Year: 2017

Best Tips For Small Business For Buying CRM This Black Friday

Black Friday and Cyber Monday that falls on 24 November (Friday) and 27 November (Monday) respectively this year, are the two biggest spending days of the year for the U.S markets. As retailers are struggling to meet the shopper’s desires for providing them unparallel holiday promotions and smart retail experience on this holiday season 2017, here are a few awesome tips that you must know if you are thinking about buying CRM for small business in the next few days to come.

Best Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deal to buy your CRM that falls on 24 November (Friday) and 27 November (Monday) respectively this year, are the two biggest spending days of the year for the U.S markets. This implies that there is a massive opportunity for small business, to capitalize on this seasonal frenzied buying spree and generate a huge increase in sales.

According to research, most small business views a small increase of sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, without much additional efforts, since more than 55% of consumers plan to pay a visit to stores on these two days of the year.

In a report published by National Retail Federation on holiday spending in 2013, it was found that 20-40 percent of yearly sales for small and medium businesses take place in the last two months of the year, and this trend is on a rise.

With Black Friday 2017 just around the corner, big deals are continuing to pop up on most of the US’s biggest retail online sites, as of today. According to TechRadar the most sold and some of the greatest tech products on discount this year are Samsung Galaxy S8, PS4 Pro, PlayStation VR and CRM platforms. This is to name just four tech products of many.

Massive sale discounts on flat-screen TVs and laptops are also pretty typical deals that run on Black Friday and Christmas. These flashy and awesome for the consumer’s deals work on businesses that have big margins or even small businesses those who can justify breaking even to acquire new customers since they are aware that their average customer makes multiple purchases during the later part of the year.

As most people use, different social media and web research before purchasing online, it has been found by Salesforce that while 74% of consumers search the website, 43% checks their emails, 38% look into social media promotions and 36% gets motivated to buy using the retailer’s mobile apps.

As retailers are struggling to meet the shopper’s desires for providing them unparallel holiday promotions and smart retail experience on this holiday season 2017, here are a few awesome tips that you must know if you are thinking about buying CRM for small business in the next few days to come.

Ease of use

Like any other software, you need to train yourself and your employees to use the CRM platform. Hence to save yourself the frustration and headache, choose the CRM which has a simple user interface and does not require much of a learning curve. The best way to be sure about this is to use a test or demo of the CRM software and find out whether it fits your taste.
Customizability

As there is no one-size-fits-all CRM solution for small business or even for large enterprises, customization of the CRM software is the key to getting the most out of your customer relationship platform. Choose a CRM, which can be customized according to your business’s unique needs. Apart from feature customization, you need to also look into the extending capabilities of the CRM by using plugins, extensions, templates, themes, and other add-ons to completely tailor the CRM to your business DNA.

Third-party integration

Make sure that the CRM that you buy is compatible with the applications that you already use in your office. CRM that integrates with all types of third-party software (like POS system, accounting, call management and others) helps to streamline all your data through different areas of your business without having to switch between different software.

Niche-based

Is your business specialized in a certain niche or industry?
Many specific CRMs are specially designed for finance, retailers, real estate, restaurants, legal, academic institutions and more. Hence, if you are in a niche-based business primarily choose a CRM that fits your industry before selecting the one that does not.

Cloud-based

As a small business owner, avoid those that describe them as “on-premise” CRM and choose a cloud-based CRM software. Since, using a cloud-based CRM, you can get access to your CRM data anytime and from any device with an Internet connection, without being forced to access information from the location or device in which the CRM software is installed.

Mobile access

Choose a CRM solution in this year’s holiday season new deals that can be accessed from your tablets and smartphones. Having this functionality in your CRM, aids in letting your sales and support team keep up with their work even on the go.

Security

As CRM software is one of the core systems for your business operations, choose a CRM platform, which has stringent security measures to prevent cyber attacks and more importantly data loss.

