Year: 2016

How to improve customer service through metrics?

Making smart business decisions without metrics is like driving the car with eyes closed. While taking care of the metrics is primarily the job of the marketing department, as a business owner it is incredibly important to view the quality of your customer service through the metrics lens.

How to improve customer service through metrics that are found to be affecting the same in many other companies. Making smart business decisions without metrics is like driving the car with eyes closed. While taking care of the metrics is primarily the job of the marketing department, as a business owner it is incredibly important to view the quality of your customer service through the metrics lens.

Why has customer metrics become so important?

It’s common knowledge that bad customer service acts as the biggest leak in the bottom line.So what you do about it? Like most traditional companies – wait for the customer to reach out to you with a complaint. And if you do not receive any grievance, hurray! You assume that your customer service is going fine.

Breaking down this myth of customer service, a recent research has concluded that only 4% of unsatisfied customers actually speak up; which clearly implies that a lack of customer complaints doesn’t necessarily prove you are providing outstanding customer service.

How can you track the effectiveness of your customer support?

Time and again, experts have suggested of investing in customer support analytics tool. According to their opinion metrics play an important role in every aspect of a business, and customer support is no different. Since that’s the case, it’s important for every business entrepreneur to focus on the customer service metrics that will have the biggest impact on the bottom line.

Below enlisted are the following metrics you should focus on:

  1. Fast customer service

We live in a world of immediate solutions and smart objects. And so, customers too expect fast resolutions across all transactions. Forrester has conducted a research of 7,000 US customers and found that 71% of respondents said that they preferred companies that valued their time.

FAST customer service has several layers to it. It’s important that you and your team understand these to provide your version of fast customer service.

a.Average Time to First Responses

Let’s be honest: when it comes to contacting a company, we do not want to wait more than a few hours to hear back. This is precisely why that experts have emphasized upon the speed of a first touch. In simple words, the rate at which the support team first responds to the customer query is the most important. 52% of customers believe the speed of first responses is their main measurement of a good/bad customer service.

As a customer professional puts it – It’s not that customers do not have quite a bit of patience – 50 percent of consumers give a brand one week to respond to a question. However, they want, at least, an acknowledgement (within a few hours) that someone has started the help process.

Note:Companies using customer relationship managementsolutions have been found to have a low average time to first response. Considering this fact, most customer experts have recommended companies to invest in a CRM application for a quick 24 hour response rate.

In fact, this is exactly what the best companies share in common, cloud CRM software to improve their hourly response rates.

Time to resolution

Track the overall time it takes for a case to be closed. If the time is low, it means that your team is fast and effective with their responses. A growing gap in the numbers implies that your team revisits the same customer problem multiple times. Provide additional training to your team to make them thorough with your products/services.

  1. First Contact Resolution Rates

While fast initial response rates are essential, it won’t bring any value to your company if your response quality suffers. Lee Resources shows that up to 95% of customers are only willing to give a second chance if the initial interaction is done in a successful and timely manner.

Also, according to Forrester Research, 67% of customers say that having able to resolve a problem on the first contact influence the customer satisfaction score.

Since that’s the case, it becomes imperative for you to track how many problems your team resolves on the initial engagement. Remember by doing this, you will improve the overall customer experience that your business offers.

  1. Replies per inquiry
  2. Inquiry abandonment

Track how many customers leave/abandon your website live chat.

Recent consumer data has stated that 71% of customers expect assistance within 5 minutes, while 40% want help immediately.

With this is mind, you cannot choose to lose potential prospects and upset otherwise happy customers if you don’t keep a close eye on these numbers.

Note: your aim should be to start the conversation quickly. Once you do this, you can slow things down and solve their problem with competent service.

  1. Agent Performance

Identify which agents are top performers and which require additional training. Doing this will help you rout customer cases to the right agents. For instance, you can direct difficult cases to support agents that are knowledgeable of your product or service and easier ones to those that typically take longer to answer a case.

  1. WOW Moments

WOW-factors build a favorable word-of-mouth presence among customers to keep them coming back.

Find answers to –

Do agents try to make a personal emotional connection?

Do agents continue the rapport with the customers after the case has been resolved?

Do agents address unstated needs?

Unlike the others, this is qualitative data which most often do not make way to the spreadsheets. As a result, it is difficult to evaluate this metric for every interaction. You need to pick and choose the exclusive ones and point it out when reviewing performance or training new team members.

Final Thoughts

All of the above-mentioned metrics will help you measure your customer service efforts. Experts recommend investing in a customer analytics tool for proper understanding of your customers’ plan, lifetime value and lifecycle activity.

By applying the data-driven insights, you will know exactly –

When to hire customer support employee

Average cost to support the customer

Number of support inquiries from free and paying customers

Undoubtedly, you will make smart decisions and build your business on the foundation of loyal customers.

 

Patricia is a full time CRM consultant at ConvergeHub and part-time blogger. She has earned herself quite a fame as a specialist and market expert in CRM software. In the last five year she has worked with various companies as CRM consultant to help them move their businesses to cloud. Her expertise lies in offering cloud CRM consultation, CRM customization and integration solutions to small enterprises. For last one she is engaged in building ConvergeHub, cloud-based CRM solution for SMBs, as a consultant.Follow her at Twitter: @convergehub

Benefits of using CRM for your business

Are you one of those organizations who have failed to benefit from the CRM? Is your feature-rich customer relationship management software not performing to your expectations? Do you have second thoughts about your CRM investment? Wait…the problem might not be your CRM application but your own people. As per a recent research by Forrester and CustomerThink, close to 50% of all CRM problems are due to people issues. Surprising isn’t it? As per a survey carried over 600 people using the CRM, around 42% people faced problems such as: Understanding the CRM completely Aligning the CRM with day-to-day working. Many CRM experts have expressed their opinion on this matter. Let’s see what most of them have stated-

Benefits of using CRM for your business, how it can change the future of your business. Are you one of those organizations who have failed to benefit from the CRM? Is your feature-rich customer relationship management software not performing to your expectations? Do you have second thoughts about your CRM investment?

Wait…the problem might not be your CRM application but your own people.

As per a recent research by Forrester and CustomerThink, close to 50% of all CRM problems are due to people issues. Surprising isn’t it?

As per a survey carried over 600 people using the CRM, around 42% people faced problems such as:

  •          Understanding the CRM completely
  •          Aligning the CRM with day-to-day working.

