Year: 2019

How To Deal With The Three Key Roadblocks Of Marketing Automation In CRM

As it happens with all major shifts in strategies, likewise it is not always a smooth sailing for small and medium businesses when implementing marketing automation for the first time. In fact, even the most successful and largest global organizations often experience sheer difficulties that can turn them away from implementing and adopting innovative technologies. According to a report published by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, it has been confirmed that just 15% of B2B marketers use advanced business growth technology and tools for measuring analytics and practice them to leverage data in their sales and marketing efforts.

As it happens with all major shifts in strategies, likewise it is not always a smooth sailing for small and medium businesses when implementing marketing automation for the first time. In fact, even the most successful and largest global organizations often experience sheer difficulties that can turn them away from implementing and adopting innovative technologies.
According to a report published by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, it has been confirmed that just 15% of B2B marketers use advanced business growth technology and tools for measuring analytics and practice them to leverage data in their sales and marketing efforts.

Luckily, some of these common roadblocks in adopting marketing automation to more successfully help in marketing on multiple online channels (such as websites, email, social media, etc.) and thereafter automate repetitive tasks can be avoided by following a few simple steps since B2B marketers still continue to see the value and benefits of using automation, which can increase productivity that directly affects the company’s bottom line.

Just 15% of B2B marketers use advanced business growth technology and tools for measuring analytics and practice them to leverage data in their sales and marketing efforts - HBR Click To Tweet

Here are 3 golden ideas to eliminate any barrier that can prevent marketers from achieving their marketing automation goals:

Roadblock #1

Inaccurate Contact Data

When it comes to marketing, the accuracy of the data about your customers and prospects determines your success. It has been widely seen, that marketing database are too often full of inaccurate, old, or invaluable data. However, there is business growth technology out there like easy to use CRM platforms to guarantee you that your database is organized in a meaningful way.

You can even easily invest in a data-cleansing tool, which will automatically update, match, or add customer and prospect records in your easy to use CRM system that can be integrated into your marketing automation tool.

In addition, B2B markets can also try progressive profiling strategy, which helps in collecting information about a lead in a phased manner. This means, instead of asking your leads and prospects to fill out forms that are too long, you can request for a few pieces of new information at different stages of the sales cycle rather than gathering all the information right away.

Roadblock #2

Deficiency Of Alignment Between Sales And Marketing Teams

Marketing automation, not only benefits the marketers but also it is also equally helpful for the sales teams. While marketing automation is considered as the backbone of growth for B2B companies, it has also become a useful tool in aligning marketing and sales teams to foster a sales-marketing relationship.

Here are some of the best practices that have worked for many marketers in building up their sales-marketing liaison:

  1. Schedule daily or weekly meetings with your sales teams and come prepared with data that will make these meetings productive, fact-driven, and so ultimately more valuable for your sales and marketing teams.
  2. Be a silent listener first, during a sales call, so that you can better understand what the prospects may ask, and consequentially you can send the appropriate marketing materials immediately after the call.
  3. Keep your entire marketing materials organized in an online library so that your sales teams can easily find the right materials for any type of solutions. Also, recommend quick access to email templates that can be used to share contents with your leads and prospects on a regular basis.

Roadblock #3

Failure to document your strategy

Marketing automation is an astonishingly powerful tool, but like any other tools, implementing marketing automation can only be successful if there is an effective strategy behind it.  It might seem tempting to jump and start using this new shining technology, create rules and send out innumerable emails. Although it is always okay to get your feet wet, it requires taking a step back and rethink about your marketing automation’s needs and goals, for successful implementation of the tool.

You planning period may include assigning ownership, assessing the skill set of your team, and filling any gaps in the marketing automation processes, but gradually as you set up automation in your new system, you need to think through your marketing automation strategy from a granular level. For example, here is a planning template you can use, which will help you to build out your strategy, step-by-step.

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How Automation in Easy to Use CRM Can Help Sales Teams to Solve Their Documentation Woes

In the modern times educated and connected customers expect the salespeople to remain available at any given point of time to provide, direct, immediate and tailored responses to their issues. This is because investing too much time on activities apart from selling is no longer an option if sales reps are to meet their demands in the companies. Therefore to avoid falling behind, sales teams in all organizations must arm them with business growth technology and tools that aid in maximizing productivity and efficiency and allow them to concentrate on important things: the customer and driving in revenue. Now, this is no longer a secret that salespersons do spend a lot of time performing activities outside of selling.