Try-ConvergeHub-For-Free

Takeaway

CRM solutions do not just help businesses to track information and boost sales but also helps in allowing your sales and support teams to become more efficient in their jobs.
We guess this article on CRM buying tips for Black Friday 2017 sale is sure to help you with considerable information to make your Holiday Season 2017 Customer Relationship Management software for small businesses purchase a runaway success this year.

Role of CRM and Customer Experience in the wake of Retail Apocalypse

The so-called retail apocalypse 2017 has become so ingrained in the U.S markets, that now the fear-evoking term has found its own space in the Wikipedia entry. However, many have criticized this type of doomsday description, blaming media for exaggerating the trouble, as U.S retailers also announced more than 3,000 store openings in the first quarter of FY 2017. However, retailer chains have also said that 6,800 retail brick and mortar establishments would close this year, in spite of believed we have stepped on a time when there is sky-high consumer confidence and unemployment is historically low as the U.S economy is keeping on growing, and so has all the ingredients needed for a retail boom.

The so-called still continuing retail apocalypse has become so ingrained in the U.S markets, that now the fear-evoking term has found its own space in the Wikipedia entry.

However, many have criticized this type of doomsday description,  as U.S retailers also announced more than 3,000 store openings in the first quarter of FY 2018.

Since we have stepped on a time when there is sky-high consumer confidence and unemployment is historically low as the U.S economy is keeping on growing, so normally stating, USA has all the right ingredients needed for a retail boom.

According to a report by Frost & Sullivan’s Stratecast, in the wake of retail apocalypse 2017, it has been projected that E-commerce will account for nearly 18% of the total retail market in the U.S by 2025.

Comparing E-Commerce stores and Brick and Mortar retailers, it has also been discussed in the said report that Brick and Mortar retailers have an advantage over the online stores, which lies in their ability to offer customers a personalized experience. However, for this, Brick and Mortar retailers should immediately adopt an end-to-end solution that uses state-of-art and cutting-edge technology like CRM platform to make personalized services cost-effective and more focused on customer experiences.

The report also advised that this cannot be attained with erratic and unconsolidated point-solutions, where dissimilar technologies are enforced to fit together. But, what Brick and Mortar retailers need now is a well-integrated solution like a converged CRM platform, which provides a 360-degree view of the customers to encompass all aspects of the shopper continuum, which can only enable Brick and Mortar retailers to compete and dominate the retail space.

Moreover, when big retail chains close stores, this apparent blow can also be a blessing for small business owners, as many shoppers will gravitate to a smaller store, which will enhance the small and medium retailer’s skills for providing far superior personalized customer experience.

Using a converged CRM for small business, retailers can now easily integrate marketing, sales, billing and support related activities inside a single platform.

While states like West Virginia, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan is facing the hardest hit, as retail employment are going down, many states such as Arkansas, Nevada and, Florida, those who has only relied on the retail industry for their job growth, will feel more pain as the fallout deepens in the years to come.

So what is it that small business owners of Brick and Mortar stores need to do in order to create an exceptional experience for their customer?

All you need to do for this is to be proactive, put yourself in your customer’s shoes, and walk a purchase mile with them.

In a research study done by inContact, it has been revealed that more than 87 percent of adults in the U.S want to be contacted proactively by any business establishment or a company.

Here are 7 key points to get started with CRM and customer experience for small business brick and mortar store owners those who are keen on adopting CRM for small business (like ConvergeHub), to wade through this turbulent times.

  1. Keeping in touch.
  2. Listening to customers’ needs.
  3. Creating personal relationships.
  4. Offering what customers really want.
  5. Providing attentive and quick support.
  6. Maintaining an ongoing dialogue.
  7. Keeping up with the customer needs.

Try-ConvergeHub-For-Free

Conclusion

In a gist, in the technology-dominated today’s’ world, just stop thinking that you control your retail shop’s customers, but believe that it is your customers who control you.