Many CRM experts have expressed their opinion on this matter. Let’s see what most of them have stated-

Organizations fail to successfully implement CRM because –

  •          Hesitant attitude (by the employees) towards CRM adoption
  •          Improper guidance by the management towards proper CRM usage
  •          Improper attention given to business process change (that occurs after CRM implementation).

Having stated these factors, it becomes crystal clear that mere CRM adoption is not the route to success. Organizations need to plan before and after CRM implementation to gain the best out of it. So the question arises how to go about it?

Understand the 4 fundamentals of CRM

A balanced and well-etched approach is what experts recommend for successful CRM implementation. And to achieve this, you have these 4 fundamentals to focus on –

  •         Business Process
  •         Business Strategy
  •        Technology
  •          Users

3 steps you can take for effective CRM implementation

  • Lessen the cultural resistance: A CRM (no matter how useful) will not benefit your organization if your employees do not prefer using it. And to do this, you need to show the CRM in a positive light to your people. Starting with the benefits of the CRM is advisable. Let’s say you can show your employees how they can get all the crucial data in one unified platform anytime anywhere with cloud CRM software or perhaps how the CRM can remind them about their important client meetings and calls.

By associating the CRM features to their common problems, inevitably you will bring your employees several steps closer to the CRM.

  • Give control to the users: Achieving 100% user adoption is most challenging. One of the ways to gain this is by letting the users customize the software. As one of the CRM architects state – When users find that they can change a few software features and enhancements, automatically they prefer it. They look at the CRM not as standard enterprise software but as a tailor-made application for their work.
  • Set example yourself: Many organizations fail to convince their employees for CRM due to inadequate support from the management. It needs to be understood that work culture is influenced by the senior members of the organization. Employees look up to the top executives to shape up their work pattern. Needless to say, if they find their team leaders and managers using CRM habitually, they too will use this software. Proper buy-in from the management is what is needed.

 

 

Patricia is a full time CRM consultant at ConvergeHub and part-time blogger. She has earned herself quite a fame as a specialist and market expert in CRM software. In the last five year she has worked with various companies as CRM consultant to help them move their businesses to cloud. Her expertise lies in offering cloud CRM consultation, CRM customization and integration solutions to small enterprises. For last one she is engaged in building ConvergeHub, cloud-based CRM solution for SMBs, as a consultant.Follow her at Twitter: @convergehub

How Automation Tools changing Email Marketing for ever

Email Marketing is the call of the moment. Practically every business is resorting to email marketing to reach the widest number of targets at once. However, very few are managing to do it well. One of the reasons is the lack of knowledge that businesses have on how to successfully execute email marketing. This blog describes the current trend of Email Marketing in detail and illustrates how Marketing Automation tool can help businesses carry out Email Marketing with much precision.

How Automation Tools changing Email Marketing, We may have no idea it’s happening. We have discussed on the same. So the story starts that one month ago – I made my first online shopping FINALLY. After seeing many of my friends and family members doing the same, I took the plunge. What I got was a well-fitted pair of denims. All good till now, BUT then the extreme happened…

From the very next day of purchase, I started receiving daily emails from this online store. What was bothering to see was that this process continued for the next 25 days. The store didn’t even realize the fact that I hadn’t opened even one of their mails. Or perhaps they did know but chose to complete ignore the fact?

Whatever the reason might be – the point is that their Email Marketing was totally absurd; which brings to my attention the current state of Email Marketing. I am sure that like me there must be uncountable people across the world who must be suffering the same hassle too. So is Email Marketing a dwindling form of marketing?

Surprisingly No

Paraphrasing the words of Andrew Sheridan –

It’s true that Email Marketing doesn’t have the best public image at the moment. Thanks to the concept of email blasts which does not consider the recipients’ needs nor does it analyze the campaign response. As a result, there are several studies questioning its usefulness.

However, in spite of all this criticism about Email Marketing, it is still the preferred channel for generating marketing opportunities.

According to State of Marketing Measurement Survey Report 2014- Email Marketing will be flourishing in the coming years.

Here are a few other startling facts related to Email Marketing:

• 66% of people make an online purchase getting influenced by Email Marketing messages

• 76% of commercial emails are opened within the first two days after an email is sent

• 74% of adults prefer email as the best method of commercial communication

• 7 in 10 people use a coupon or discount from marketing emails

• 82% of consumers open emails from companies

• Email Marketing has an ROI of 4,300%

Surprising right? In fact, it’s totally counter-intuitive. Because if companies are following the kind of Email Marketing strategies that I went through – the scenario should be radically different.

So what is it about Email Marketing that research bodies have advocated it so much? What has led them predict a bright future for Email Marketing in the coming years? How come Email Marketing has attained an ROI of 4,300%? And most importantly, on what parameters have the majority of the consumers preferred Email Marketing as the best channel of commercial communication?

Andrew Sheridan explains – “Marketers tend to get a lot of backlash against the commercial emails they send, but it’s a simple matter of fact that Email Marketing works. It may feel impersonal, but there are a few tricks to fix that.”

And one of the best tricks that have radically changed the face of Email Marketing is Marketing Automation.

It might sound a direct promotion of Marketing Automation tool, but the fact is that this technology has made promotional emails feel a lot more personal – especially when companies are sending emails to huge lists.

For example, Marketing Automation technologies have made it significantly easier for marketers to send mass emails with the receivers name and content tailored specifically to them. And the result for doing this is amazing such as increased mail opens and click through rates.

Jason Gillespi, Online Marketer and Email Strategy Analyst, has been using Marketing Automation technology for a long time. Here is what he has to say in the preference of this tool:

1. Better Engagement

Till one year back, like the other marketers even for me subscription to my emails meant that the readers were reading my mails. However, implementation of the Marketing Automation tool brought the reality upfront. I realized that just because someone is subscribed to the email list does not mean they’re actually reading the emails. .

This is because: most often readers subscribe, often without thinking. Plus, nowadays, thanks to the always-crowded inboxes, it’s quite frequent to miss out on emails. Hence, taking for granted that everyone in the mailing list is getting engaged is a MISCONCEPTION.

And this is precisely where Marketing Automation comes into the picture. Functioning as the perfect savior, it gives deep insight to understand the statistics. For example –

• Which are the recipients who are opening the daily emails?

• How may have clicked on any of the links?

• Which are the recipients who have not shown any form of engagement with the mails?

With all these facts, it is much easier for us to modify our Email Marketing programs. So let’s say if customer A B & C are not engaging at all, we can always inquire them of their email content preferences or even subscription preferences. Accordingly, email campaign can be set for each.

