients to assist outside sales teams in scheduling their calls.

Mobile access…

Customer profiles, sales info and other on-demand reports can be generating via smart devices, be it cell phone or tablet. Productivity takes on a new meaning as sales teams can collaborate on the road and in the field.

Contact us to learn more about customizing ACT! for your organization.