‘
Therefore, the call of this hour is to adapt yourself quickly and provide exceptional customer experience with the help of CRM software, before the retail apocalypse digs deeper and it gets too late.

How to Effectively Convince Your Employee on a Brand New CRM

At last, you have found the right one- the SaaS product that will surely change everything. From its friendly interface to flexible features to its customization options and extensive integration, this software could not be any better for you and your team. However, there is one big barrier standing between you and your dream SaaS CRM platform: your employee. Your employee controls the budget, which obviously means that you need to prove this software is worth the investment, to your boss.

At last, you have found the right one- the SaaS product that will surely change everything. From its friendly interface to flexible features to its customization options and extensive integration, this software is the best option for you and your team.
However, there is one big barrier standing between you and your dream SaaS CRM platform: your employee. Your employee controls the budget, which obviously means that you need to prove this software is worth the investment, to your boss.

Nevertheless, your pitch will be much more convincing if you can back them up with appropriate proofs.

Shawn Sieck, Executive Vice President of the multinational software company Intellectsoft, recommends asking these 3 most vital questions to each sales representatives: “What’s your pipeline look like? How focused are you in your outreach efforts? How well are you tracking your present opportunities?”

Once you have these questions answered, you can map them to the CRM’s specific features.

Next, get relevant feedbacks from the companies that are already using your desired CRM. Most SaaS product websites will have a “Customers” page. Pick a few companies on that list and ask them what they liked or did not liked and what results they have registered after implementing CRM in their organization.

You can also ask for references from your desired CRM firm, and make them introduce you to current customers, but remain aware, they will only introduce you to the happiest ones.

 Prepare a cost-benefit analysis

Explaining to your employee how much time, money, and effort this Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product will save for your team, will have a large impact in convincing your superiors about the benefits of buying this platform.

With the data that you have already gathered in the last step, figure out in approximation how much you are losing without the SaaS product. For an example, you can maybe estimate that each person will close 25% more deals with a new CRM. Therefore, if your average deal size is $3000, and your sales team makes 30 deals per month, you can explain to your boss that your company is losing $7500 every 30 days if your company does not buy this software.

Next, calculate, how much the software will cost to your company and account for the money you will lose while your team moves to this new platform.

Finally, give your employee the ROI.

In fact, if you invest on CRM, the investment that you initially make upfront will pay off in customers that you will keep longer and so this SaaS platform will ultimately prove more profitable for your company.

Develop an implementation plan

When it comes to purchasing a new product, inertia often holds us back. Therefore, before your employee signs off on a new CRM, you need to frame out a solid action plan.

Here is what you must consider:

  • How will this new tool work with the ones you already have in your office?
  • If the new tool is replacing another legacy tool used in your office, how will you phase out the old one?
  • When will training and onboarding take place?
  • If training is going to interfere with your team’s daily activities, how will you make up for the drop in production and revenue?
  • Who will be involved and who will lead the project?

As CRM is a complex purchase, you must always have required thought and foresight before integrating, onboarding, and adopting the software for long-term benefits your organization.

Present to your employee

Now, once you have received the quotes from sales team and customers, estimates on costs and savings, and on your implementation plans, you are ready to present your final evaluation report to your employee.

How you do, your presentation, however, will depend on what you know about your employee. Do they like detailed presentation with careful planning, or will they be more comfortable and receptive to a casual conversation over lunch? Are they more inclined on ‘gut feelings’ or they always zero in on stats and data for their decision making?

By customizing your approach accordingly to your boss’s style, you will surely increase your odds of success.

If the meeting goes and ends by giving you a go-ahead- that is awesome. However, most likely from my experiences, your employee will say, “I’ll think about it”.

In this case, it is time to take your next step.

Rally internal support

Making your boss and employee understand that there is a strong demand for this CRM, will mostly make your employee more likely to go for it.