In the modern times educated and connected customers expect the salespeople to remain available at any given point of time to provide, direct, immediate and tailored responses to their issues. This is because investing too much time on activities apart from selling is no longer an option if sales reps are to meet their demands in the companies.

Therefore to avoid falling behind, sales teams in all organizations must arm them with business growth technology and tools that aid in maximizing productivity and efficiency and allow them to concentrate on important things: the customer and driving in revenue.

Only 24% of top marketers included alignment with sales as a priority for marketing automation. This is a potential miss. Click To Tweet

Now, this is no longer a secret that salespersons do spend a lot of time performing activities outside of selling.

According to a survey done by CSO Insights, only 36 percent of sales rep’s time is focused on primary sales functions as a large number of their working hours are instead spent on conducting admin and other manual tasks, several of which stem from the workflows and processes that are required to generate documents, and so in order to make sales teams more successful and highly functional this less impactful activities must be automated for sales and revenue growth.

Therefore, since it is inevitable that if documents are created manually there is likely going to be issues and problems, hence here are a few common problems that generate from manual document generation processes:

Improper visibility into the status of the documents

Documents that are not stored and gathered in a centralized repository (like a CRM database) and hence cannot be tracked leads to compromised and improper visibility.

This is the reason as to why when many a times sales teams are required to answer questions quickly it becomes a time-consuming, challenging and an unreliable activity when a central repository of data does not exist and so it requires searching through a plethora of resources such as local drives and sent emails.

Inconsistent document formatting and branding

When sales reps in your organization generate and distribute documents manually it is impossible to make sure that the documents will have a consistent feel and look which is in accordance with your company’s branding.

This is because when documents sent to customers and prospects are not consistent in their look and branding, this inconsistency most often erodes the company’s brand integrity and can diminish the company’s image and reputation among its consumers in the marketplace.

Copying and pasting

While this may seem natural, nevertheless copying and pasting to create contents for any document wastes valuable time and at the same instance makes way for introducing errors, which can not only cause delays but also creates reworks in the sales process, which becomes a cause of frustration for both sales and customers of your offerings.

Therefore, to help solve these issues, sales teams need a process that can automatically produce a document (Excel spreadsheet, Word Document, or an HTML email) that can help to streamline the entire sales process and eliminate the pain points by:

Gaining enhanced visibility into documents

Once you buy CRM and use it as document generation software it helps in saving a true-copy of the document generate in the company’s CRM database , that in turn permits every member in the organization to find more visibility into the documents (such as date and time when the document was created and sent) as well as provide transparency in referencing the document contents for more visibility across other departments in the organization.

Therefore, by storing documents inside their easy to use CRM platforms sales and support teams can easily locate and find a reference for quick access to document contents during customer interactions which increase sales, and boost customer relationship and productivity.

Creating brand consistency

Once you buy CRM company leaderships and sales teams no longer are required to worry about sending documents with irregular banding and inconsistencies thanks to the business growth technology that incorporates document generation functionalities within the CRM software.
Instead CRM software can build common document types and store them for use in the CRM database that is predefined and can be easily managed, to make sure that the current version of the document is distributed to the prospects and the customers.

Abolishing manual copying and pasting of data into a new document

In this instance, one or more templates are created beforehand and used when a document is required to be developed, which easily eliminates the requirement to copy and paste data from other unreliable sources, preventing errors that can happen when it is done manually.

Therefore once you buy CRM to eliminate copying and pasting (which is also a labor-intensive activity) creating documents by using automation saves time and adds to productivity.

In a report published by Aberdeen Group it has also been shown that using an easy to use CRM for abolishing copying and pasting even shortens the length of the sales cycles as it helps in generating quotes quickly and automatically in the target language of the customers with correct set of terms and conditions making sure and providing accuracy and consistent world-class brand experience for the prospects and customers across quotes.

Conclusion

Therefore document generation plays a central role in the sales cycle and so once you buy CRM it empowers the sales teams to create sales process optimization through the support of document generation solutions helping sales reps to focus on the most important aspect of selling which in turn boosts business growth.

