Signs That It Is Time to Switch from Spreadsheets to an Easy To Use CRM Software

Sales are up, your business is doing well, and your customers seem happy. Nevertheless, in the back of your mind, an itch is bothering you recently. It is your sales process. Ever since you have started your business, you have always depended on spreadsheets for managing your sales pipeline. Leads in one spreadsheet while your customers in another. If it is so, let us explore 5 signs in this article, which can show you that whether it is time to get off of your spreadsheet and adopt an easy to use CRM software for your business.

Sales are up, your business is doing well, and your customers seem happy. Nevertheless, in the back of your mind, an itch is bothering you recently. It is your sales process.
Ever since you have started your business, you have always depended on spreadsheets for managing your sales pipeline. Leads in one spreadsheet while your customers in another. You use your spreadsheets instead of an easy to use CRM software, even for tracking projects, tasks, and revenue forecasts.

You always tell yourself as an entrepreneur- “If it is not broken, do not fix it.”

However, sometimes in the back of your mind, you keep on wondering, do you have a broken sales process and somehow just do not know about it.

Signs That It Is Time to Switch from Spreadsheets to an Easy To Use CRM Software Click To Tweet

If it is so, let us explore 5 signs in this article, which can show you that whether it is time to get off of your spreadsheet and adopt an easy to use CRM software for your business.

#1. Your Staffs Perform More Admin Work than Engagement

“Keeping busy” at the office is never a guarantee for success. In fact, wasting too much time on doing wrong things can contraindicate success ratio and subsequently hurt your revenue. You must apparently know this, which can be evident from the growth and escalation of your business.

Nevertheless, as you impartially scrutinize your sales activities, it is possible that you can discover that your team is spending time on erroneous things- at the cost of customer engagements.

Now, if you are like many other companies that use spreadsheets, these administrative tasks are certainly consuming too much of your staff’s workdays:

  • Scrolling through innumerable rows to find the right record
  • Shifting close-won leads to customer tracking sheets
  • Keying in every new leads manually
  • Achieving or deleting closed-lost leads
  • Reformatting column and row sizes
  • De-duplicating overlapping records
  • Groping with chart wizards to find meaningful business intelligence
  • Troubleshooting formatting issues
  • Training new recruits on what to do and what not to do

Evidently, your team has good intentions and they are trying to make your spreadsheet system work, but they are spending less time on selling and more time on other non-sales activities.

Do you want your top sales reps to spend the majority of their time on data entry?

If it is not what you want, it is time that you need to move away from spreadsheets and invest in an easy to use CRM software for managing your customer database in CRM.

#2. Your Records are Always Inaccurate

All businesses rely on timely and accurate information. However as time pass by, do you find that your data is becoming less dependable. Well, although some of this may be a part of natural circumstance in today’s rapidly changing marketplace, but is it that some of this data-reliability issues are caused by your spreadsheet-driven workflow?

Do these common mistakes sound familiar?

Typos: With so many cells to update in so little time, spreadsheets are the breeding grounds for typos.

Accidental Overwrites and Deletions: The moment you share a spreadsheet on your network drive or via the cloud so that your entire team can access it, you expose your data to accidental overwriting and deletions.

Double Record Entry: As it is easy to add new rows to your existing spreadsheet, a double record entry is most common when a lead talks on the same day to two or more members on your sales team.

Issues With Formula: Not all in your organization is a wizard on spreadsheets. Therefore, although you may have built all kinds of display formulas and intricate tabulations on your spreadsheet, as your team adds, appends, and edits on the records, your formulas break, which creates disruption in your workflows.

If you are facing any of these issues, it is time that you should move away from spreadsheets and invest in an easy to use CRM software for managing your customer database in CRM.

#3. It is Painful to View Your Pipeline

In a perfect world, things such as seeing the open opportunities for your top performing products, broken down by city, states, sales representatives, is an easy task. However, the same chore may seem impossible while using a spreadsheet.

If you are wondering why, here are just a few reasons:

Data Overload: Consider your lead tracking spreadsheet, finding the right data point within so many rows and columns of data can seem like more of an effort than it is worth. Data fields that are really needed, such as the probability of sales close, projected close date and product interests of your leads and customers often get lost within a myriad of other data of your prospects stored in the spreadsheet.

New Sales vs. Upsells: Since your customer data is siloed in different spreadsheets, you have to merge multiple data sets to the get the answers that you seek. Spreadsheets can never deliver a 360-degree view of your sales activities, whereby you lose the opportunities of selling to existing clients, which is as important as winning new businesses.

Therefore, if you are facing any of these issues, it is time that you should move away from spreadsheets and invest in an easy to use CRM software for managing your customer database in CRM.

#4. Your Forecast is Always Wrong

No sales forecast is ever perfect, but surely as a business owner, you would always feel nice to get close to your sales forecasts once in a while. However, spreadsheet-based forecasts can be notoriously unreliable and wayward, since this inaccuracy involves accessibility of the spreadsheet itself.

Unlike an easy to use CRM software, which can be most often updated even from your mobile device (if your software has mobile CRM functionality), spreadsheet-based business processes require users to be physically present in an office and use a computer to update the file. Therefore, during busy weeks, several days may pass by, before your reps find time for making such updates.

#5. Everything Just “Feels” Disorganized

Even if you are capable of making your sales spreadsheet work for your business, there is one thing that it definitely cannot do.
Spreadsheets can never organize all your sales collaterals like:

  • Proposals
  • Invoices
  • Quotes
  • Customer business cards
  • Presentation decks
  • Technical drawings
  • Brochures and whitepapers
  • Email histories
  • Spec sheets etc.

Conclusion

Would not it be nice to have everything indexed by customer, prospects, or leads, build links between a contact and all its related correspondences and files?

Would not it be comfortable for your sales reps not to endure the harrowing necessity of digging through countless folders and inboxes but instead use a software that will help them find all the right information at their fingertips?

Try ConvergeHub for Free

If all these are true, then your spreadsheet-based system is definitely not holding up its end of the bargain and it is time to switch to an easy to use CRM software, a cloud-based CRM system like ConvergeHub, which makes it easier to find and organize your important sales information even on the go.

Wait! If you have 2 minutes to spare… leave a comment below letting us know what your biggest takeaway was!

3 Quick Tips To Get Your Salespeople Using Your QuickBooks CRM System

Our company ConvergeHub has implemented hundreds of powerful CRM systems over the years, and although customer relationship management is more to do with sales, marketing, and support related activities, we still as a CRM vendor tend to believe that financial integrity is the most critical element in the world of small and medium businesses. Since without receiving and paying customers and vendors, there is no business. This is the exact reason why we at ConvergeHub integrated our easy to use CRM platform with the best and the most popular accounting platform QuickBooks to develop a small business CRM system that will cater and bring unthinkable results for both sales and accounting teams in any organization, and branded ConvergeHub, our customer relationship management platform as QuickBooks CRM.

Our company ConvergeHub has implemented hundreds of powerful CRM systems over the years, and although customer relationship management is more to do with sales, marketing, and support related activities, we still as a CRM vendor tend to believe that financial integrity is the most critical element in the world of small and medium businesses. Since without receiving and paying customers and vendors, there is no business.
This is the exact reason why we at ConvergeHub integrated our easy to use CRM platform with the best and the most popular accounting platform QuickBooks to develop a small business CRM system that will cater and bring unthinkable results for both sales and accounting teams in any organization, and named ConvergeHub, our customer relationship management platform as QuickBooks CRM.

As with all businesses, the enormous task of recording telephonic conversations, in-person interactions, emails, service recalls, follow-ups and keeping up with myriad other information can be a daunting task, if it is not managed with the help of a robust system.