2. Complete Visibility

Using Marketing Automation, we have the benefit to look at the experiences and behaviors of the recipients across all channels and across all emails. Based on which we tailor the Email Marketing program.

So if Customer A shows a strong preference for a particular category of products, the next couple of emails can be made populated with contents related to those. This increases the likelihood of the recipients to make the purchase.

Final Thoughts

Having read all the pointers, it’s clear that what I went through is the old marketing concept followed by a fraction of companies. Majority of fast growing larger and smaller enterprises are using Marketing Automation tools to deliver behavior oriented emails that are more human, relevant, and personal.

And as a result: Email Marketing is definitely here to stay for long. Just the remaining companies need to capitalize upon this fervor by adopting a marketing tool with strong automation capabilities that gives their marketing a human touch.

Stay Connected with our ConvergeHub All in One CRM Software

A Guide on Lead Management and Lead Nurturing

The present business environment has given rise to a new concept: LEAD MANAGEMENT & NURTURING. Experts across the world advocate its implementation. However, studies show that more than 65% of companies do not follow any planned lead management program, resulting in acute declining sales. If lead management is also absent from your business action plan- then read through this blog that covers the fundamentals of lead management and cites a few essential pointers to successfully carry out lead nurturing campaigns.

A Guide on Lead Management and Lead Nurturing, How modern marketing is using it. Generating leads through marketing campaigns is isn’t an easy task. Marketers need to pull up different strategies at different levels that inspire prospects to fill out a lead capture form.

However, is lead generation – the end of the job for the marketers?

A leading report from HubSpot gives us an insight into what actually the marketers need to do once they have a list of leads in hand.

It states:

“Generating leads is only half the battle won —making them sales-ready is the rest of the impending task.”

This you can definitely say is the hardest reality that marketers need to come to terms with.

In spite of much conflict with sales on this matter, the fact is: Once a prospect has become a lead, it’s a large part of the marketers’ job to find a way to make them sales-ready so that they can be easily pulled down through the sales funnel.

Marketing Expert at CIO Insight explains –

“Purchase decisions take time. In fact, more than 50% of leads aren’t ready to buy on the day of first conversion.”

And this is precisely where two dynamic concepts come into the picture:

‘Lead Management’ and ‘Lead Nurturing’

Together in action, they behave as the linchpin in the process of converting leads into customers. According to these two concepts, marketers need to invest in different tactics, to make the leads move from interest to action (purchase).

But is doing lead management and nurturing so easy?

Yes. Unlike the earlier times when marketers did not had the right guidance, today there are several written and verbal resources on lead management and nurturing. Going through any of these gives marketers the right insight into understanding workflows, segmentation and marketing automation to strengthen lead nurturing campaigns.

In what holds further is a detailed outlook on one of the best lead management and nurturing practices. Take a look –

Email Marketing

Email Marketing is one of the core elements of a successful lead management and nurturing program. Statistics suggest that Lead nurturing emails get 4 -10 times more response rate compared to other marketing campaigns. This piece of data rightly demonstrates the power of email marketing.

However, unlike the traditional email marketing blasts – today companies need to opt for Targeted Email Marketing.

Statistics suggest – Targeted emails get 50% more clicks than untargeted email blasts!

And the reason for this is pretty obvious. Targeted email campaigns are sent considering the needs and preferences of the leads. So they are likely to be more receptive towards the mails. And that’s exactly what helps in carrying out lead nurturing too.

Not to forget that Lead nurturing biggest objective is to influence the leads to make the final action. Hence, targeted emails can be sequentially set in guiding the lead toward purchase.

For example, once the lead already knows about your brand, the emails can be targeted towards making the leads read about your company blog articles and eBooks.

How to Map Content for Lead Management & Nurturing Campaigns?

To make your Lead Management and Nurturing Campaigns successful, you’ll require a planned content structure. Continue reading as we discuss the 5 stages of lead nurturing and the associated content for each:

1. AWARENESS

Build the interest within your leads. Start off with introductory content – blogs & eBooks. Remember, this is the stage during which leads will determine if they have a need for your product or service. So make sure your top-of-the-funnel content is standard enough to entice your leads move to the second stage.

2. CURIOSITY

In the second stage, the leads look forward to knowing more information about your brand. Focus here on showcasing the USPs of your product. Talk about why your product or service is valuable to them. Emphasize upon offering demos and free trials of your product/service.

3. EVALUATION

Coming to this stage, leads start evaluating the pros and cons of dealing with your company. In all probability, they surf for other alternate options to decide which product/service is best for them.

Here, shift the focus from your product to your company. Make it clear to the prospective customer that your company is the right choice. Convince them of the value of your company. Throw light on the several awards and recognitions that your company has received.

4. PURCAHSE

Yippee!!! By this stage, your leads are almost prepared to take the plunge. But wait…that doesn’t mean it’s the end of your job. Leads might demand another reassurance of your product/service quality. So give them that. Make them believe that they are making the right choice by selecting you. Share past customer testimonials to give them that confidence.

5. POST PURCHASE

Unlike the 90% of marketers…DO NOT STOP at purchase. There’s something called post purchase lead management and nurturing too.

So share guides about best ways to use your product/service. Introduce other product/service offerings. Consistently share these informational materials through tools like web CRM to pave the way for up-sell opportunities.

Leading Sales technologies that help drive sales

Today only those businesses can survive that are technology-backed. That is why it is essential that every small and medium-sized business adopts the latest technologies that improve their operations. In this blog, we have spoken about four tools that can grow sales numbers for a business dramatically. Read the blog to go though each of them and understand how they play a crucial role in increasing business sales.

Leading Sales technologies that help drive sales, get them with your own CRM at ConvergeHub.

New technologies are getting introduced at a fast pace. As entrepreneurs, you need to understand each of them and measure its importance in relation to your business sales, marketing, customer service, finance or inventory management.

This blog outlines the sales-related tools and technologies. Implementing these a little here and there will surely work wonders in boosting your business’s revenue.

So leave all other work aside, and pay full concentration here. After all it is about the most important aspect of your business, isn’t it?

FOUR CRITICAL SALES TOOLS

1. CRM

Shocked? Surprised? (Not your fault)

Since the time the concept of CRM has come, it has always been associated with customers. Whether it is to improve customer relationships, retain customers, or provide a better service – CRM has been the answer.

However, now CRM has got revamped. It has got all the features to function as a Business Management Platform. And one of these features is SALES MANAGEMENT.

That is why now CRM is being used as a sales platform too.