Actually, managers must know the CRM system as much as the reps as they are going to be living with it every day. For if it is not an enjoyable experience for them, no one will get the value they want out of this system.

With this thought in your mind, go back to your stakeholders, initiate talks with them, and ask them if they would be open to sharing their thoughts with the members of your company’s management team.

It is also a good idea if you can ask your employee as to what his or her reservations may be. It can always be that your employee may be concerned about the reliability of your choice, or how expensive and how secure are your suggestions. Once you know what is holding your employee back, you can always take the help of your office managers or colleagues and figure out how you can address the issue.

Move to Plan ‘B’

What if, your employee, even after all your endeavors still does not bite?

Firstly, you can move on, for you never know if your employee will come back after a few months or a year and announce that he or she has been thinking all along and now he or she is ready to buy and try a CRM.

Secondly, you propose a trial run. Most CRM like ConvergeHub offers 14 days free trial so that you can try out all the features and test whether the CRM fits your organization without any cost.

A trail helps you to compare your preferred CRM solution directly against your existing system to find and apple-to-apple view of the impact.

Try-ConvergeHub-For-Free

So briefly, tell your employee that you understand about X and Y, before the final decision is made, you would like to perform a trail, so that by the end of the fortnight, when your company sees a growth in its productivity (along with revenue), your employ might finally be convinced of buying a CRM.

Golden Tips for Closing Deals with ConvergeHub in Partner-Client Opportunities

Teaming up with the right partner can bring enormous success for your company. Hence, if you are capable of working with the right industry leaders and understand how to work this valued partner relationship in an effective manner, like we do at ConvergeHub, your products, solutions, or services are more likely to be chosen than that of other vendors to address your partner’s customers’ business needs.

Teaming up with the right partner can bring enormous success for your company. Hence, if you are capable of working with the right industry leaders and understand how to work this valued partner relationship in an effective manner, like we do at ConvergeHub, your products, solutions, or services are more likely to be chosen than that of other vendors to address your partner’s customers’ business needs.

Nevertheless, when you are working with your partner, it is extremely important that you should always strive to pose a sense of balance between two goals:

  1. Closing deals with the customers and work towards new businesses and
  2. Strengthen your hand by ensuring a long-term relationship with your partner.

Although at times achieving this balance can be challenging, however, if you are prepared, you can take a few additional retainers into play, and thereby successfully win deals and relationship in partner-client opportunities.

Enhance your existing relationship within your partner’s company

The more trust you are capable of building with your partner’s company the smoother the process will run between you and your partner in the end. Therefore, if you still do not have a strong relationship with your partner, make it strong. Do it in advance and not right before walking into a meeting with a prospective customer of your partner’s choice.

Enter with confidence and expertise

Understand your industry expertise (for example, for ConvergeHubCRM it is CRM) and never be shy on highlighting your expertise during the sales meetings, whereby you can add the most value for your presence during the sales calls. While it can be true, that your partner may be an expert in his or her domain, make it implicitly clear that you are the right person who holds the right knowledge about your product offerings to your partner and his or her customers who are there to buy from your brand.

Remember different stakeholders have dissimilar business goals

It must be considered, that in the majority of partner deals you will face multiple key stakeholders- both in your partner’s and customer’s company, where you are selling your product or services. Hence, be mindful of different deliverables, agendas, timelines, and goals. The better you are prepared and can understand the needs for each of your stakeholder’s desired outcomes, the better off everyone will feel at the end of the deal.

Consider a working relationship

Primarily, understand that the customer is always the highest point of value for contact, in any business relationship that you are entering. Hence, even if your partner has brought you the opportunity, both you and your partner should understand, providing the optimal solution to the customer, should be the first and foremost agenda in your to-do list.

Secondly, it is extremely necessary that you must involve your partner’s subject matter expert or client account executive(s) since they are the ones who are likely to know their customers the best.

Thirdly, take advantage of your partner’s trusted internal business advisors; they can always assist you in navigating the client relationship and untangle any issues that may affect the sales cycle.