68% of small business owners regret looking back on the first year is that they didn’t spend more time learning about financial management- Intuit Click To Tweet

However, going back to our initial statement, since accounting is the terra firma or the foundation stone of all small business, it is typical that the customer’s historical purchases are most often sourced from the existing accounting software used by the organization, which companies in more than 80% of cases, will be already using QuickBooks. Therefore integrating QuickBooks with a robust CRM system like ConvergeHub QuickBooks CRM virtually eliminates all of the double data entry, which is the basic requirement for efficient implementation of small business CRM software.

Using our QuickBooks CRM, your sales and support team can concentrate on recording quality information about their customers and their interactions, involving multiple touch points that can only be done with the help of a CRM.

Moreover, if you manage each lead or prospects to whom you have sent your estimates in QuickBooks, it is sure to create a lot of clutter and junk data in the accounting software. Therefore handling your leads in a QuickBooks CRM, whereby you handle your leads in the CRM, helps to keep the QuickBooks data clean and therefore make accounting related tasks more accurate.

Additionally, if your business establishment is like most other companies having a majority of estimates and quotations that your sales team sends do not convert to paying customers, QuickBooks CRM can help by following up these leads and keeping them warm through marketing automation until they get off the fence and are ready to decide on their purchases.

Nevertheless, the initial problems that business establishments face while implementing CRM system is getting their staffs, especially their sales team members to use this incredibly powerful system, as salespeople do not always consider CRM to be “mission critical” for their day-to-day activities.

These are the companies those that generally fail with CRM implementation in their organization, while the ones that succeed in adopting CRM as a culture and know that having a CRM database for sales, marketing, accounting, inventory, payroll, and customer support, improves their company’s value and profitability.

Here are three simple and quick tips that we learned from our smart customers of ConvergeHub QuickBooks CRM, to get your sales and services staffs use the system, especially during the first few months, before your software implementation process gets derailed:

#1. The Voicemail Trick

Not being technical does not make good salespeople bad. If you are a small business owner, the last thing you would want to happen is to find your CRM system getting in the way of making your sales reps sell. Many sales reps still hail from the old school and are hence tech-averse, in spite of the management’s requirements for knowing their activities.

The solution to this problem lies in an amicable compromise.

Set up a company voice mail and tell your tech-adverse sales reps who abhor data entry to “call-in” their daily activities and just leave a message. You can thereafter hire a high school kid to listen to the messages every evening and update the required database. That way salespeople can focus more on selling and you can get all the information they needed to feed in the CRM system.

#2. The Lead Trick

Ask any sales rep what is the most important element to sustain their livelihood, and they will tell you it is “leads”.  Although it sounds a little over-optimistic, most salespersons will say, “Give me a lead and I will close the deal”.

While in a perfect sales workflow, a good marketing team will generate leads and a good sales rep will take those leads to sell. A good manager’s job is to make sure that the leads get distributed efficiently only through the company’s CRM system.

This way, even tech-averse and old-school sales reps can be forced to work with the CRM system to fetch those leads and provide required data to get necessary credits for the sale.

Any efficient salesperson’s stomach is through his or her wallet. Therefore, start putting the leads into the CRM system and watch your old-school sales reps work on the system to get their meals.

#3. The Alert Trick

All good lead management software systems like ConvergeHub QuickBooks CRM enable the users to set up reminders and alerts so that tasks and appointments are not forgotten and nothing falls through the crack.

System alerts can ensure that your sales reps are using your CRM system optimally.

Therefore, you and your sales managers can tune the CRM platform to send you alerts every hour because one or more of your tech-averse sales reps are not following up on their leads or if they are not returning phone calls or completing their sales activities in time or not updating crucial status fields on a timely basis.  Once system alerts are activated you can always make your sales reps to do their tasks by asking them to do it. Since not willing to use a CRM system in the present day, is not only annoying but also kind of career limiting for any salesperson in any organization, if you get my drift.

Try ConvergeHub for Free

Conclusion

Do you think will any of these three tricks solve the problem of getting your salespeople use your QuickBooks CRM system, which has already naturally solved several accounting problems for your organization?

If you find the answers affirmative, as an owner in charge of your business and the CRM system, you got to be the one to put your foot down and stand behind it determinedly.

You have to be the person to make your sales team understand that your small business QuickBooks CRM is every bit as important as your accounting and inventory system and make your sales reps know that “if it is not in the system it does not exist”.

In the end, funding for the QuickBooks CRM is your investment and as it says, “Your CRM is as good as what you put in it.”

Wait! If you have 2 minutes to spare… leave a comment below letting us know what your biggest takeaway was!

A Dozen Ways to Grow Your CRM Database and Email List

We all know that email marketing is still in vogue and alive. Despite the steady growth of social media marketing and other types of marketing outreach to grow the CRM database, email marketing stands as the bedrock of most marketing strategies used in tandem with online lead management software. However, to build up a powerful email marketing presence, it is necessary to build up a continuously expanding customer database in CRM to expand your email list. Here are some tips that will help you to grow your customer database in CRM easily.

We all know that email marketing is still in vogue and alive. Despite the steady growth of social media marketing and other types of marketing outreach to grow the CRM database, email marketing stands as the bedrock of most marketing strategies used in tandem with online lead management software.

However, to build up a powerful email marketing presence, it is necessary to build up a continuously expanding customer database in CRM to expand your email list.

A Dozen Ways to Grow Your CRM Database and Email List Click To Tweet

Here are some tips that will help you to grow your customer database in CRM easily:

#1. Have an Opt-In Form

It is really laborious to collect fresh names for your email list if you do not have a way for your prospects to opt into your email distribution system. Therefore, create a simple web form to make it easy for people to sign up. This is the primary necessity of an effective email list management plan.

#2. Keep Your Form Simple

Ask only for names and email addresses- or just the email address if possible. You can collect more information later on after you succeed in engaging them.

#3. Place Your Opt-In Form on Your Site

Place your opt-in form to increase your CRM database around your website, to make it visible in several places. Remember to place it on higher value pages that get the most traffic. Make it a point to make the form easy to see, because few people will search for an opt-in form on their own.

#4. Reassure Subscribers

Write a line on your opt-in page that can reassure your potential subscribers that will not sell their email addresses or send them any spam. This assurance will go a long way in bringing new subscribers as distressful spam emails are so prevalent these days.

#5. Produce a Killer Blog

Write killer blogs with click-bait titles. Since people will always take notice of your publications if you upload a blog that delivers helpful advice covering pertinent topics. The main objective here is to provide insights to your audience that can make their life easier following your suggestions, ideas, and advice.
Always remember to include an option for the readers of your blog to opt into your mailing list at the conclusion of each blog post on your blogging website.
It is imperative that if your blog contents are engaging, your readers will want to sign up and provide you with their email addresses, which will ultimately increase your customer database in CRM.

#6. Write an eBook

Publish an eBook that can educate your readers on any topic of interest in your respective market. Get the eBook with a web form that collects contact information. So that each of your eBook downloads, will provide you a new address and expand the email-marketing database in your online lead management software platform.

#7. Develop a White Paper

If you have required expertise and the capacity to produce a white paper on your products or services, you must do it. Make sure that your white paper presents a solution to any common problem that your prospects or customers are facing. Much like your eBook campaigning strategy, upload the white paper with a lead capture form to find new email addresses for each download.

#8. Reward Them Who Opt-In

Offer a coupon, time-bound discount, or some other form of motivation for opting to your mailing list. You will be really surprised to see how successful even a little incentive can be in return for making people happy with your trivial gifts.

#9. Use Web Pop-Ups

Use an easy to use CRM platform that has marketing automation capabilities (like ConvergeHub) that lets you place web pop-ups on your business website. Use the pop-ups to display your opt-in forms with a simple message telling your website visitors that they can stay tuned and up-to-date with your corporate discounts and what is new happening with your brand by signing up to your mailing list.