And its performance has been great!

Research firm CSO Insights has surveyed a group of businesses, out of which 72% have expressed that using CRM Software has had a positive effect on their sales.

Here are three ways how CRM is helping businesses get their sales into top gear:

  • Identification of Best Sales Practices CRM solutions are enabling the sales team to record all the activities in one database. Analyzing all the tasks at the end of every quarter, sales agents are easily differentiating between the activities that have resulted in conversions and the ones that have not.Empowered with this knowledge, they are only applying the best practices in future.In other words, sales reps are getting all the intelligence to apply only the proven processes, and progress faster through the sales cycle.
  • Enhanced Collaboration CRM solutions are encouraging better communication and collaboration within the team. It is breaking down the departmental silos to make sales connect with marketing and customer support.As a result – Sales team is finding it easy to share critical, time-sensitive information with other key associates that help close more deals and earn revenue faster.
  • Sales Automation Majority of the leading CRM solutions offer an integrated Sales Automation module. It is a feature that automates the sales related administrative tasks. Resultant of which, sales teams who are otherwise always burdened with these unnecessary manual tasks, have the time and energy to concentrate on more-revenue generating activities.The bottom line: it makes sense in every way that businesses (small or big) use a CRM solution. So plan and select a CRM to manage your sales NOW.

2. Live Chat

When customers drop into a brick and mortar store, they expect someone to listen to their needs and help them in the selection and purchase. The same expectation applies to online shopping too!!

So it is important that when prospects visit a website, they get the assistance of a virtual agent. And Live Chat precisely serves this purpose.

Using it, visitors get to interact with an agent to solve their queries fast. Agents can also speed up the whole purchasing process, by moving the prospects faster towards sale.

So overall, live chat benefits both parties – buyer and seller.

3. Gift Cards

Many retailers are doing it and you can do it too. Simply give gift cards to some of your most loyal customers or the ones who have the highest bill amount. Customers will instantly feel happy!!! They will feel valued as a buyer which will encourage them to spend more on your business, and up your sales numbers. How effective isn’t it?

4. Digital Mirror and iPad

This is exclusively for the retail industry. According to expert Ian P. Murphy, buyers prefer those retail shops that provide an amazing and smooth shopping experience. And just to deliver these, many stores like Neiman Marcus have put up a digital mirror in the store that allows shoppers to:

  • Compare outfits tried on in the dressing room
  • Share the outfit-worn pictures with friends on social media to get immediate feedback.

That is not it. Stores in Bloomingdale have installed Apple iPads that connect to the inventory system. Shoppers can locate items in-store and at locations nationwide, to find if their preferred sizes and colors are available or not.

Final Thoughts

Irrespective of your business size/type, ultimately, your objective is to keep the money rolling in, which is why we have cited these four critical sales tools. Start including them one by one and get ahead in the sales game faster.

Tip: Start with the first sales tool, right here.
PS: Do not forget to write in to us. What did you think of all these sales tools? What new sales tool would you like to see in the future? Sound off in the comments below!

Learn about entrepreneurship lessons straight from the experts

Starting a business is considered to be an uphill task. While majority of the young minds want to venture into entrepreneurship, they are hesitant to do so. Reason – The initial steps of starting a business is unknown. It is this vagueness of idea, the fear of the unknown or failure that prevents many from taking that crucial first step. Moreover, many find starting a business an overwhelming process in the mistaken belief that they have to start from scratch. The thinking is: I’ll have to come up with a product/service no one has ever done before – then only will my business survive. However, experts believe that starting a business is not always reinventing the wheel. Rather business entrepreneurs should focus on business growth. Example – How can I improve on my business? or Can I deliver this service better from the other competitors?

Learn about entrepreneurship, the best lesson you can get. Starting a business is considered to be an uphill task. While majority of the young minds want to venture into entrepreneurship, they are hesitant to do so. Reason – The initial steps of starting a business is unknown.

It is this vagueness of idea, the fear of the unknown or failure that prevents many from taking that crucial first step. Moreover, many find starting a business an overwhelming process in the mistaken belief that they have to start from scratch. The thinking is: I’ll have to come up with a product/service no one has ever done before – then only will my business survive.

However, experts believe that starting a business is not always reinventing the wheel. Rather business entrepreneurs should focus on business growth. Example – How can I improve on my business? or Can I deliver this service better from the other competitors?

Read further as I bring for you, six easy lessons to get your business up and running:

1. Do something that you are passionate about

Diego Echeverri 32 launched the Washington, D.C.-based neckwear company Bull+Moose. With a strong army background, he chose a business which he is passionate about. Also the emphasis was to choose an industry where he could apply the skills developed during the military days. Apart from self-discipline and polite deferential manner, his army experience also helped him in designing the menswear. After all, all these years he had been wearing the uniform and knew how to dress well.

Lesson learnt: Choose a business that you are passionate about. To ensure that you remain committed throughout the years, choose a work that you enjoy doing.

And how do you do that?

  • Take out a sheet of paper. List five to seven things about yourself–things you like to do and are really good at.
  • List things that you don’t think you’re good at or don’t like.
  • Examine what you like and dislike about your work.
  • Note down the traits people like and dislike about you.
  • List three to five products or services that would make your life easier or efficient.
  • Based upon the answers given to the above-mentioned points, determine the line of your work.
  • Remember, to only invest in a business when you are completely sure.

2. Search for the problem

Many years back, Irvine, California, a business area did not have many fast-food restaurants. Although the strip centers had a few food courts, the parking lots were really small, much to the inconvenience of people. Result: most business professionals had to trek across the town for lunch.

Pondering over the plight that disturbed many, two young men in Irvine came up with a brilliant idea: restaurant delivery business. Today, reportedly their business has served more than 15 million people! It’s one of those unique businesses which are not complicated. In spite of stiff competition, they had been doing phenomenally well.

Lesson learnt: The inspiration for business ventures/new business division can come from what’s around you – from the state of things you observe or live in. Just like these two professionals listened to their frustrations and decided to do something about it, similarly you can do the same too. Listening to your family, friends, colleagues and customers’ problems can make you discover hidden opportunities.

Unearth interesting opportunities from just looking around or reading. Say: you come across an aspect that’s missing in your target area; see how you can solve it in the lieu of your own business growth and expansion.

3. Do not hesitate to take risk

Dale Katechis, founder and owner of Longmont, Colo.-based Oskar Blues Brewery launched the line of mountain bikes, Reeb. Within just a few years, Katechis sold a whopping number of Colorado-built bikes.

