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CRM Software Isn't Just for Sales Process Improvements

By Steve Stroz on Dec 31, 2018 3:30:00 PM

An important aspect of CRM software, like ZoHo, ACT!, and HubSpot, is that it's not exclusively used for sales process improvements.  The ability of CRM software to track and manage cannot be understated. What the software is really doing is collecting and organizing data. Businesses can use this aggregated information in several ways. 

It's not just about sales, either. According to a recent Business 2 Community article, CRM can be used for customer segmentation and social media marketing: 

"CRM lets you create, track and manage marketing campaigns effectively. Whether its outbound calls, customer segmentation, email marketing, social media applications or creating customized campaign lists, CRM automates the steps and produces data-driven results to accurately measure your efforts."

So why is CRM software often discussed in the context of sales process improvements? The data organized by the software has a direct impact on sales. Your sales representatives suddenly have a way to quantify their client's behavior, preferences, and wants. They can analyze patterns in their behavior to predict and suggest new product orders. 

There's nothing wrong with that, but we just don't want CRM software to be thought of as one-dimensional. In reality it impacts several processes and aspects of your business operations. But if you go into it thinking that it will only increase your sales, then you won't use it to its full potential. 

If you've already implemented CRM software, then consider how it has affected areas of your business other than sales. See if there's anything you can do to make employees refer to it more to improve their own individual performance. 

To talk more about sales process improvements, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

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Gain a Competitive Advantage with CRM Software

By Steve Stroz on Dec 20, 2018 3:30:00 PM

The problem with most business' sales cycles is that they focus more on lead generation than they do conversion. Because of this, they get tons of leads through their online marketing efforts, but they rarely convert them to sales. 

According to a recent Forbes article, some businesses research their leads so poorly that they don't even know if the people fall into their target market:

"Finally, the B2B sales cycle has not seen big advances in personalization. Of course, the sales deck the buyer sees has their company name and logo on the title slide, but that’s where the personalization typically ends. This assumes that the buyer even made it that far. Since the initial research stage results in reading generic info on a website that could be targeted at any Jane Doe."

You can avoid this situation by personalizing your sales process. To do this, you need to collect information about each person so you can target them individually. 

With CRM software, you can acquire the data and analytics about your customers that you need to personalize your sales process. Moreover, you'll be able to better define your target market based on the common characteristics of your clients. 

This information will set you apart from competitors. Since most businesses are still behind when it comes to personalizing their sales process, you'll get ahead by incorporating data and analytics in your process. With the data collected by CRM software, your sales representatives will be more informed concerning clients and your marketing team will be able to create more effective campaigns. 

To talk more about CRM software, ACT!, HubSpot, ZoHo, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.

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How Contact Management Software Improves the Sales Process

By Steve Stroz on Dec 19, 2018 6:00:00 PM

The most important aspect of contact management software is the data and analytics it provides. Each time your sales representatives interact with customers, the software records the outcome. 

After a few weeks or months of recording data, you can start to identify patterns in your customers' behavior. You'll notice that certain customers place similar orders on a regular basis. Your sales representatives can then anticipate these orders to make sure they're placed with your company. 

Sales representatives aren't the only ones who can learn from the data, though. According to a recent Business 2 Community article, contact management software provides company-wide reports that all employees should refer to: 

"Beyond analyzing prospect behavior at the individual level, CRM software also provides overarching metrics on types of outreach,such as how many outbound calls your sales team has made this month, or which campaigns and offers are closing the most deals. These company-wide reports give you a look into your sales process and pipeline as a whole, plus they can identify ways to retain existing customers or upsell them on other products or services."

Your sales representatives, marketers, and customer service representatives all need to be on the same page. If they all refer to the same data, then they'll anticipate the same actions from customers. 

Compare all of this to your sales process without contact management software. Rather than basing your actions on data and statistics, you're just going off of intuition. Even if your sales representatives have strong relationships with customers, it's always better to add analytics to your sales process. 

To talk more about contact management software, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

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3 Steps to Increasing Sales with CRM Software

By Steve Stroz on Dec 13, 2018 3:45:00 PM

1. Research your target audience

The more data your CRM software collects, the more you'll learn about your target audience. After a few months, you'll start to see patterns in the data form. From this information, you can infer certain things about your target audience. 

2. Build your social media marketing campaign around their behavior

What you do with that data and how you interpret it will determine how effective CRM software is for your business. One way businesses use the information is to improve their social media marketing efforts. 

According to a recent Business 2 Community article, after you implement CRM software, you'll find it easier to connect with customers on various social sites: 

"CRM is a new frontier in customer-centric sales and marketing which is reinventing the customer relationship and creating a real-time landscape for enterprises of all sizes to connect with existing and future customers – leveraging Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and more."