#10. Offer Free Demos

Provide your audience with the ability to view a virtual demonstration of your products and services, through your website. Ask them to provide their contact emails in exchange for the demo to enrich your CRM database.

#11. Use Exit Intent Pop-Ups

When any visitor is about to leave your website, make sure that an exit intent pop-up appears and offer a discount or some other form of incentive to the visitor for sticking around. Inform the visitors that all they need to do to receive the offer is provide their name and email address before leaving your website.

#12.  Promote Items of Interest on Social Media

These could be new offerings, discounts, promotions or anything else that is likely to pique the interest of your audience. Share your information on all social channels like LinkedIn, Facebook and others to expand your reach, and of course, let them know that you require their email addresses to take advantage of the offer.

Try ConvergeHub for Free

Takeaway

Lastly, you can also expand your CRM database; by downloading our most popular free application- The ConvergeHub Free Lead Generator Tool, which can help you to captures leads from popular social media sites, email and more.

Wait! If you have 2 minutes to spare… leave a comment below letting us know what your biggest takeaway was!

5 Trending Customer Support Ideas For The Easy To Use CRM Software Users In 2018

Consumers today in this era of digital transformation are evolving in their preferences and expectations around how a brand or a company is interacting with them. With the present time’s rapid rate of technological advancements and innovations, customer support personals, users of easy to use CRM software are also adopting unique solutions to streamlines their operations and hence better serve their customers. Here are five chosen customer support ideas that are critically important to increase your abilities to remain competitive in a persistently shifting business landscape and help you to stay ahead of the curve in 2018.

Consumers today in this era of digital transformation are evolving in their preferences and expectations around how a brand or a company is interacting with them. With the present time’s rapid rate of technological advancements and innovations, customer support personals, users of easy to use CRM software are also adopting unique solutions to streamlines their operations and hence better serve their customers.

More than 75% of customers believe that providing value to their time is one of the most significant things all businesses can do to deliver their customers with better customer support-Forrester Research Click To Tweet

Here are five chosen customer support ideas that are critically important to increase your abilities to remain competitive in a persistently shifting business landscape and help you to stay ahead of the curve in 2018:

  1. Chatbots Will Become Increasingly Prevalent

The use of live chat functionalities in business websites has been increasing rapidly.  According to Inc.com, this is because more than 45% of the prospects and customers favor this functionality as chatbots do not keep them on hold.

Moreover, with the rise in the usage of AI (Artificial Intelligence), it is expected that chatbots (which are still manned in certain instances by humans, who interacts directly with the customers), will become more independent in the days to come.

Hence, in spite of the growing popularity of this functionality, it is becoming unfeasible for support staffs to respond to every type of incoming questions.

Therefore, presently live chat can be made use of primarily for providing basic information, like hours of operations, company contact addresses etc.

However, this little help from chatbots frees up the live agent’s time and so aids them to focus their energy on resolving more intricate customer issues.

Many best small and medium business CRM software users, are of the opinion that as chatbots, “Learn” more of the common customer issues, you will probably see them solving more critical problems, in the later days. As there are several easy to use CRM software users and AI enthusiasts those who believe that this is only the beginning of a long journey.

  1. Easy To Use CRM Software Integration Will Become Necessary

There are several small enterprises and call centers across the global frontiers those who have already integrated their support ticketing systems with many best small business CRM software. It has been noted that with so much information stored in the CRM database, at their fingertips, support agents can deliver significantly enhanced support by using an easy to use CRM software.

Moreover, now that the modern day tech-savvy customers increasingly expect call center’s support agents to have a 360-degree comprehensive view of their history with the establishment, which is only possible by adopting best small and medium business CRM software, like ConvergeHub.

It has been found that more than 85% of the customers often get frustrated when a support agent does not have the exact information with them on the customer-buying journey.

Therefore, as consumer expectations and preferences continue to evolve over time, it will become increasingly challenging to satisfy the customer’s needs without an easy to use CRM software with its CRM database in place.

  1. Intelligent Call Routing Will Be On The Rise

If your business is offering several products, you just cannot expect every support executive to be an expert in them all. Therefore, you require specialized support staffs and a mechanism for routing support related tickets around specific products to the representatives who are specialized in them.

By using system tags, it is possible to segment customers into groups those who have common attributes, such as the language they speak or the products they use, which can be learned by knowing how to maintain customer database in an easy to use CRM.

This will help your help desk system to automatically route new tickets when they come to the support reps specialized in supporting that segment.

Segmenting support tickets using CRM database will help in accomplishing the following:

  • Save time, which was previously used to route tickets manually
  • Faster ticket closures because of specialized expert support
  • Increase in customer satisfaction

According to Forrester Research, more than 75% of customers believe that providing value to their time is one of the most significant things all businesses can do to deliver their customers with better customer support.

  1. Big Data Analytic and Increase in Personalization

The colossal amount of customer information in the CRM database in all best small and medium business CRM software systems have opened the gates for enhancement of the need for personalization in customer support.

Using an easy to use CRM, now it is possible for support reps to glimpse at a customer profile and very quickly comprehend the customer’s behavior, geographical location, past support related issues, the preferred method of communication, and more.

Armed with this type of insight, support reps can now deliver better customer experience and thereby more easily develop a deeper rapport with the customers.

Moreover, when support reps better understand their customers they can easily predict the kind of information that the customers need by looking into the history of their support related issues, that helps in faster resolution of the tickets.

  1. Data Protection Regulations Will Force Change

In May 2018, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) will go into effect. For those who are not aware of GDPR, it can be explained in brief that GDPR is there to protect the personal information of all EU residents. Which implies your support teams will now need explicit permissions to record support calls. If you serve any customer in the EU, this is going to apply to your support related policies, since non-compliance could result in very steep fines.

 

Try ConvergeHub for Free

Bottom Line

It may feel challenging to keep up with the forces that are shaping customer support strategies and practices in 2018; however taking time to do your homework and adopting an easy to use CRM, will certainly keep you fully prepared to evolve with the times.

Wait! If you have 2 minutes to spare… leave a comment below letting us know what your biggest takeaway was!

Why Use Merchant Cash Advance CRM For Your MCA Business?

What sets Merchant Cash Advance CRM apart are those functionalities that cater to MCA industry for meeting with their unique purposes. MCA CRM is designed to help Cash Advance businesses run their front-end operations and at the same time improve their customer lifecycle management for retention of the clients by providing unsurpassable services. Apart from this Merchant Cash Advance CRM also enables the lenders to keep detailed client data and maintain timely customer follow up with loan pipeline management to stay in control of the business.
Request a demo Start a Free Trial

Merchant Cash Advance CRM like all other Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has the same basic functions, which includes:

  • Automation
  • Client Data Collection
  • Analytics
  • Marketing

However, what set Merchant Cash Advance CRM apart are those functionalities that cater to MCA industry for meeting with their unique purposes.  MCA CRM is designed to help Cash Advance businesses run their front-end operations and at the same time improve their customer lifecycle management for retention of the clients by providing unsurpassable services.

CRM gives businesses a 65% boost in sales quotas- Innopple Technologies Click To Tweet

Apart from this Merchant Cash Advance CRM also enables the lenders to keep detailed client data and maintain timely customer follow up with loan pipeline management to stay in control of the business.

Comparing Merchant Cash Advances to Traditional Business Lending

MCA or Merchant Cash Advance are gradually becoming more mainstream as several small and medium businesses that are not being able to secure a bank loan are turning to alternative funding sources. This is because; a merchant cash advance can be availed by a business quickly and that too with minimal paperworks. Hence, as banks continue to be very tight with their loans; merchant cash advance is becoming extremely appealing to small business owners over time.