While many have taken his decision (of moving from nation’s most successful craft breweries to a startup bike industry) an imprudent one, he has had a different explanation to give. Paraphrasing his words – The startup is the best part of the entrepreneurial process where there is the liberty to just creating. From ground up you build up a company and solve problems. Oskar Blues beer was built up on many mistakes. With Reeb cycles, there’s an equally high level of risk. However, I have taken it because I believe in the concept.

Lesson Learnt: It’s important that you believe in your ideas and are willing to experiment. If you really want to carve a niche in this super-competitive environment, you cannot afford taking the safe road all the time. With a clear concept combined with a thorough planning you can do what is unexpected. After all the success of any startup rides on a clear vision of what the company is and wants to be, with a precise strategy to realize that vision.

4. Write your business plan

Most of us think – I’ve got the business idea in my head, do I really need to write it out? The answer is Yes!

An example of a business entrepreneur who followed the old-school approach (i.e. writing things on a paper) is Sean Hackney. He is the co-founder of Roaring Lion Energy Drink which is quite popular in bars and nightclubs.

In his words – ‘’ Writing a business plan was absolutely worthwhile. I had a lot of stuff in my head that required to be put on paper.”

Corroborating this further is Professor William B. Gartner. According to a survey conducted by him, writing a business plan greatly increases the success ratio of a business entrepreneur. Ideally, they do more stuff and are two and a half times more likely to be productive.

Tip: Do not opt for a too lengthy business plan – I mean not more than 20 to 40 pages. Keep the plan in detail but precise.

5. Prioritize your initial buyers

Every business entrepreneur prioritizes upon his first customers. Nothing wrong in that – however, the perception that encourages them to do this is partially correct. Understand your first buyers are not just the ones who will turn on the revenue spigot for your business. They play an integral role in legitimizing your business idea. Based upon their purchase, you can calculate the actual size and potentiality of your target market.

Not to forget, the valuable feedback that they provide can do great wonders in improving your business.

Tip: Convert positive customer feedback into testimonials. Placed whether on your company website or in your store – it will definitely act as your business USP.

6. Consolidate your business system

There cannot be a bigger roadblock to your business growth and success than multiple discrete systems working in parallel. Imagine the redundancy of work that your employees have to do, trying to string together the data silos. Not to forget the time required to create or troubleshoot system integration, and incur the annual upgrade issues.

A business process management solution like a CRM can be a huge timesaver in the above-mentioned scenario. Functioning as a broad application (as opposed to more discrete or best of breed systems which have to be cobbled together), CRM software streamlines your sales, marketing and customer service activities. Moreover, most of the renowned CRM systems come up with a host of third-party app integrations which allows you to efficiently manage other tasks within your CRM without duplicating work.

So be it sending e-mails to your business associates or conducting online meeting with your prospects across the globe, you can do all and much more through CRM software

 

Patricia is a full time CRM consultant at ConvergeHub and part-time blogger. She has earned herself quite a fame as a specialist and market expert in CRM software. In the last five year she has worked with various companies as CRM consultant to help them move their businesses to cloud. Her expertise lies in offering cloud CRM consultation, CRM customization and integration solutions to small enterprises. For last one she is engaged in building ConvergeHub, cloud-based CRM solution for SMBs, as a consultant.Follow her at Twitter: @convergehub

Why you need to buy a CRM for your business

Buying a CRM is a crucial decision. Why do we say it – Have you ever come across a business entrepreneur who wakes up in the morning, yawns, stretches, and then decides his or her business needs a CRM solution. (Sounds insane right?) The realization to buy a CRM comes from hard business realities such as slipping sales, customer service discrepancies, marketing woes, and an escalating series of interrelated problems that ripple across departments. But then is buying a CRM an easy method? Especially when you have at least 800 companies all over the world advertising their CRM solution as the best for diverse business needs. We say YES! Picking a CRM solution from the uncountable options is as easy as picking a pair of jeans from thousands of denim brands.

Why you need to buy a CRM for your business, did you ever thought of it? Buying a CRM is a crucial decision. Why do we say it – Have you ever come across a business entrepreneur who wakes up in the morning, yawns, stretches, and then decides his or her business needs a CRM solution. (Sounds insane right?)

The realization to buy a CRM comes from hard business realities such as slipping sales, customer service discrepancies, marketing woes, and an escalating series of interrelated problems that ripple across departments.

But then is buying a CRM an easy method? Especially when you have at least 800 companies all over the world advertising their CRM solution as the best for diverse business needs. We say YES!

Picking a CRM solution from the uncountable options is as easy as picking a pair of jeans from thousands of denim brands. Just like for the denims, knowing your size is important, similarly, for a CRM, you need to pick a solution that benefits an array of criteria specific to your business.

What do we mean by an array of criteria specific to your business?

Every business has its own unique needs (we all know that I suppose) However, how do we find out about those needs? The best way to understand and analyze what your business requires is by answering a short questionnaire –

  • What is your company size?
  • What are the specialized needs of your teams?>
  • What is the vertical market that your company serves?
  • What will be the method of delivery (On-premise or SaaS)?
  • What will be the degree of integration that CRM will have with your business systems?
  • How easy will be the whole integration process?
  • How much will be the up-front costs, maintenance costs and the total cost of implementation and ownership?

Getting through all the questions is not easy. However, you are more likely to succeed in buying a CRM if you keep in mind the wrong ways of buying it. Shocked?

Well, according to a Gartner report, CRM failure ranges from 40 percent to 80 percent—and it’s not because CRM vendors create bad software. It’s mostly because buyers make crucial mistakes at the very outset.

So for any business that is looking for enterprise customer relationship management software – here are the three mistakes to avoid:

  1. Do not downplay the business problems: According to a survey conducted by a business and technological center, business managers hesitate to talk about the organizational problems. Many feel that exposing the problems in front of the management is embarrassing. Many even see it as a career-limiting move especially if the problems have developed under their surveillance.

As a result, business problems are denied and deflected which sows the seeds for greater problems in the future.

  1. Do not solely focus on technological needs:Many times sales and marketing teams get enamored of a particular CRM feature, which encourages them to buy that application, only to know later that the CRM app doesn’t map to the problems their company is suffering from. What makes things worse is when a CRM solution (chosen due to its impressive functionality) forces the employees to change the way they work. These types of scenarios turn to be a major liability for the companies who now have to deal with post implementation problems with a much higher price tag.
  2. Do not reprioritize the CRM goals often: Change in the business goals during the CRM selection and implementation process is a common mistake. According to the experts, exposure to CRM applications triggers new thinking among the team employees. While this is good, it often leads to the shift of original CRM goals.