 Develop a strategic sales engagement process

Having a reliable sales engagement process in place ensures that every business interactions you have with your partner include the goal of a sale.

In ConvergeHub, we have proven sales engagement processes in place for customers of different industries and size, in order to get ourselves engaged with them most effectively. Be patient, yet confident and clear about your processes, since both the client and your partner might have different business requirements and approaches in their mind.

Hence, while trying to close a deal in partner-client opportunities, describe your process to your partner first, showcase your successes and build momentum with your partner’s internal sales champions, which will help them to go into a successful pitch with their clients.

Try-ConvergeHub-For-Free

If you are interested in growing a business partnership with ConvergeHub CRM, you can easily fill in the reseller’s application or write to us in the comment box below.

We at ConvergeHub provide our partners with numerous sales tools, persuasive Power Points, market info, detailed competitive matrix, recognition, special spiffs, promotions, and more to reach their desired business goals.

 

3 Reasons Why Creative Agencies Should Use CRM

We understand creative agencies do not always feel in the same way as a business selling a physical product does. In fact, creative agency owners sometimes even do not conjure up the same mental imagery that retail sellers do and so may not feel the need for using a platform to improve their efficiency. Nevertheless, there are valid reasons why creative agencies should adopt CRM since this technology marvels around organizing and streamlining information and enhancing customer engagements. Here are three specific reasons why your agencies need a CRM.

We understand creative agencies do not always feel in the same way as a business selling a physical product does. In fact, creative agency owners sometimes even do not conjure up the same mental imagery that retail sellers do and so may not feel the need for using a platform to improve their efficiency.
Nevertheless, there are valid reasons why creative agencies should adopt CRM since this technology marvels around organizing and streamlining information and enhancing customer engagements.

Much like any other businesses a creative agency also need to have a regular flow of customers to sell their beautiful arts, witty slogans, or stunning designs. Hence, without a constant and reliable way to manage and engage leads, creative agencies can find fewer customers, which may consequently affect their ROI.

Comprehensive data analysis, data tracking, marketing, and communications help in keeping the customer and leads on track. Problems that can be easily solved with creative agency CRM software meant for advertisement, art galleries, event management, and other related creative businesses.

Here are three specific reasons why your agencies need a CRM:

Data, Data and Data

Given the many communication channels that all businesses use to interact with their customers nowadays, managing customer data can mean either amazing financial success or a premature death of your business.

CRM is a technology, which when accompanied by business practices and strategies solve this data management crisis, by serving a single platform for collecting and tracking every interaction that your team has with their clients. CRM helps your sales and marketing team view the same data by making them remain on the same page. It also allows your employees to quickly check your customer preferences and past concerns, as converged CRM as ConvergeHub provides a 360-degree view of your customers.

Moreover, creative agency CRM helps prevent data redundancy by removing data duplication in the process cleaning up old data from the database, which helps your team to maintain and update information with one integrated system.

Provide a Jump in Your Revenue Stream

CRM is proven to increase sales productivity, sales rate quotas, and even increase the size of purchases made by the leads. According to our findings, it has been seen that using ConvergeHub CRM, sales teams have seen a boost of more than 26% in their productivity.

In fact, these numbers get more interesting when sales and marketing teams have an access to mobile CRM like ConvergeHub. According to one study, more than 65% of sales reps hit their targets using mobile CRM technology versus 23% without the mobile CRM software.

From a creative perspective, agencies those who often have to focus on artistic pursuits have to bounce between several tasks at the same time, like creating art, designs, and contents, pitching the project to the customers and make necessary modifications based on their client’s requirements.

A CRM is a perfect tool under this circumstance, where it helps to maintain schedules of your employees so that your account executives will never have to miss a client’s call or forget when they need to contact a client once again.