How MCA works?

To illustrate in layman’s terms, Merchant Cash Advance, or an MCA provides purchases a pre-defined amount of a business’s future credit card receivables in one lump sum in return for the receivables, which is paid back to the lending organization over a certain period of time, which is usually calculated as a daily percentage of the customer’s debit/credit card totals. This is the key benefit that distinguishes MCA from conventional loans.

In other words, Merchant Cash Advance is not loaning a business any money, rather it is a simple process of buying a portion of the customer’s future business revenue.

Advantages of MCA Borrowings Over Bank Loans

The primary advantage of MCA over bank loans is that Merchant Cash Advance, in general, does not require any collateral, and liens (although this is always subjected to certain conditions). Apart from this, the other ranges of benefits that small businesses receive from choosing this kind of funding are:

  • No rigid monthly payments
  • No upfront fees
  • No UCC-1 (Uniform Commercial Code-1) at the time of funding
  • No collaterals (subjected to certain conditions)
  • No limits on how you spend the fund
  • Minimal approval time for disbursement of the fund

Therefore, the greatest advantage of MCA is that the amount, which the business pays, is based on the sum total of the credit card transactions that the borrower receives every day. As there are no set fees that must be paid every month, so small businesses taking merchant cash advance still have an access to a greater portion of their own revenues. This implies, if your sale drops for a specific month, your MCA payment will also become low to reflect that change.

Why use a Merchant Cash Advance CRM?

While all CRM may work for any business, Merchant Cash Advance CRM is specially designed for MCA businesses, as it not only helps in easy collaboration with the funders but it also helps MCA business in the following ways, which include:

  • Find a central repository for merchant contact information, related documents and underwriting information
  • Escalate the power of communication by integrated with DocuSign, Email, and Fax application templates for merchants and funders
  • Track deals from underwriting to funded stages
  • Syndicate and track approval numbers, management fees and commissions
  • Increase agent’s productivity by using quick lead capture form, easy edits, 360-degree merchant profile view and one-click deal conversion
  • Multiple fund submission and tracking

Takeaway

Therefore as a small business owner, if you find that you have the opportunity of expanding your business, but you do not have the time for traditional funding to come through, it is the perfect time to consider Merchant Cash Advance to get the finance you need, especially just when you need them.

ConvergeHub Try For Free

Wait! If you have 2 minutes to spare… leave a comment below letting us know what your biggest takeaway was!

Easy To Use CRM Software Training (A Dozen Best Practices)

Most easy to use CRM software training consists of daylong, instructor-led courses that cover application capabilities. Research on software training courses show; normally the attendees of these courses recollect less than 17 percent of their course contents beyond 72 hours. However, luckily as a vendor of CRM for small and medium businesses, we have found that there are certain proven best practices, which when adhered to, can considerably improve CRM software training results instantaneously.

Most easy to use CRM software training consists of daylong, instructor-led courses that cover application capabilities.

More often than not, participants of these training sessions even on the best small business CRM training get bored, become diverted, find ways to check their emails, and then check anything that comes to their mind on the mobile devices that they find more exciting than the curriculum of their online lead management software training course.

Research on software training courses show; normally the attendees of these courses recollect less than 17 percent of their course contents beyond 72 hours.

91% of businesses with over 11 employees now use CRM, compared to 50% of those with 10 employees or less. - SuperOffice (2018) Click To Tweet

Luckily as a vendor of CRM for small and medium businesses, we have found that there are certain proven best practices, which when adhered to, can considerably improve CRM software training results instantaneously.

Here are some of the golden ways by which you can improve your CRM training, which we mostly implement while training our customers after their purchase of ConvergeHub Merchant Cash Advance CRM or our Quickbooks CRM software, which comes with several unique functionalities that are beyond just CRM platforms developed for customer information database software applications.

# 1. The primary pre-requisite to a successful easy to use CRM software training is keeping aside a pragmatic budget. In a study done by CIO magazine, it was found that an ideal training program’s monetary allocation should comprise of 10-13 percent of the project’s budget. However, from our experience, we have found very few training project allocations reaches anywhere near to this figure.
The curriculums for a successful training which is needed for customer information database software like CRM are for software adoption, the utilization of the software and the technology payback. Therefore, plan accordingly.

#2. A CRM software system built on usability is the next and another most necessary pre-requisite to successful user training. Easy to use CRM software that is designed for simplistic intuitive navigation and purpose-built user experiences can be adopted without long training. It has been noted that best small business CRM systems that leverage on consumer technology, have a lower learning curve, better user adoption, greater software utilization and faster to find value out of the CRM platform. The main point over here is that designing usability of a CRM platform during the implementation process pays greater dividends during the training.

#3. When it comes to training, one size does not fit all. While training people in various organizations once they have adopted our Merchant Cash Advance CRM or ConvergeHub Quickbooks CRM software, we have seen that while there are many that responds to classroom training, there are others who find themselves more comfortable with computer-based training, by using self-paced manuals or mobile-enabled videos. Hence, using both these training options will certainly help your organization to better connect with more staffs working in your company.

#4. While imparting training for the easy to use CRM software, training instructors must advise the company employees, why the company is adopting the new customer information database software system. Trainers of the software must make the employees understand that the goal of adopting easy to use CRM software is just not to provide the users a different place to enter their customer data, but instead, CRM is a software that has been engineered for better business outcomes by the use of cutting-edge new technologies.
These business outcomes may include:

  • Lesser manual processes
  • More process automation
  • Enhanced customer experiences
  • Faster time to market the product
  • Better information reporting
  • Greater support for more agile business strategies that leads to continuous process improvements

It has been seen that employees are likely to remain more committed to the CRM training programs when they understand the strategic importance of their new online lead management software system.

#5. It is an accepted fact that short, bite-sized training work better than the long ones. To put it in other words, less is always more when it comes to any type of training for retention of the contents taught in the training. Research done on training processes suggests that an average adult can concentrate no more than 15-20 minutes before getting distracted. However, this figure can marginally increase with an engaging instructor, personalized stories and by creating role-based contents. Nevertheless, any training sessions beyond 60 minutes of classroom instructions produce diminishing returns.

You can still schedule training for your easy to use CRM software for a whole day, but always remember to break up the training classes so that the sessions are short and are progressively built upon each other. It can also be helpful if you allocate half-day for the courses and assign the rest of the training period for conducting homework-like assignments in hands-on exercises, whereby the retention factor climbs sharply as the attendees apply to what they have learned.

#6. Another way for imparting training for customer information database software is not to provide training for functionalities that the attendees may use 3-6 months down the road. Instead, it is more useful to adopt a JIT (Just-In-Time) training with ad-hoc training programs that can be learned and adopted when they are required. Even better, you can also deliver these training on the staff’s mobile devices for their individual consumption of the training materials as when and where they are needed.

#7. It is always a good idea to invest in support collaterals, presentations based on role-plays, and handout materials to support the training curriculum. It is a general mistake to always use the software company’s standard training resources. Instead, for easy to use CRM software training, you can use tailored curriculums that focus on use cases, expected outcomes, and inject real users and company stories as course pre-requisites that attendees can personally relate.

#8. Training for best small business CRM software should flow according to the role-based business processes and not as per the instructor’s software screen. Users understand the best when their training is presented as a part of their daily job’s contexts. This makes the staffs learn how they can perform their jobs easier and better. Therefore, do not follow the step by step sequences as easy to use CRM platforms are quite flexible, which normally permits multiple navigation options that help the users to find their own preferences.

#9. Always keep the training simple. Concentrate primarily on the core responsibilities and never try to make your employees technology experts- it just will not work. Empower your staffs not to become technology gurus, but to understand the necessity of CRM automation, and other basic information regarding the functionalities of the CRM.