Consequently, it becomes difficult for the companies to analyze the success of their CRM. Questions such as ‘Why can’t the CRM do this?’ starts cropping up. Although the new business goals are met, the original objectives for which the CRM was implemented stands untouched.

 

How to buy CRM Software solution for your business

Having discussed the first stage of CRM buying process, let’s proceed to the second and final stage that is all about defining your CRM requirements. With results of stage one in mind, sailing through this stage will be relatively easy. The sixth step to buy CRM is to understand the adeptness of the team members. 6. Check how well your staff can adopt the new application: Many companies require support from the CRM vendor to help their employees pick up the nuances of the application. Now whether you will require it or not will solely depend on how adept is your staff at picking up new applications and new concepts.

How to buy CRM Software, What are the steps you need to follow. Having discussed the first stage of CRM buying process, let’s proceed to the second and final stage that is all about defining your CRM requirements. With results of stage one in mind, sailing through this stage will be relatively easy.

The sixth step to buy CRM is to understand the adeptness of the team members.

  1. Check how well your staff can adopt the new application: Many companies require support from the CRM vendor to help their employees pick up the nuances of the application. Now whether you will require it or not will solely depend on how adept is your staff at picking up new applications and new concepts. Once you know the sophistication level of your staff, you can estimate the degree of support you will require from the vendor.

Note: The levels and costs of support can vary from vendor to vendor. To make the best choice, check with vendors to see what costs are associated with premium support. Use the social media channels to enquire among the peers who have employed support from CRM vendors. Do not opt for a vendor who holds a reputation of providing an excessively costly or poor quality support.

The seventh step to buy CRM is to understand the integration requirements.

  1. Consider the integration level of the CRM application: How far will the CRM integrate in your business process is an important question. Integration can add significant costs and delays to the CRM implementation. So if you are planning to use the CRM to increase the customer-centric nature of your entire business, then ease of integration should be your preliminary criteria. Opting for a too-difficult-to-integrate CRM cannot prove to be a good bet for your business.

The eighth step to buy CRM is to understand the feature requirements.

  1. Take out your list of need-to-improve processes: Remember in the second step (know your business), you have executed a business mapping procedure which in return gave you a list of areas that require upgrading. Use this guide to make a list of must-have features in the CRM application.

Using the problems you identified early on, note the approaches that your business should take and identify those CRM features that will help you execute these approaches. Let’s say you want to capitalize the social media to establish a stronger connection with your customers. So your goal should be to look for a social CRM that helps you create social platform for your employees to build an integrated interface for customers to share and collaborate.

The ninth step to buy CRM is to understand your market nature.

  1. Vertical/Horizontal market requirements: Understand and analyze your market requirements before selecting a CRM application. For instance, if you deal with an industry where different forms of customer data is collected, then you should select a CRM solution tailored to your vertical industry.

Considering the unique needs of every industry type, customizable CRM software has now become much prevalent. Industries for which tailored CRM applications have been created include agribusiness, insurance, real estate and non-profits.

The tenth and final step to buy CRM is to zero in on the right vendor.

  1. Finalize the CRM vendor: Once you’ve shortlisted a few CRM vendors, carry out a background check of each of them. Remember the last thing you would want to discover is that your vendor has over-promised or won’t be in business to support you in the future.

Note: Do your own research. Social media can be a good medium to carry out the check. You can also ask for a few references from the vendor themselves. Enquire among the references whether the CRM implementation was benefiting, and if so, what role the vendor played in it.

 

How to choose crm solution and how to select a crm solution

Having discussed the first six steps to evaluate a CRM, let’s proceed to the remaining six which will sail you to the right CRM selection. 7. Reports/Key Insights Think about what metrics you as the business owner/manager need to see – and make sure the CRM you choose will readily provide you with those insights. Key insights include:

How to choose crm solution a discussion unravelling the mysteries of business and corporate growth. Having discussed the first six steps to evaluate a CRM, let’s proceed to the remaining six which will sail you to the right CRM selection.

7. Reports/Key Insights

Think about what metrics you as the business owner/manager need to see – and make sure the CRM you choose will readily provide you with those insights.

  • Deal Acquisition Report

It will include the number of deals registered over a period of time.

  • Deals by expected close date

It will tell you the total number of deals in the pipeline and how much of that amount your business can realistically expect to bring in.

  • Sales Funnel Analysis

It will tell you where your team stands at all points in your sales pipeline and what your business has to lose or gain.

8. Easy import/export of Data

Data import and export is a common activity that takes place while using the CRM. Since data is a key business asset, it cannot be overlooked.

Here are 2 basic queries you need to consider:

  • How well does the CRM document the import/export process?
  • Can users import/export the data by themselves or will they require the IT department?

9. Customization

Your business is unique. Make sure the CRM you choose can adapt to your line of business. For example sales cycle of a real estate agent is different than the sales cycle of a service based company. Consequently, look for a CRM that allows you to customize your reports, drop downs and add custom fields, so it makes sense for your business.

10. Growth & Scalability

Looking for a CRM solution now, in all probability you would not like to go through the same task again in a year. Isn’t it?

Hence, considering this fact, it should be your #1 priority to select a CRM solution that can scale you’re your enterprise. In the words of a CRM strategist – ‘’Irrespective of the nature and size of your business, you have customers to manage, sales to track, marketing to execute and teams to coordinate. Thus, business entrepreneurs should always opt for a CRM solution that is simple to use, intelligent and powerful to benefit the bottom line and most importantly grows with the enterprise.’’

Example – With time, your team will grow and most likely you’ll want to assign different permission sets to different users. In such a scenario, you will benefit only if you have CRM solution that enables you manage sharing of information at different levels.Using role based permissions feature, you can easily create hierarchy and set data security rules on who can access what information, (depending on your business’s evolving need).

11. Automation

Make sure the CRM system you choose is able to reduce redundancy by automating certain tasks.

Key automation features to look out for:

DRIP Automation

ConvergeHub Cloud CRM solution offers DRIP marketing manager which is a powerful tool to schedule your campaign. Using Converge, you just need to set the trigger for the date and set a span for the campaign to run. The rest will be taken care of by Converge DRIP marketing automation.

Task Reminders

You’re busy and you need help staying on top of everything and so you have decided to invest in a CRM right? Find a CRM that allows you to take a quick look at your day’s activities.