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4 Awesome Tips For Turning Feedback From Customers Into A Marketing Strategy

Have you ever thought, when you receive feedback from your customers, how you can use customer feedback to boost your marketing strategy for business growth? There are several business owners and marketers those that view feedback as a natural part of their branding process and thereby abstain from paying attention to all the ways it can benefit their business. Now irrespective of whether it is praise or complain, feedbacks from customers are most necessary to understand your consumers, cater to their requirements, achieve your marketing goals, and more. Therefore in this article let us look into the four ways that can help your brand to turn feedbacks from customers into a marketing strategy that will help you to increase your businesses’ bottom-line.

Have you ever thought, when you receive feedback from your customers, how you can use customer feedback to boost your marketing strategy for business growth?

There are several business owners and marketers those that view feedback as a natural part of their branding process and thereby abstain from paying attention to all the ways it can benefit their business.

92% of small business owners in the U.S think that having a website is the most effective digital marketing strategy. Click To Tweet

Now irrespective of whether it is praise or complain, feedbacks from customers are most necessary to understand your consumers, cater to their requirements, achieve your marketing goals, and more.

Therefore in this article let us look into the four ways that can help your brand to turn feedbacks from customers into a marketing strategy that will help you to increase your businesses’ bottom-line:

  1. Create a Customer Loyalty Program

Do you know it is 5 to 25 times more costly to acquire new customers than to retain your existing ones?

This is because moving leads through the sales funnel takes money, time and resources. But for your existing customers, they are already familiar with your brand and its offerings.

Your present customers already know what they require from your brand and it shows that they like your brand since they keep coming back for more.

Hence, if you continue providing deals and opportunities to your existing customers for their loyalty, it is natural that your present customers will continue buying from your company.

This is the reason as to why customer loyalty programs for any brand are so effective as they cater specifically to the existing customers who have already spent on your business, and are so likely to spend even more since they are familiar with your company and its offerings which adds value to your brand by catering to those high-spending customers.

Therefore, if you want to generate more sales and also keep your recurring buyers happy, create a loyalty program that caters to your high-spending customer since a little appreciation goes a long way in keeping both you and your customers smiling and satisfied in the long haul.

  1. Improve Customer Support

You must have observed that all your consumers have a unique and preferred method for getting in touch with your brand like live chat, phone, social media, emails and more. Hence, it most necessary that the support teams for your brand must pay equal attention to all these channels of communication so that they are capable of providing solutions to all.

Now, the steps that you need to take for improving your customer support activities to a lot extent depend on the feedback that you receive from your customers, which varies across businesses.

Therefore, buy CRM and gather all your customer’s opinions about your brand in a centralized repository like a CRM database to find a bigger picture, which will help you to clearly see what is working and what needs to be modified with respect to the feedbacks that you receive from your customers.

Thank the customer for taking the time to reach you out

Hence it is important as-well-as necessary that you must respond to customer feedback when it comes in so that customers can understand that you are hearing to them and your company is working for providing them a solution.

Using a customer feedback forms is the proper way to ask the right questions to the consumers of your offerings and receive the answers you are looking for.

Now, while replying to a customer’s comments and inquiries you must:

  • Have a well-thought-of strategy in place
  • Do not wait more than 24 hours and respond quickly
  • Offer the right solutions
  • Thank the customers for reaching you out with their comments and issues
  1. Refine Buyer Personas

When customers tell you what they require or what exactly they are looking for, remember that your customers are providing your brand with their valuable insights into how you can improve your business to fulfill their needs.

Hence, leverage this valuable information to refine your buyer personas in your easy to use CRM and thereafter create customer profiles that better reflect the ideal customers for your business.

This is because; if you cannot offer your consumers anything of value (contents, products or services) since you do not know your customers then you will never be able to move your leads and prospects through the sales conversion funnel, generate new leads, or produce an adequate sale for rapid business growth.

Now, buyer personas are most crucial for all modern marketers to gain insights into what their customers want since the more information they have about the customers the more streamlined their marketing strategies will be for boosting sales and revenue.

Additionally, if your brand is incapable of meeting the customer’s needs, and there is a gap in your buyer’s personas that is blocking from delivering to them what they want, your sale will decline steadily resulting in loss of revenue and business growth.

For this, you need to take into account every piece of data from your business growth technology solutions and tools and compile them together to look into the bigger picture in order to find out where your business needs improvements.

For example, if a customer complains that the check out process is complicated in your website and you also notice a progressive lull in your sale, then this feedback is a direct route for solving the problem.

Hence, take into account anything that your customers tell you that are not working with your brand and apply a new marketing strategy (especially if it a recurring issue) and address it right away.