#10. Avoid using demo data. Use real information and spend most of your time training in live applications. Real user scenarios, which focus on relevance and expected benefits of adopting an easy to use CRM software make the CRM applications seem more familiar, which improves the training experiences. It is okay to start with a standard demonstration of the customer information database software, but that necessarily must be followed with the staffs operating the CRM applications, as there is no substitute for the users typing on their keyboards.

#11. Make the training a part of your change management program. Training is one of the best approaches and the most effective tools to get hesitant and unwilling staffs get off their fences and into the software. When training is combined with other change management stuff such as business impact analysis, employees start to understand the organization’s go forward plans and how they can fit into the bigger picture of the company’s goals.

#12. Finally, it is most vital to understand that easy to use CRM software training is a process and not an event. Therefore, avoid one-time training and go for continued training programs even after the go-live event, which will increase the user adoption and utilization of the CRM software. It is best to design recurring training cadences that are aligned with new software releases of the CRM so that the users of your easy to use CRM software are capable of identifying training shortfalls and find necessary remedies as a part of a defined learning process.

Try ConvergeHub For Free

Wait! If you have 2 minutes to spare… leave a comment below letting us know what your biggest takeaway was!

Empowering Small Businesses with SFA Adoption

One of the most knotty and predominantly critical problems in implementation and finding the importance of sales force automation or SFA software system in business of any size is getting enthusiastic acceptance of the project. For without active participation and buy-in from the sales team members who will use and manage the CRM system, SFA will almost certainly fail. This is a vital problem since the very nature of sales force automation system and CRM software, in general, is so often based on change.

One of the most knotty and predominantly critical problems in implementation and finding the importance of sales force automation

This is a vital problem since the very nature of sales force automation system and CRM software, in general, is so often based on change. Customer relationships are not in the real sense of the term an IT project. Although, IT is important and all easy to use CRM implementations involves computer systems, but customer relationship management strategy and customer-facing business processes are much more deep-seated and fundamental than that.

The Surge of Sales Force Automation: A Market Overview

In other words, best small and medium business CRM software strategies and the importance of sales force automation involves re-engineering business processes on every aspect, which touches the customers. This re-engineering of processes usually means a lot of changes in the way things are accomplished and this alterations usually produces anything right from sheer skepticism to out-and-out resistance from the employees in any organization at multiple levels.

Luckily, getting user acceptance of SFA process is a known challenge. Over two decades sales force automation of all sizes has delivered a chain of change management techniques to create, the much-needed acceptance for implementation of the SFA process.

All these techniques hinge on having active, involved, and visible support from the very top of the organization. It is a commonly known fact that if the highest levels of management are not is support and does not understand the importance of sales force automation, CRM selection or the value of your SFA project implementation, your chances of success will diminish consequentially. Therefore, the management of your organization has to accept the importance of sales force automation and buy-in before you even start implementing a customer management software solution in your company.

Nevertheless, beyond that all-important executive sponsorship, there are also several other management techniques which have to be woven into the sales automation implementation process for successful implementation of SFA system and CRM, as illustrated below.

Essential Management Techniques for SFA Success

#1. Listen To Your Stakeholders

All stakeholders in your organization, including the management and the sales force, along with your marketing team members and your customer support executives, need to put in their ongoing input in the SFA project.

This input from the members of these teams in your organization must start at the very initiation of the SFA software selection process, rather even before you select an SFA or an easy to use CRM package.

Your team must help you to prioritize and identify your company’s needs and provide suggestions for helping them to meet those requirements.

Try to identify lacunas and pain points in your current customer management system and sales process and then excavate the root cause for those sub-optimal performances. It is the combination of software automation and business process improvement, which will ultimately provide you with the best and the most lethal weapon in securing user adoption of SFA in your organization.

Now, listening to your stakeholders means more than just asking your employees for their opinions during the easy to use CRM software selection project.

Identify members of your organization who are ready to work with the CRM implementation team, provide continuous feedback to the management, and become champions for the project to their co-workers. Doing this will create an opportunity for change and provide an opportunity for tuning your work process when the system or its prototype goes alive.

#2. Meet the Stakeholders’ Needs

People working in sales can be very difficult to satisfy, and so if your SFA system does not bring success for the stakeholders it will most likely fail. Rather it can be said that there must be substance behind the strategy that defines the importance of sales force automation and its hype, for the new system must deliver measurable and tangible value for each stakeholder’s constituency.

Therefore, training in the new enterprise software system is most important to meet all the stakeholder’s needs. Everyone who is going to work on this SFA system, from the management to the sales team members, and the sales admin staffs, need to be thoroughly trained in the new system for understanding the importance of sales force automation in businesses.

This training should provide your staffs with necessary how-to guides, cheat sheets, and on-demand availability of support personals to make it easy for everyone to quickly learn and become adequately proficient in the SFA or automated customer management system.

#3. Sell It Internally

Even the best product or service in the world does not sell by itself, particularly if it means bringing something that is going to change the way people do things.

As in any type of sales job, focus on the benefits to the “customers”, understanding that different groups of stakeholders in your organization are going to realize different benefits while recognizing the importance of sales force automation implementation in your company.

For example, proper SFA implementation in sales is going to lighten the paperwork and help your sales team to sell more successfully. Likewise, the top management will be able to get a clear and comprehensive view of what is going on at the customer level and find accurate sales forecasts by proper implementation of SFA.

In other words, you need to clearly tailor your message to the end users of the SFA system for making them understand the importance of sales force automation implementation in your organization.

#4. Celebrate Successes

Once your SFA project moves ahead you will find several opportunities to stage your successes. Celebrate your success, however small they may be to build momentum and break down the resistance while implementing SFA and adopting the easy the use CRM for your organization.

One way to ensure early success is by implementing SFA systems for those parts that are most likely to be successful. Grasp the low hanging fruits for building a progressive support system for finding a successful SFA implementation journey.

This can be anything from making your salespeople get the message from their customers quickly to a process that escalates the ability of your sales team to constantly up-sell or cross-sell their products and services to their customers.

Look for the niggling little pain points, that can be corrected quickly.

Evolve a stepping stone strategy from ‘contact management’ to ‘account management’ to ‘activity management’ and ‘opportunity management’ for creating success stories with the SFA and easy to use CRM implementation in your company. Once the basics are covered by can advance to ‘sales quotation management’, ‘competitive intelligence management’, ‘mobile access’, ‘marketing automation’, ‘social media integration’, ‘partner relationship management (PRM)’ or various other capabilities, which can produce more excitement for your sales team by the implementation of SFA system in your organization.

#5. Keep Selling

One common reason for failure for SFA system projects is negligence in utilization after implementation of the SFA system. It has been often observed that for all unsuccessful SFA projects and easy to use CRM implementation the utilization of the system falls off from 90 percent down to 20 percent or even lesser in the course of the very first year after implementation of SFA system in the organization.

It must be always kept in mind that for finding the importance of sales force automation and customer relationship management once the software is finally live, you must continue using it although almost certainly you shall find things and features that will not work quite the way you want them to do.

Like the majority of big enterprise-software projects, most SFA and best small and medium business CRM software, need sharpening and tweaking as your co-workers actually start using them.

Try ConvergeHub For Free

Therefore, keep an allowance for customization of the SFA and CRM software along with your implementation plans, so that you can make changes to meet the end users and the stakeholder’s needs for finding the importance of sales force automation and customer relationship management in your small and medium businesses.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, the global Sales Force Automation (SFA) software market is on a trajectory of significant growth, underscoring the critical importance of SFA in modern business practices. Implementing an effective SFA system requires not only strategic planning but also enthusiastic adoption and buy-in from every level of the organization, especially top management. As we navigate through the challenges of change management, the proven techniques and strategies discussed herein are essential for securing the active participation needed for successful SFA implementation. By embracing these approaches, businesses can enhance their customer relationships, streamline operations, and ultimately drive substantial growth and success in an increasingly competitive market landscape. The journey to mastering SFA may be complex, but with the right tools and commitment, it offers unparalleled opportunities for business transformation and sustained growth.