3. Increase sales

And finally, your targeted marketing efforts will eventually lead to an increase in sales. Engaging followers on social media is important, but you really want to see it impact your bottom-line. 

In addition to improving your marketing efforts, CRM software gives your sales representatives more tools. They can study up on clients by referring to the software before meetings so they'll have a better chance at finalizing a deal. 

What makes CRM software so special is the overall impact it has on your company. You can apply the data to several aspects of your business. 

To talk more about CRM software, ACT!, HubSpot, Salesforce, ZoHo or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

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3 Simple Sales Process Improvements

By Steve Stroz on Dec 12, 2018 4:30:00 PM

Improve your customer relations

Customer loyalty is the ultimate determinant of long-term success. If none of your customers ever return, then your business will eventually run out of steam.

It takes time and patience to improve your customer relations, but it's well worth the effort. According to a recent Business 2 Community article, it will help you understand what drives success: 

"It takes work to develop YOUR sales process. You need to collect and analyze data, you need to interview your customers. You need to look for the patterns that drive success. It’s not a lot of work, but you still have to understand, specifically, what drives success."

Collect and analyze data

As mentioned in the article, data plays a big role in the sales process. The only way to identify inefficiencies and capitalize on opportunities is to look at data and statistics. This gets your sales process down to a science and removes the guesswork. 

Shorten your customer lifecycle 

In addition to attracting customers to your business for repeat orders, you also have to shorten your customer lifecycle. It won't mean much if a customer returns to your business once every two years. But if you can get them to place an order one every three months, then your customer loyalty will become a lot more valuable. 

These three improvements will help make your sales process more efficient. After a few months, you should notice an impact on your company's bottom-line. 

To talk more about sales process improvements, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

Topics: CRM Reporting
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Should Your Business Implement Marketing Software?

By Steve Stroz on Dec 8, 2018 3:00:00 PM

 Why businesses need marketing software

Why a business or an organization needs marketing software depends on their own specific needs. As a result, there are many reasons businesses cite for needing marketing software. 

A recent Advertising Age article reports the results of a survey which asked businesses why they need marketing software. Here are the results: 

  • 27% said they need marketing software to improve lead management
  • 15% said they need marketing software because they were unhappy with their current system
  • 13% said they need marketing software for better/more features
  • 10% said they need marketing software to increase company growth
  • 9%  said they need marketing software for better integration
  • 8% said they need marketing software to automate their processes
  • 4% said they need marketing software to for an upgrade/update

Depending on your situation, one or more of these cited reasons may apply to your business. 

How marketing software improves your processes

Marketing software helps businesses to organize and improve their marketing processes. The idea is to automate certain aspects of the process and gain access to data and analytics. By using marketing software, you can identify possible areas of improvement in regard to your marketing strategy. 

Is marketing software right for your business?

First, you need to understand that any business can implement marketing software. There's no requirement in terms of size, sales, or your budget. 

The most important thing is that you analyze the aforementioned needs for marketing software and see if any of them resonate with you. If you need to improve your lead generation, automate your marketing process, or increase your company growth, then you should seriously consider marketing software. 

To talk more about marketing software, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

Topics: CRM Reporting
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How Communication Makes CRM Software More Effective

By Steve Stroz on Dec 6, 2018 3:30:00 PM

Communication is key when it comes to using CRM software. Since all your departments - marketing, sales, accounting, customer service, etc. - can use it, it's important that they communicate with each other. 

The importance of cohesion is best understood with an example. A recent Biz Community article explains how your business can use CRM software to increase the value of a returning customer: 

"You have just invoiced a customer, and a predetermined query raises the flag that this customer has not been invoiced in at least 12 months. Furthermore, the value of that customer is extremely high. In simple terms, it is clear that an old customer, who is very valuable to the company, has returned. Such a flag should immediately trigger a personal "welcome back" email from a senior manager, or possibly even a phone call."

If you don't use CRM software or some type of marketing technology, then you'll have no idea the customer is returning unless you remembered his or her name. CRM software makes everything into a process so you can't miss an opportunity like this. 

Once the software sends an alert and tells you that the customer is returning, it's up to your business to make the most of it. Whether you set up a meeting with a sales representative or send a personalized email, it's important to take your relationship management to the next level. 

There are several things you can do to make your CRM software as effective as possible. We recommend improving the communication between your departments to develop cohesion around the software. 

To talk more about CRM software, ACT!, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks. 

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How Do You Know When You Need To Improve Your Sales Process?