  1. Upgrade Blog Content

Finally, if your website’s Google analytics indicates a lesser volume of traffic to your blog posts or your blog contents are receiving negative comments, revamp your content marketing strategies so that your blogs might serve your consumers in a better way.

Now, as we discussed even before, if you already have your buyer personas outlined, then selecting the ideal contents that will suit your audience’s needs is not at all as difficult as it seems to be.

Knowing your customer’s pain points, interests and inquiries in advance will make it easier for you to create content that can provide genuine solutions and therefore keep your readers engaged.

Using feedback from your consumers you can also create new content for your business website or include whitepapers, checklists and case studies or for that matter anything that brings your audience value to improve lead generation, sales and grow the email list once you buy CRM for your business.

Conclusion

If you want to expand your business, then listen to your customers. Every little piece of customer feedbacks does count because it helps to improve your present business strategies so that your brand can continue getting better and receive more positive results.

Therefore, if you want to expand your business, then it is most important that you must listen to your customers, since every feedback matters as it can help you to improve your current business strategies, recreate your sales cadence , generate sales ready leads, to find better positive results, for boosting business growth.

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How To Use Easy To Use CRM To Improve SEO Of Your Business Website

Customers are the epicenter of every brand and businesses’ growth; their plans, strategies, blogs, services, and many other factors are all dependent upon their user-base, and the best means to feed the master plan for retaining customers, decrease churn and establish a robust bond between the brand and its customers is through a business growth technology like an easy to use CRM. However, conversion and retention of customers are not the only verticals in which easy to use CRM can help your company. Since this business growth technology can as well used for boosting your business website’s SEO. This is the reason we have mentioned in this article five simple yet effective ways you can use CRM software to boost your site’s SEO, but for this let us first understand what is CRM.

Customers are the epicenter of every brand and businesses’ growth; their plans, strategies, blogs, services, and many other factors are all dependent upon their user-base, and the best means to feed the master plan for retaining customers, decrease churn and establish a robust bond between the brand and its customers is through a business growth technology like an easy to use CRM.

However, conversion and retention of customers are not the only verticals in which easy to use CRM can help your company. Since this business growth technology can as well used for boosting your business website’s SEO.

In 2008, only 12% of businesses used cloud-based CRM – This figure has now increased to 87%! Click To Tweet

This is the reason we have mentioned in this article five simple yet effective ways you can use CRM software to boost your site’s SEO, but for this let us first understand what is CRM .

What is CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software?

CRM or Customer Relationship Management is an extremely powerful and robust business growth technology and tool (like Salesforce or any other Salesforce Alternative CRM mostly used by SMBs), that aids in generating and nurturing leads, retain customers by building a strong relationship between brands and the consumers of their offerings.

Now, the benefits of cultivating a strong relationship with a CRM with your user-base can be viewed in a brand’s growth as once you buy CRM this software helps marketing and sales teams to develop strategies on how they can pursue potential leads and customers and acquire more leads for steady growth of their businesses.

However, with this plethora of customer-facing data and info that can be accessed from the CRM data which can provide shape to a brand’s marketing strategies, even include SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Hence, now that we have a clear knowledge about what is CRM let us head straight to discuss the means which can help a business to improve its website’s SEO through the use of CRM for business growth.

  • Definite Keyword Research and Optimization

When we talk about SEO, the first thing that comes into our mind is keywords. In fact, almost all articles and blog posts are optimized with high search volume and relevant keywords to outgrow the competition.

This is because; if you rank number one in the first SERP for a high search volume keyword, it implies that the keyword will draw more click which in turn will increase the traffic volume on your website. Hence, whatever be your SEO strategy (on-page, off-page, or technical SEO) researching for the relevant keywords and thereafter using them to optimize your content with those keywords is the fundamental task of any SEO planning for any website.

There are many tools that you can use to do free keyword research; nevertheless, the keywords provided by them are based on the searches done on the ‘entire’ internet.

Therefore, if you want to target your audience, and optimize your content on the targeted audience, you need to narrow it down to just your customers, and what can be a better way to do so than with easy to use CRM software?

Once you buy CRM, it is a powerful business growth technology that keeps a record of the conversations that you have with your leads, prospects, and customers.

Now, if you pay attention and examine the words that your prospects and customers have used and list all of them together, you can perform research on these keywords individually and thereby extend your database, after which you can move on to create helpful content that can aid your customers.