Lead Segmentation

Although we all wish that this was not the case, the truth is, not all leads become your customers. Moreover, different customers, leads, and prospects have different priorities. CRM is a time-tested software that helps you to classify clients and thereafter allows your team to determine the level of attention needed by your clients, individually.

CRM helps in segregating hot and cold leads in your sales funnel, as lead and contact segregation functionality within a CRM is the best way to tackle this challenge.

As creative agencies have to meld sales with more artistic endeavors, in some ways, creative agencies have more to manage and juggle with their clients than traditional companies.

Due to the nature of the business, even the product of a creative agency has the potential to change during the customer’s journey, whereby a CRM is the best tool to keep your clients happy over the course of creation through to execution.

This is because one academic study found that “CRM is the most effective approach in maintaining and establishing relationships with customers.”

Try-ConvergeHub-For-Free

Conclusion

Hence, it can be summarized adopting CRM can be a true game-changer for marketers of many creative agencies by connecting with their customers in one of the smartest, scalable and reliable ways to increase retention and boost acquisition of their business establishments.

 

Find More Value From Your Software With CRM Workflows

Workflow is the core building block of any CRM, which is an infrastructure, built on procedures and processes. Hence, for sound business management, here are three key recommendations to get started with workflows using CRM for enhancing your company’s growth and ROI.

It has been widely found that CRM system is mostly used for following up with contacts, doing bits and pieces of marketing, managing opportunities and relying on a few good reports. That is all. Nevertheless, Customer Relationship Management is a platform, which is capable of performing greater things once people who want to maximize the value of their investment, use workflows.

By getting proficient at setting up CRM workflows, you can tune your CRM system to run at its most productive level and use the software to automate tasks, which will ensure that you always get your work done, regardless of whether you remember to do them.

Workflow is the core building block of any CRM, which is an infrastructure, built on procedures and processes.

Hence, for sound business management, here are three key recommendations to get started with workflows using CRM for enhancing your company’s growth and ROI.

Workflow # 1: Website Visitors

When someone visits your website or business landing-page, you can configure your CRM to receive the visitor’s data and let the CRM send you an email, notifying you of the visit. Now, when the information is received, you can generate a workflow process to look at the information and assign a task to the sales reps who are in charge of that visitor’s region to follow-up the visitor on your website. You can also design an automated email that can be sent along with your product and service information and then if the visitor opens the email, a sales manager is notified to pursue every visitor visiting your site.

Find More Value From Your Software With CRM Workflows Click To Tweet

Workflow # 2:  Trade Shows

Most businesses spend an inordinate amount of their revenue on trade shows and then do not do enough follow-ups. Workflows are capable of fixing this problem. Hence, when you return from your next trade show, be sure that you have all the contact information of every visitor who visited your booth, which most trade shows provide on a spreadsheet. Once you import the spreadsheet into your CRM, you can then launch a workflow to assign those leads to the right salespeople in your organization based on demographical preferences, specialty, or product line. Using workflow automation, you can even send a thank you email to the prospects who visited your booth and if no action is taken, ensure that a manager in your company is notified under such circumstances.

Workflow # 3:  Lost Customers

Every month create a workflow in your CRM system, which scans your database and looks for contacts who are in your existing customer lists and check their purchase history to run a drip email campaign educating your customers of your new products or services. In the same way, you can also create workflows in your CRM software, informing you of customers those who have not purchased your products for the last six months, so that you can nurture those customers who may have inadvertently fallen through the crack.

Setting up a workflow in a CRM system like ConvergeHub is not at all difficult. However, if you find that you are not an expert, do not let this stop you. Find and hire CRM consultants who are experienced with CRM applications and let them create and support the workflow that you need for your business.

Although, it may cost you a few hundred bucks, creating a proper workflow, it will surely provide you with greater business gains, and bigger returns on your investments.

Try-ConvergeHub-For-Free

If you have liked reading this article, or want us to contact you for further knowledge on setting up workflows, write to us in the comment box below.