In precise you should be able to

  • Schedule, reschedule, organize, add and edit your tasks from a single screen interface of the CRM
  • See forecasts on sales deals
  • Check tasks and projects based on their due dates.
  • Share your calendar with colleagues and acquaintances.
  • Get intimation about upcoming events/meetings.

12. Customer Support

When you’re selecting a CRM, you’re not only selecting a product, you’re selecting a partner. With this thought in mind, you cannot afford to ignore but answer these questions before making the final plunge:

  • How would you rate your interactions with the CRM vendor?
  • What are their customer service and support options?

Note: Most CRM vendors can try to hard sell, only to neglect you once you actually become their customer. Be sure to select the right vendor who shows you the true light to CRM success.

How to be a sales leader

Customers have more options than ever! Every day they are bombarded with some new product information. Plus, continued advertising from the existing products.Result: there is a blur of marketplace. With so much to see and listen too, customers have started to generalize things. Just like products and services, there are far too many salespeople trying to catch the attention of the customers. With every product/service claiming for a (more or less) same set of USPs, there is not much difference in the sales pitch. Result: Salespeople are not being able to bring anything new to the board.

How to be a sales leader, learn here with ConvergeHub, the best CRM for SMB. Customers have more options than ever! Every day they are bombarded with some new product information. Plus, continued advertising from the existing products. Result: there is a blur of marketplace. With so much to see and listen too, customers have started to generalize things.

Just like products and services, there are far too many salespeople trying to catch the attention of the customers. With every product/service claiming for a (more or less) same set of USPs, there is not much difference in the sales pitch. Result: Salespeople are not being able to bring anything new to the board.

Such a scenario has posed a big challenge for the companies. Standing apart from the crowd and not getting categorized with others has become the real key. But how is this possible?

Sales expert Mark Hunter has emphasized upon the role of leadership. In his opinion, majority of sales reps follow the herd policy. Paraphrasing his words – Following a tried and tested rule is the easiest thing to do. And this is precisely what sales people also do. What they fail to realize is – When they agree to follow, it means they agree to be seen as a commodity and be subject to the limits of being a follower.

Do not agree with the above-mentioned point? Read below to understand it yourself:

What is one of the most basic things followed by most sales reps? Answer – give a lot of options to the customers. So if the customer is not buying product A, pitch in product B or gives a combination of product A and B. It doesn’t end here – there is an additional product C and D which also comes into the picture later.

What is the logic behind doing this: to give as many combinations and permutations so that customer chooses at least one of it and hurray – deal close!

This is what sales reps are taught to do and most of them blindly follow. But then – does this sales approach actually generate result?

Mark states a brief encounter:

In one of the sales call I noticed recently, the sales rep put forth numerous options in front of the customer. Result: the customer got overwhelmed with the high amount of information to be processed in. The natural defense mechanism of slowing down kicked in. The customer got confused and was unable to make the decision in the first call. Inevitably the sale got delayed.

Lesson learnt: Following the run-of-the-mill strategy is not always the path to success. Sales tactics should be kept dynamic i.e. modifying them as per the demand of the situation.

For instance, presenting the lead with few options might seem closing the pitch early. However, limiting the options on seeing that the customer might get confused is a wise decision. After all; presenting more options than what the customers can process can only make them confused.

How should sales reps bring leadership into their work?

Being ‘’different’’ is the first step of bringing leadership into work. However, Mark warns that ‘’difference’’ here should be understood as being a freak of nature in all occasions.

In actual sense, it’s about being strategic than tactical; not adhering to a process followed through years, but framing something new in the sales pitch. And most importantly to look beyond the selling benefits and focus instead on outcomes.

Is sales leadership only limited to customer interaction?

The answer is No.

According to Mike, bringing a change in the approach towards customers/leads is half job done. For truly becoming sales leaders, the change needs to be implemented in the entire functioning. In fact, Mark emphasizes upon not only transforming the frontline sales reps but the entire sales team. The objective should be to make a sales leadership team instead of a sales management team.

As he states – ‘’ If the goal is not to be seen as some other commodity in the market place, then not only the frontline salesperson, but the entire team should be sales leaders. A sales leadership team will be more focused on the customer benefiting outcome rather than simply going through the motions of connecting dots in closing a deal.’’

What is the difference between a sales leader and manager?

Sales management and sales leadership model have an ideology difference. For instance – sales managers’ work depending on the yesterday’s work status; in contrast sales leaders work depending on the goals for tomorrow.

The idea is simple: Sales leaders do not accept the “average” even if it means not following the trends of the marketplace. They create success by pioneering new sales strategies. It is then only that they lead their customers to achieve outcomes that customers even didn’t think were possible.

 

Patricia is a full time CRM consultant at ConvergeHub and part-time blogger. She has earned herself quite a fame as a specialist and market expert in CRM software. In the last five year she has worked with various companies as CRM consultant to help them move their businesses to cloud. Her expertise lies in offering cloud CRM consultation, CRM customization and integration solutions to small enterprises. For last one she is engaged in building ConvergeHub, cloud-based CRM solution for SMBs, as a consultant.Follow her at Twitter: @convergehub

Best call center CRM with customer contact center CRM features

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) involves the process of gathering and housing all customer details in a single, shareable and updateable repository. It is universally used by businesses to study and learn more about customers’ purchasing behaviors in order to proactively serve their needs and strengthen relationships with them. In this blog, we give you a detailed outlook on how implementing robust cloud based CRM solutions brings forth many benefits and advantages to the customer contact centers of any business.

Best call center CRM with customer contact center CRM features, ConvergeHub brings the best for you. It’s important to ensure that the encounter happening between the contact agents and customers is smooth and satisfying (especially for the customers). There have been multiple instances where slightest of glitches on the part of the contact agents have marred the reputation of the business.

For instance, reports suggest that approximately 82 percent of people choose to deal with a company based on their experience with the customer agent. In fact, many admit that their reason of switching brand loyalties is due to poor customer service or a bad experience they have had with a contact center.

In case you think that one or two customer attrition every day does not really affect you. Think again!

In the current era of social media, bad customer experiences are instantly magnified and shared within the online community. Nevertheless you can say that when one customer leaves dissatisfied – 10 to 20 others follow the suit. This leads to brand damage on a massive scale.

To avert such plights, experts strongly advocate the entrepreneurs to make their team equipped enough to handle customers/prospects by all mediums – phone, email, fax and instant messaging. The service should be quick and effective so that the impression that the customer gets is positive. Most importantly, they should always remember that customer/prospect interactions is not a one-time affair. They need to focus on maintaining the same consistency of service quality. Then only will multiple interactions culminate into forming a bright picture of the company and influence the customers’ allegiance towards a particular brand.