By Steve Stroz on Nov 5, 2018 3:00:00 PM

A good salesperson will be able to fully explain and convince potential customers why he or she is better than the next competitor. The ability to do this is what puts them in the front of the line when it comes to competition in their field.

In order to be among the best salespeople, your salespeople or salesperson should posses the following qualities:

  • Have the desire that can not be broken
  • Have the commitment to get the job done
  • Be responsible and have the understanding of the bigger picture
  • Have the technical skills for finding prospects and following through on them

Sales is what drives the revenue of your company. If you want to improve your sales organization and grow it, you need to implement a sales process improvement process that will allow you to manage, support, and examine everything. 

When you are seriously ready to make improvements to your sales process, you should evaluate where you are right now. You should ask yourself these questions about your company. Whatever your answers are, you can use them to take a new walk on the path of success:

  • Is it simple or difficult to order or buy from your company?
  • Why is it simple or difficult to buy from you?
  • What kind of feedback have customers given you? Why do they say those things about you?
  • What kind of things do your sales people tell you? Does your company support their sales process? Does it make them productive and effective? 
  • How well does your CRM software or system assist in the selling process? 

You need to consider what is important to your customers. When you have an understanding of what is important to them, you will be able to create a process that your salespeople can use to be effective and productive.

If you are serious about changing your organization with an improved sales process, do not hesitate to contact us today. You want to create better opportunities for your sellers and your customers. 

Topics: CRM Reporting
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Improve Customer Win-Back Rates with CRM Software

By Steve Stroz on Jul 23, 2018 3:00:00 PM

Over the past decade, businesses have been investing more and more in customer analytics . This investment has been proven to be effective in improving communication with clients. CRM software can assist businesses with their customer relationships and has a good ROI.

New research shows that companies that invest in customer research outperform ones that don't. Here are the results of a recent report conducted by Aberdeen Group (the percentage symbolizes the year percent change):

19.7% customer win-back rate for users, 9.0% for nonusers
6.8% cross-sell and up-sell revenue for users, 2.6% for nonusers
6.2% customer retention for users, 3.6% for nonusers
3.7% improvement in average customer care costs for users, 0.7% for nonusers
3.3% revenue from customer referrals for users, 1.6% for nonusers
3.3% customer lifetime value for users, 0.9% for nonusers
As you can see from the statistics, customer analytics have a major impact on sales and customer relationships. In just about every major statistic, companies that use customer analytics outperform companies that use a more traditional approach.

If your business is considering CRM software, like ACT!, Hubspot, Salesforce, or Zoho, but is not sure if it's worth the money, then take another look at the statistics and compare it to the costs. If you're looking to increase customer win-back rates or up-sell revenue, CRM software can help you finish the job. For companies with these needs, CRM software will almost definitely have a positive ROI.

In addition, compare the cost of CRM software to other steps you would take to increase your customer win-back rate. Inbound and outbound marketing may be useful in this area, but they aren't free services, either. One way or another, businesses are going to have to pay to increase their win-back rate. CRM software may be the most cost-effective solution of the bunch.

If you would like more information about CRM software, contact us.
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Why Do You Need CRM Software? Here Are Five Reasons

By Steve Stroz on Jul 18, 2018 5:30:00 PM

To us, it's clear why someone might need CRM Software, but you might need some convincing. Well then, here's six reasons to consider.

Better customer relations

We'll start with the most important benefit of CRM software (e.g. ACT!, Hubspot, Salesforce, and Zoho). Ultimately, the software collects information and data about clients which representatives can use for future sales. This leads to more efficient conversations with clients. Here's what a recent Business 2 Community article had to say about CRM software:

"I’m a firm believer that the more information you have, the better customer support you can offer. If your customer service team can dig into a customer profile and see that she’s called before on this same issue, they can quickly read the previous notes so the customer doesn’t have to repeat herself and tell the whole story again!"

Stay organized

Sales representatives can have all of the data and information in the world but it wouldn't mean anything if it wasn't organized. CRM software doesn't just collect information, it also organizes it so it's easy for sales representatives to read.

Assist sales representatives

Investing in sales representatives will eventually show up in your bottom line. If they have an easier time selling to clients, the business will have more total sales. CRM software is one of the best resources companies can give to sales representatives.

Positive ROI

CRM software isn't free, but it's a worthwhile investment. In the end, businesses will receive more money from the investment because it will have a positive impact on their overall sales.

Easy transition

Transitioning over to new software isn't as hard as it used to be. In addition, incorporating other software with CRM usually isn't a problem. Let us know if you need any help with you switch over to CRM software. But usually, it's a pretty smooth transition for businesses.

To talk more about this, or anything else, please contact us. Thanks.
Topics: CRM Reporting
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