7 Ways CRM Software Can Help Besides Sales

Beyond tracking customer’s behavior and creating sales dashboards, CRM software is becoming a tool that is capable of providing support for other functions as well, which is far removed from the sales department. Therefore, if you are looking for ways and means to fetch more ROI out of your CRM investment, here are 7 ways that Customer Relationship Management software can be used, even beyond the realm of sales.

Beyond tracking customer’s behavior and creating sales dashboards, CRM software is becoming a tool that is capable of providing support for other functions as well, which is far removed from the sales department. The convenience and efficiency that CRM software offers in many cases have nowadays made it more of an operating system for several big and small businesses, rather than using it as a platform for single use.

Therefore, if you are looking for ways and means to fetch more ROI out of your CRM investment, here are 7 ways that Customer Relationship Management software can be used, even beyond the realm of sales.

1. Marketing

It is not altogether a surprise that CRM can also be an excellent asset for your marketing team. Beyond the ability to track customer-related communications and data, CRM is also helpful for the marketers in showing the effectiveness of their efforts. For example, CRM can easily show you how a specific marketing campaign is performing among your targeted audiences and help you to drill down to see who exactly became your new lead or customer, and which method can help you to convert these leads in the shortest possible time.

2. Customer Support

CRM is a platform, which stores customer information that can be shared with any member of the organization, which is especially important when a non-sales member of an organization is interacting with the customers. Hence, the members of the customer support team can use CRM tool, because they can have access to the customer’s personal information and purchase history, which can aid in providing a quality customer experience and help in sustained nurturing of the relationship.

3. Team Performance

CRM software is an excellent tool that can provide a real-time look at the performance of your team. Using a CRM your managers can view any agents’ activity, break it down by specific timeline, and also track the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the agent related to your company goals. This can allow the management to find out the gaps in productivity and make adjustments right away instead of waiting for monthly or quarterly performance reviews.

4. Recruiting and Onboarding

You may be surprised to know that you can even use a CRM much like a project management tool. It can help you to develop programmed workflows for establishing the application process when your talent acquisition team is recruiting and employing new people for your organization. In fact, CRM when combined with contact management features, makes it a perfect hiring tool.

CRM software can also set up a process for complete onboarding of your new employees, where you can use the task management and file sharing functionalities of the CRM. Although this is a less than common use of this software, however, if you are trying to save funds by running different areas of your business from a multi-tasking platform, then it is worth trying it.

5. Direct Mailing

Over the years, we have become so dependent on technology that our preferred modes of communication have changed as we have forgotten the use of paper and ‘snail mail’. In fact, receiving something by mail has nowadays become something special. CRM system can become your personal relationship manager and help you to decide when it is time to reach out to customers in a more attractive and engaging way, like sending an old-fashioned letter. With third-party integration, you can also automate a part of this process and trigger letters to be sent based on buying stages and appropriate lead scores of your customers.

6. Content Management

By now, everyone in online business understands the use and importance of content marketing in this digital world. However, it is not only important to create contents, but it is equally necessary to develop a plan for your target audience and create an editorial calendar based on the requirement. In many cases you can use your CRM as a tool for scheduling, managing and tracking your content marketing plans to make sure that your content calendar is full and ready to release the contents online, well in advance, and that you have the ability to track all your content assets through the CRM platform.

7. Product Development

There are several strategies you can use to even implement CRM software into product management; however, the system used depends on the requirement of the company. Managing feedback and communications from the customers allows Product Managers to find a better idea of what is working in the market and what can be further improved for development of the brand. Moreover, notes from user researchers can be logged next to a contact using a CRM, and if this information is pertinent to other team members, attention can be brought to redress the situation. Product Managers can also identify which customers can contribute to validate certain features in the products and then develop a roadmap that reflects the user’s voice while manufacturing new products for your brand.