Try ConvergeHub For Free

6 Golden Strategies to Defeat the Chaos with an Easy to Use CRM

Most businessperson starts an enterprise because they are looking for freedom. However, unfortunately, this dream very soon evolves into a nightmare. If you are not an early adopter of an easy to use CRM system, all things seem to go smoothly until you find your first few customers. That is when the chaos moves in, and even before you know it you find yourself sucked in- as the chaos only seem to mount every time you add another customer, but defer your decision of buying an easy to use CRM for your business. This chaos happens primarily because you cannot possibly follow up with your prospects and customers. Secondly, since without an easy to use CRM your customer database remains disorganized, your valuable leads fall through the crack, since there is not a foolproof process that you can count on.

Most businessperson starts an enterprise because they are looking for freedom. However, unfortunately, this dream very soon evolves into a nightmare.
If you are not an early adopter of an easy to use CRM system, all things seem to go smoothly until you find your first few customers. That is when the chaos moves in, and even before you know it you find yourself sucked in- as the chaos only seem to mount every time you add another customer, but defer your decision of buying an easy to use CRM for your business.

This chaos happens primarily because you cannot possibly follow up with your prospects and customers. Secondly, since without an easy to use CRM your customer database remains disorganized, your valuable leads fall through the crack, since there is not a foolproof process that you can count on.

Estimated CRM software’s global market is now worth $26.3 billion and this figure is projected to reach $36.5 billion by the end of 2018 - Gartner Click To Tweet

Most budding entrepreneurs add a different system to each fire that needs dousing. However, again before you know it, you have the chaos once more in your business that comes (this time) with the use of multiple systems.

As your business is your brainchild, it is true that you are the glue that holds it all together, but still, you cannot ever seem to cross anything off your to-do list, which only gets longer each passing day.

This sound familiar to you?

As an employee of an easy to use CRM company, we at ConvergeHub have talked to hundreds of entrepreneurs, and they have all share the same pain points. It is chaos that makes it impossible to grow a small business quickly and effectively. Moreover, you can never win longstanding customers if you do not fix the failures in your follow-up, which most often cripples small businesses.

Here is a 6-step formula for getting out of this chaos- as this strategy has times and again not only helped people win back their businesses but it has also made then succeed in winning lifelong customers.

#1. Build your emotional capital

You need to find a balance for yourself first. “Emotional-Capital” is the balancing force between family, work, emotions, and physical health.

#2. Practice closely controlled optimism

This starts by envisioning that your small business will achieve the success that you dreamt of, and at the same instance confronting the vile facts of your current reality. You need to attack these brutal facts because you have to, not because you have to do it.

#3. Assert your entrepreneurial independence

You have to carve the path for your own success. If you do not believe something will surely work for you, no one else will.

#4. Centralize and organize your database

As a small business owner with limited resources, you have to centralize your operations. Most small businesses live within multiple-system chaos and house information about their leads, prospects, and customers all over the place. These silo databases of disjointed systems often block you from growing your business and prevent you from impressing your customers, unless you invest in an easy to use CRM platform that help centralize all your customer related database.

#5. Tap into the magical power of follow-up

Failing to follow up with the prospects and customers at the right time is what kills most small businesses. It is because, when you follow up with every new lead, you will automatically close more deals and hot leads that otherwise would have fallen through the crack. For example, some people may not be ready to do business with you today, but if you nurture the relationship and provide value to the prospects through your follow-up, you can remain on the top-of-the-mind of your leads and prospects, when they are eventually ready to buy. An easy to use CRM platform helps you by creating automated drip marketing campaigns that can make you remain in touch with your prospects, leads and would be customers.

#6. Burn the To-Do list and move from manual to automated

Even if you are a follow-up Ninja, you cannot just perform as you thought and complete your jobs as an automated easy to use CRM’s follow system can, since once there are multiple steps in your marketing campaigns, you are bound to make mistakes at some point in time.
How do you understand which contact receives what information, and on which day?

Well, if you are thinking about just handling a handful of prospects, maybe then you can handle it yourself, but once you have hundreds or thousands of contacts to manage, no mere mortals can do it all by themselves.

Hence, with the help of automation found in easy to use CRM, you can find the benefits of following up with your leads, customers, prospects without the pain of making mistakes. Additionally, easy to use CRM software helps you and your team to build relationships that cannot be achieved in any other way.

Try ConvergeHub For Free

Conclusion

Therefore the bottom-line is, it is automation that makes your business more scalable. This is because, with the help of automation found in an easy to use CRM, things are set to run as needed and it really does not matter how many prospects or customers you add to its CRM database.  The system is capable of following up with each of them automatically, that too in a customized and a highly targeted way.

How Best Small Business CRM Software Help Close More Deals

We all are on the lookout for the best small business CRM software because doing a business is all about creating and nurturing relationships. However, doing business with numerous people requires keeping track of multiple interactions, which occurs at different stages of the sales pipeline. This is a constant challenge that many businesses face today, and that is the exact reason why more and more business establishments are turning to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. Indeed the best small business CRM software (like ConvergeHub) can be one of your most valuable assets for your SMB. According to Gartner, the estimated CRM software’s global market is now worth $26.3 billion and this figure is projected to reach $36.5 billion by the end of 2018.

We all are on the lookout for the Best Small Business CRM software because doing a business is all about creating and nurturing relationships.

However, doing business with numerous people requires keeping track of multiple interactions, which occurs at different stages of the sales pipeline.

Around 55% of top-performing small businesses are now investing in sales enablement technology like CRM software for generating better revenue. Click To Tweet

This is a constant challenge that many businesses face today, and that is the exact reason why more and more business establishments are turning to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.

Indeed the best small business CRM software (like ConvergeHub) can be one of your most valuable assets for your SMB.

In fact, in a study done by Brainshark and Forbes last year, it was found that:

Around 55% of top-performing small businesses are now investing in sales enablement technology like CRM software for generating better revenue.

Moreover, this rise in CRM sell is showing no signs of slowing down.

According to Gartner, the estimated CRM software’s global market is now worth $26.3 billion and this figure is projected to reach $36.5 billion by the end of 2018.

This increasing growth in CRM software, especially by businesses looking for the best small business CRM software, is an undeviating reflection of the ability of this platform to create sales and bring a return on its investments. Although, even the best small business CRM software will only be useful for revenue as users make it.

Therefore, to show how priceless this software can be for your sales and marketing team, we have put together 5 ways to secure more deals with your CRM.

Let us get started.

Invest less time on data entry

Perhaps the greatest ability of the best small business CRM software (from the perspective of sales) is that it helps the salespeople spend lesser time on menial tasks and therefore they can utilize more time working with customers and prospects since CRM has an aptitude for automating data entry.

For example, instead of physically reporting every lead captured through a webinar or trade show, you can use your CRM software platform with its integrated web forms and other data importing tools that can record all data and information automatically.

This provides your sales team members more opportunities to work directly with the customers and push the customers slowly and steadily towards a sale, in addition to improving their ability to quickly follow-up with leads.

Get your timing down

Timing can often make a big difference between loosing and closing a deal. Understanding where your potential buyers stand in relation to their final sale is the decisive point in knowing when and how you should engage them.  There will be many prospects who will just be interested in gathering information about your brand, while there will be also those who are ready to receive a price quote and iron-out a contract or make a purchase from your brand.

This is truly a delicate balance.