The introduction of CRM in the Contact Center

The New-Age Customer Relationship Management solution is one of the best tools that can enable the contact centers to operate in the most efficient and effective manner. In addition to being a customer service CRM software, it operates as an effective tool for managing the sales and marketing activities too. In other words, it’s just not meant to be used for post-sales customer service but sales and marketing contact agents can use it comfortably for dealing and interacting with leads and prospective buyers.

Experts like Tim Carrey have also stated that contact agents require robust enterprise-wide applications like CRM –

”That’s because CRM functions as the central repository of customer data. As and when contact agents interact with the customers, they keep updating the same in the CRM. Besides capturing all forms of customer data, all company and product collaterals also get stored within the CRM platform. Eventually, it becomes easy for the agents to quickly access pertinent information about leads, customers, accounts, deals, products and services from the CRM. Moreover while interacting with the customer, agents can pull up the customer’s entire history at once.

Since the whole organization uses the CRM to feed, share and access data – issues like data discrepancy does not crop up. Having accurate, up-to-date information at hand helps the contact agents at providing the best insights to the customers.”

CRM aligns sales, marketing and customer service data together. This primarily benefits in two ways:

First, with 360-degree information present in the CRM, Sales, Marketing and Service professionals get a synopsis of the transaction history to easily identify the most valuable customers who have shown loyalty towards the company for the longest span of time. Inevitably, they prioritize these customers and frame strategies to serve them the best for more long-term relationship building.

In other words, CRM enables the agents to assign value to each customer and determine the type of treatment to be served to them.

Second, with CRM systems, agents are able to provide faster resolution of problems to the customers. Customer relationship management applications help track customer requests and fulfillment to measure the quality of service given and recognize the areas that require improvements.

Since all the insights are easily available and accessible from any Internet-enabled device, they are in a better and more prepared position to help the customer. Moreover, whenever required, customer service representatives can share information and insights across the departments to collaborate with the right associates and better serve the customers. Needless to say, faster and more responsive service results into a satisfying experience for the customers. They develop a strong fidelity towards the brand and want to keep doing business with the company.

In addition to ameliorating the service quality, CRM plays an instrumental role in accelerating the sales figures too. That’s why cloud CRM is also given the name, cloud based sales software. For instance, information about customers purchase histories and transactions serve as a handy resource for the sales reps to comprehend short-term and long-term purchase trends. Companies can act on these insights and frame precise cross-selling and up-selling strategies.

In similar ways, marketing reps too can use the data resource to use for marketing programs and advertising campaigns.

Final Thoughts

The insights gained from CRM equally benefits sales, marketing and customer service areas. It empowers contact agents to answer customer inquiries and handle a variety of sales and marketing actions, that includes campaign-based and sales queries and product recommendations.

What is Sales Enablement, Why we need sales enablement

Marketing and sales are two siloed departments – this concept does not hold relevance today. Now, marketing and sales collaboration is essential for the success of any organization. That’s precisely why marketing and sales alignment is top priority for many entrepreneurs. Marketing teams need to do more than just deliver leads that the sales team can nurture or follow-up on. They are required to work in sync with the sales, providing deeper and more better understanding of the potential buyers to the sales agents

What is Sales Enablement and how we need it to grow our business. A recent Oracle report discussed on the topic of ‘sales enablement’ by none other but the marketing team. It stated that merely transferring a bunch of leads to the sales department should not be the end of the job for the marketing agents. With little more effort, marketers can play a big role in helping the sales team close more deals!

This blog offers paraphrased insights from the Oracle report and HubSpot white paper, showcasing how marketing can accelerate the process of sales:

The usage of CRM

The modern sales and marketing solutions (hint: online CRM) have aligned sales and marketing activities. This has given both the teams the flexibility and convenience to work in perfect synchronization. For instance, regular updating of the marketing activities in the CRM can prove to be a real help to the sales agents.

Sales agents can get all the marketing updates in an organized format in the CRM. By studying through them, they can develop deep insights into buyer motivations and behaviors. Questions like what leads care about can come easy to them. In short – sales agents can get more equipped to initiate discussions that are of most interest to the buyer.

A thorough analysis of the marketing activities can help sales agents work on the hottest leads first. Let’s say: when sales agents study the marketing-lead interactions, they can precisely categorize organizations that are:

  • actively engaged in the buying process
  • not engaged at all

This can empower sales agents to prioritize those organizations that show positive sign of buying.

Lead Nurturing

Marketers really need to focus on lead nurturing. Because if done correctly it can build strong relationships with potential buyers, thereby leading into successful sales.

As Marketo states – Today’s potential buyers don’t become customers overnight—they require marketing over time as they self-educate and build trust with a company.

New-age CRM platforms play a crucial role in lead nurturing process. For instance, they help marketers communicate consistently with buyers’ throughout the sales cycle. This ensures that the brand name stays on top-of-the-mind of the prospects and they move towards the end of the funnel, displaying strong positive signals of purchase.

Involvement of Sales in Lead Nurturing

It is suggested that Marketers include Sales in the Lead Nurturing process. Wonder why? Here are the reasons:

  • Sales agents can get a first-hand view to prospect interactions and understand the leads psyche. Accordingly they can drop cold prospects from the pipeline and return them to marketing.Marketers can further work upon these leads and watch for signs of progress in the buying cycle. Once the leads reach a favorable score and are ready to make the final plunge, they can be passed over the fence to the sales.
  • Active involvement of sales in the lead nurturing program can put the sales agents in front of the potential buyers from the start itself. By the end of the lead nurturing program and at the offset of the buying process, sales agents can be familiar to the buyer. A relationship of trust can be developed between the two and the sales agents can indefinitely be in a much better position to sell.

Final Thoughts

With experts (like Oracle and HubSpot) advocating the role of marketing in sales enablement, it’s time that marketers take on this added onus. Unlike what many think that this will be strictly sales benefiting, in real sense, it will be mutually benefiting. Marketers who go beyond lead generation and focus on sales enablement will help drive more revenue and strengthen their own position in the organization.

So it’s all prudent that marketers help sales better understand the audience: by providing complete insight into buyers and their related areas. Then only will sales effectiveness improve and marketing efforts leveraged. Isn’t it? Or do you feel otherwise? Share your comments on what you think should be the role of marketing in sales enablement…