Try-ConvergeHub-For-Free

Conclusion

To end this discussion, your CRM is your best tool for you to manage your data quickly and efficiently. Hence, rather than viewing your CRM software as a sales management tool, start looking at your CRM as a customer intelligence and performance management software, which provides better customer support opportunities, increase team performance, aid in hiring your employees and help you managing your content marketing plans that ultimately cumulates in bring better revenue for your company.

3 Types Of Emails Which You Should Automate with Your CRM

Email automation is the perfect way to educate and move your leads, prospects, and customers through your sales funnel, with further wasting any more time. In a recent study done on sales, it shows that sales reps spend more than half of their time at the office doing administrative CRM works and another 29% of their time searching and creating contents to pitch their products and services, which eventually leaves them with just one-third time for actually building a relationship and achieving winning businesses.

Chances are there that your sales team actually spends less time than they should spend for selling your products and services. In a recent study done on sales, it shows that sales reps spend more than half of their time at the office doing administrative CRM works and another 29% of their time searching and creating contents to pitch their products and services, which eventually leaves them with just one-third time for actually building a relationship and achieving winning businesses.

Now, to ensure that your sales team can utilize more of their time in closing deals, it is important that you must leverage your Customer Relationship Management system. You should understand that CRM is just not the software used for tracking and managing relationships, but it is also an extra pair of hands in your office for all those things (apart from selling) that your sales need, but should not have to do once they implement a CRM platform.

One of the best CRM tools that fall in this category is email automation. Automating emails shaves down the prolonged numbers of hours that your reps would have otherwise spent on customizing emails and remembering to send them on time.
Here are three most important email campaigns that you can automate with a CRM to keep your customers engaged without even bothering for your constant manual efforts:

1. Welcome Emails

Welcome emails are meant for new subscribers and lead to introduce them to your brand. Creating and automating welcome emails can generate substantial ROI, as studies have proved that welcome emails are viewed three times more by subscribers than other subsequent promotional emails. Moreover welcome emails help in educating your prospects and are likely to weed out any non-interested parties through the unsubscribe link.

These are few points you should remember while sending your welcome emails:

  • Introduce prospects and leads to your brand’s products and services
  • Prepare your prospects and leads into buying your products or services
  • Encourage your leads and prospects to connect with your brand through other channels and opportunities
  • Provide your leads and prospects with basic incentives to buy your products or services

2. Lead Nurturing Emails

Lead nurturing with emails can be really tricky. For without an organized process, it is easy to find opportunities slipping through the cracks that can eventually inundate your leads with too little or too much communication from your side. Therefore, automate your lead nurturing process through email campaigns without putting too much pressure on your leads.

Here are certain things you can do in your lead nurturing emails:

  • Educate your leads and prospects what your brand is capable of doing for them
  • Tell them a story about your brand and what sets your products and services apart from the competition
  • Occasionally, refer leads to your website or special landing pages for availing seasonal discounts and offers

3. Customer retention Emails

According to a study done by Forrester Research, it has been found that existing customers spend 69% more than new customers. So putting brakes on communication after the primary sales would definitely be a costly mistake. Therefore, after you have made a sale, start an automated email campaign with your customers. Keep them in the loop with subsequent offers on your new and other products and services.

These are few points you should remember while sending your customer retention emails:

  • Thank your customer for their businesses with your brand
  • Let them know when their purchases will arrive or how they can activate your services
  • Check to see how much they are satisfied with their purchase
  • Check to see if they need any further help regarding your products and services
  • Request a review by sending a survey form tailored to your customer’s interests
  • Offer interesting contents as a ‘gift’ to your purchasers without pitching only on your brand

Now that you know how much a CRM can help you, you should also understand equally that CRM cannot replace the natural and earned skills of your sales representatives. Hence, use your CRM to free up your sales team’s time and help them to do what they are hired for.

Try-ConvergeHub-For-Free

Email automation is the perfect way to educate and move your leads, prospects, and customers through your sales funnel, without further wasting any more time.