Best small business CRM software can keep your reps from being too eager or too sluggish from developing a lead. By illustrating the sales pipeline and highlighting, where your prospective customers are placed in the sales funnel, your sales reps can clearly understand when or when it is not the ideal time to get engaged with their leads, prospects and customers.

With most CRM software you can create custom stages based on the level of qualification such as leads, inquiries, MQL (Marketing Qualified Leads), SQL (Sales Qualified Leads) and opportunities.

Use analytics to improve your strategy

Your best small business CRM software is just not for storing customer data. CRM is also an extremely advanced tool that helps your sales track their performances and adjust their tactics accordingly. Most CRM platforms come along with a variety of built-in reports, such as:

  • Financial forecasting report
  • Profitability and revenue report
  • Sales cycle reports
  • Progress to goal report
  • Win/loss reports etc.

By keeping an eye on the metrics of these reports your sales managers can easily isolate the bottleneck and weaknesses in their sales processes.

Markets can also use these metrics to find which marketing campaigns generated more customers that are new and find their attributed revenue for generating more sales.

Understand your buyer’s needs

CRM can help to show you not only when your buyers are ready to buy but also the best way to engage them. Therefore, by integrating your CRM with a marketing automation platform you can collect metrics of the pre-sales stages that can help your sales reps deploy their skills more advantageously to close a deal.

This data can be:

  • Where your prospects are in the sales pipeline?
  • What channel you prospects came from?
  • What online materials they downloaded or read from your website?
  • Which selling techniques have been successful or have not been doing well with them in the past?

Build better relationships with customers

Your best small business CRM software is, therefore, a highly effective tool for improving the relationship between your brand and your customers.

According to a report published by American Express:

Three out of four consumers say they have spent more with a company because of a history of positive customer service experiences,” whereas over half of consumers “intended to conduct a business transaction or make a purchase, but decided not to due to a poor service experience.

Therefore, understanding the modern buyer and their requirements is the key to any B2B (Business-to-Business) sales in this digital world.

As a customer database, best small business CRM software is a platform that can hold invaluable information for understanding buyers, through their digital body languages, purchase history, communication logs, company data, and others, which helps in improving customer relationship and thus close more sales.

Try ConvergeHub For Free

Conclusion

Although the traditional way to close deals has always been the handshake, but as your business grows in this digital world, you need tools like best small business CRM software that helps you scale up your outreach and develop your sales. It gives your sales team enough data that can help them make intelligent decisions, which are the keys to effective sales.

If you have liked this article, feel free to share any tips you have in the comment section below.

Simple Ways to Build Customer Database in CRM

Businesses rarely start to build Customer Database in CRM software when they should. This means companies seldom start using CRM as soon as they start looking for customers. Therefore, by the time you actually get your CRM software, you have hundreds or maybe thousands of customer records that must be entered into your CRM. Here is a simple way by which you can build your CRM database.

Businesses rarely start to build Customer Database in CRM software when they should. This means companies seldom start using CRM as soon as they start looking for customers.

Therefore, by the time you actually get your CRM software, you have hundreds or maybe thousands of customer records that must be entered into your CRM.

30% of marketers say having disparate data sources is the main reason they cannot glean useful insights from customer - Cyber Sphere Security Click To Tweet

Here is a simple way by which you can build your CRM database:

Primarily, for businesses that are not yet using a CRM, make the spreadsheet the precursor to your CRM software. You new CRM system can replace the poorly maintained spreadsheet by your sales team, but then again, you need your sales team’s help in making the transfer, so help your salespeople to get their spreadsheets in order. Clean duplicate records; purge any images or other embedded filters or files out of the spreadsheets, and sort the columns to match the CRM software’s needs.

All CRM applications like ConvergeHub and others accept multiple formats for creating the Customer Database in CRM, but the spreadsheet is most commonly the first among all other choices. Hence, make the first column in your existing spreadsheet the unique identifier in your CRM. In general, this is the account or the company name. Else, you may also use your contact’s last name as the unique key.

Once you buy a CRM, the software will provide you a sample CRM database import template to follow. As spreadsheets are randomly customizable, none of the spreadsheets can exactly match the database structure provided for creating the Customer Database in CRM. Therefore rearrange the columns in the spreadsheet with the unique key field first, followed by all the remaining fields as instructed in your CRM. This order may be a company name, followed by a street name, street name #2, city, state, zip code, phone number, and company website address. Instruct your sales team members in your organization to arrange their spreadsheet’s columns in that order so that the heading across your existing spreadsheets database matches the CRM fields.

Many CRM applications accept the spreadsheet files in XLSX or XLS formats, while others require you to export the Customer Database in CRM in a text file. So, once you have the required file, go to the Import Data screen in the CRM, choose the file that you need to upload and click on the Upload button for transferring your CRM database.

Always remain prepared: It will not work right the first time. To purge this mess, go back to your spreadsheet, search for all the forbidden characters in the file. Like vertical bar (|), or angle brackets (<>), or double quotation marks or quotations in the file. However, after cleaning and saving the spreadsheet file, remember to keep the original file intact, just in case you need to backtrack further for uploading your CRM database.

Now once you have your hundreds or thousands of new records lodged inside the CRM software, you are just halfway done.

It has been often found that comments from the spreadsheets mostly do not make into the CRM, and even if they do it is utmost necessary that all these information needs to be verified and also cleaned up. The ideal way to get this task done (while building your Customer Database in CRM) is to hire an intern or a part-time data entry person to do this job.

You can always think, why is it necessary to hire outside help that your sales team members can input on their own? There are mainly two reasons for hiring external help.

Primarily, making your salespeople act as typists will affect your sales. Secondly, if your salespeople are forced to do the input themselves, they will add notes to the list of their present customers, meaning hundreds of previous records will never get transferred to your CRM. Hence, it is always worth the cost of hiring an outside typist to transfer all the customer notes from all customers off the spreadsheets into your CRM database.

Try ConvergeHub For Free

Conclusion

Now, that you have learned these simple ways to populate your CRM database, we are confident that it will take less time now to get your CRM database into the best shape possible for your start, as a better start always ascertains better results.

Following these simple steps mentioned above can transform your data into a driver of profits, as it has been often stated by many Customer Relationship Management stalwarts that your CRM is only as good as your database.

Wait! If you have 2 minutes to spare… leave a comment below letting us know what your biggest takeaway was!

Choosing an MCA CRM? Avoid these mistakes!

Let us face the reality; you do not want to make the mistake of picking up the wrong MCA CRM just like others. MCA CRM software can save a lot of your precious work hours, but then again, it comes at the price of a learning curve. A learning curve that can make you shell out a lot of money, in case you have to change the MCA CRM platform down the line. For the convenience of such buyers of MCA Customer Relationship Management platform, we have put together a few ideas to mull over when choosing a CRM. Let us review them one by one now and we are hopeful that these suggestions will help.

Let us face the reality; you do not want to make the mistake of picking up the wrong MCA CRM just like others.
MCA CRM software can save a lot of your precious work hours, but then again, it comes at the price of a learning curve. A learning curve that can make you shell out a lot of money, in case you have to change the MCA CRM platform down the line.

For the convenience of such buyers of MCA Customer Relationship Management platform, we have put together a few ideas to mull over when choosing a CRM.

There is currently $80 to $120 billion dollars worth of unmet funding needs among SMEs, and MCA companies are in the best position to meet this demand. Click To Tweet

Let us review them one by one now and we are hopeful that these suggestions will help.

Not finding whether or not you are looking for a specific solution

A specific or a niche solution may be perfect for your business if you are wishing to use the CRM solution at its optimal level. Now, if you are just utilizing your CRM platform for basic data input, you will definitely not benefit from such a high-powered customer relationship solution with myriad bells and whistles. However, if you are using the CRM solution to track multiple areas unique to your kind of business, such as retail, MCA, legal and others, you should consider using the appropriate niche CRM solution that fits with your business’s modus operandi.

Not understanding the needs of all the users

Once you purchase a CRM platform, it is most likely that you are not going to be the only one who will use the CRM system. Therefore, before buying a CRM, you will have to take time out to consider the needs of the other users who will use the CRM along with you in your company. Never run into a risk of fully investing in a particular software solution that will only reward you and your executives, but your evaluation of the CRM platform should take into consideration the cross-section of all the users who will collaborate with the software.

Picking the solution that will not address the problem

This statement may seem clichéd and obvious, yet it is one of those critical issues that are mostly overlooked. For example, let us take that the most pressing issue for your urgency in buying a CRM is to facilitate communication with your customers. Therefore, communication should be the make or break feature for purchasing your CRM system. Therefore, do not get caught up with other fancier aspects of the CRM software if you find your desired CRM lacks the ideal communication features while purchasing the CRM.

Always keep in your mind that the software solution that you select for your business must be accurate and effective in addressing your problems. However, we have seen that it is not uncommon for companies to select CRM solutions that do not necessarily address their pressing issues. Hence, the primary problem the software solution is expected to resolve should always be there at the top of your checklist before buying your Merchant Cash Advance CRM.

Opting for a CRM that does not save time

In any sort of businesses, most companies can very quickly identify at least two time-taking business processes when it comes to managing their customer relationships. Therefore, before finalizing carefully map these burdensome processes and match the ideal CRM solution that is capable of streamlining these cumbersome issues. Remember, you selected CRM must always save your business resources and time to justify its ROI to the company.

Not being thoughtful about ongoing IT needs and anticipated resources

There can be several scenarios and you can be a part of any one or more of these issues. Like, you can have access to manage an in-house team of IT professionals or you may have limited access to reliable professionals and resources that can solve your IT problems as they arise, or you may even have access to IT resources but they do not align with the particular needs for a given CRM solution. Therefore, when selecting your CRM system, always take into account the potential support requirements of the skillsets that you require from your technical team before purchasing the CRM software.

Not testing the software

Last but not the least, the most common mistake that businesses make while opting for a CRM system is to make a selection even before scheduling a demo of the software. Ideally, you should consider evaluating several CRM solutions simultaneously before selecting your preferred CRM software. Most CRM brands offer a walkthrough or a free trial to their prospects.

Try ConvergeHub For Free

Conclusion

Remove guesswork before selecting your CRM. We are confident that if you are capable of avoiding these common pitfalls in choosing your CRM, this article will help you to find the right CRM solution for your Merchant Cash Advance businesses.

Wait! If you have 2 minutes to spare… leave a comment below letting us know what your biggest takeaway was!

8 Ways CRM Platform Can Decrease the Costs for Your Business

Are you still in the era of printing out documents and adding your comments by pencil? Are you still printing documents and adding them to your file folders? Well, if it is so, then CRM platform can help you to become more digitally organized and therefore reduce costs in your office. According to a recent survey done in 2017, it has been found that 58% office in Europe store paper records on their office premises rather than adopting a digital system, and out of them 2% of businesses have no structure for archiving their client communications.

Are you still in the era of printing out documents and adding your comments by pencil?
Are you still printing documents and adding them to your file folders?
Well, if it is so, then CRM platform can help you to become more digitally organized and therefore reduce costs in your office. Many among us use social media to advertise our businesses online yet we still incur a high paper wastage that costs us both money and time.

According to a recent survey done in 2017, it has been found that 58% office in Europe store paper records on their office premises rather than adopting a digital system, and out of them 2% of businesses have no structure for archiving their client communications.

58% office in Europe store paper records on their office premises rather than adopting a digital system, and out of them 2% of businesses have no structure for archiving their client communications. - Superoffice Click To Tweet

So how can create an exceptional customer service, bring in loyal customers, and at the same time lessen the use of administering papers? A digital record management gives you:

  • Improved business process through speedier retrieval and access of information
  • Make better-informed decisions through faster access to all right information
  • Better service delivery as the right information can be located quickly
  • Reduced staff time looking for information
  • Lesser compliance cost and increased ability to provide timely, accurate and transparent responses
  • Cost savings from less storage, creation, handling, and retrieval of paper records

Every business initiative starts with a singular person and so here are 8 workable tips on how you can organize your day and be on the way to digitally manage your growing organization.

 

  1. Plan your tasks and activities ahead

When you have several ideas and a multitude of agendas on your mind, it is impossible to do ‘everything’ at once. Therefore, sit in front of your diary and plan the different tasks over a period of time. However, make sure that your hard priorities do not get disturbed and so keep some open room for unexpected and important tasks that may come up in-between.

  1. Log everything

As with your database, your dairy is only good if you keep it updated every day. Write down in your dairy everything right from your colleague’s birthday to ordering flowers and management meetings. Not only does this help you but it also provides your colleagues and not to forget the front desk, an overview of your day or week. However, remember to make all your private bookings only visible to you.

  1. Avoid the Print button

Although it may depend on the job that you have as to what is really necessary to print. Nevertheless, in truth, most of us do not need much paper in this today’s digital world. Hence, if you use a CRM platform you can easily save all your documents, emails, and activities as Projects in your CRM platform.

  1. Share electronically

Use a CRM system to share your documents and emails, since using a CRM platform you can have all your information stored in one place where they are traceable. Additionally, you also save time by not having to send an email to for example your sales group, and the possibility that your “crucial” messages do not get lost inside hundreds of other emails. You can also use applications like WeTransfer or FTP for sharing bigger files.

  1. Use electronic templates

There are several organizations that waste a lot of their time building templates for advertising, sales offers, invitation and others. However, if you digital library available for your organization you will not only save money but also a lot of time by not inventing new templates and instead focus on your original work. Moreover, doing this will ensure a uniform profile and verbiage in all your outbound communications, which will be in accordance with the policy upheld by your company.

  1. Reporting

Are you getting tired of endless hours putting together Excel spreadsheet with the latest sales figures in your sales pipeline? Today we all have to put in our optimal performances and show results to the management, and to do that we need to take out data from several sources, for example, sales by week, months or quarters or by the open rates on the e-marketing mailers. However, if we have a CRM platform, we can easily find all the sales data in one system and therefore take out standard reports or even if needed add an Analytics module to get the data reproduced in chart formations on the CRM’s dashboard.

  1. Contact information

Have you ever used Google or Yahoo to find company information or looked into a corporate website to find out information about a contact person? It is true that when a company does not have a contact database or a business directory, it becomes time-consuming for the employees of that organization to quickly find the relevant information. Therefore, having all the personal and company data in one place benefits the organization in several ways. Hence if your organization have a CRM platform you can search for everything, for example, if you just have an email address you can search for all the related information tagged with the email which is there in your CRM’s database.

  1. Mailing lists

Are you buying your prospect lists from external agencies, if you do, we recommend to not to do it anymore? Start building your own prospect list, since this proves to be better leads and cheaper in the long run. Adding a call to action buttons to your website, getting subscribers through your social media channels and blogs or you can do it even by collecting emails at business conferences and do not forget to add these contacts to your CRM so that you can send them direct mailers using your CRM’s database.

Try ConvergeHub For Free

Takeaway

There is also another way for collecting free leads from social media websites like LinkedIn, Yelp, and Facebook by using CONVERGEHUB FREE LEAD GENERATION TOOL that help generate leads of your choice directly from the Chrome browser. This amazing handy add-on has also been highlighted in an article on Small Biz Trend website as the “20 Best Chrome Extensions for Small Businesses”.

You may also visit our landing page and click on the download link to get this absolutely free prospect listing tool.