  • Creating Useful Content for the Customers

As mentioned before, CRM is a software that keeps a record of all the interactions and conversations that you have with your prospects and customers.
Therefore, it is advised that you must closely examine those conversations on a day-to-day basis since it can provide you with not only the relevant keywords but also generate practical content ideas that will be of use to the consumers of your offerings.

Now as you must be wondering how, here is how it can be done.

When you inspect the interactions with your customers stored in the CRM database , you will surely find an idea about what issues your consumers mostly face, which will, in turn, make you understand the questions they have and also the type of solution that they need to overcome their issues.

Therefore, knowing exactly what your consumers want with the help of a CRM will make it even easier for you to create content that will be of use to the consumers of your offerings.

You can target keywords that are query-based and provide solutions desired by your customers next to it and since search engines are constantly focused on providing the users with accurate solutions to these queries, once you write contents based on these questions the search engines will naturally rank your contents higher in the SERPs.

  • Empower Your Social Media and Improve Online Visibility

Do you know that your search engine results can be even influenced through social signals?
Well, even though it is not considered to be an official Google ranking factor, nevertheless, social signals do aid in improving a website’s online visibility (indirectly).

There are millions of peoples across the globe that actively use social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others to share their personal life and interacts with brands.

Hence, once you are using a CRM with social listening capabilities that are popularly known as “social CRM” platforms you can leverage the huge amount of data provided by your CRM database to drive in more social signals.
For this primarily you need to start following your prospects and customers on social media and begin interacting with them by replying to their comments and helping them solve their problems through social media handles for popularizing your brand along with sharing your recently published content pieces to drive in more traffic.

  • Lock Down More Guest Blogging Opportunities

Guest blogging is one of the most effective, popular and influential ways for building quality links that in turn helps in improving your website’s SEO.

Now, once you buy CRM you can use the software’s data to search for websites that permit guest writers and reach out to them or find those that might be guest authors for your brands’ or company’s’ blog (if your website is open for guest posting) and thereafter approach other sites for cross-promotional activities.

  • Develop A Positive Online Reputation

Easy to use CRM is all about building a world-class reputation of your brand with your customers, whereby it not only helps in retaining the old but also aids in gaining new ones.

Therefore you can use the data in this excellent business growth technology and tool to develop credibility, brand advocates and thereby build a positive online reputation for your company.

You can use your easy to use CRM to track down and approach brand advocates with the idea of making them post reviews about your products and services on Yelp, Google and other online review platforms, as positive online reviews make search engines and people trust your brand.

Additionally, as user-generated content are invaluable to search engines and reviews is just another kind of UGC (User Generated Contents) it helps to improve your online reputation as you get more and more positive reviews about your offerings.

Conclusion

So what are you waiting for?

Buy CRM and find actionable data on your leads and customers which you can utilize to embark on a journey for growing your business and at the same time improve your website’s SEO using this business growth technology for increasing your company’s bottom line.

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Sales Cadence: Why Your Sales Team Needs A Prospecting Methodology For Business Growth

Thoughtful planning is everything in sales. Hence, irrespective of whether you are writing a sales proposal, creating a sales process, or setting up a follow-up strategy, you are required to have a well-thought-out planning to get the desired result that you want. You need to create a plan that should get leads flowing smoothly through your sales pipeline and even get them engaged with your brand. However, as one of the award-winning vendors of small business CRM software solutions, we have found that most businesses do not have any follow-up plan which in other words going by the books is known as “sales cadence” for a brand or company. This is because, in most businesses the sales reps sometimes follow-up on their leads and prospects for once (probably even twice) and thereafter when they do not find a response, they move to the next prospect in their calling list.

Thoughtful planning is everything in sales.
Hence, irrespective of whether you are writing a sales proposal, creating a sales process, or setting up a follow-up strategy, you are required to have a well-thought-out planning to get the desired result that you want.
You need to create a plan that should get leads flowing smoothly through your sales pipeline and even get them engaged with your brand.
However, as one of the award-winning vendors of small business CRM software solutions, we have found that most businesses do not have any follow-up plan which in other words going by the books is known as “sales cadence” for a brand or company.

20% want to talk during the decision stage, once they're decided which product to buy. Click To Tweet

This is because, in most businesses the sales reps sometimes follow-up on their leads and prospects for once (probably even twice) and thereafter when they do not find a response, they move to the next prospect in their calling list.

Now, this inconsistency in the follow-up strategies of the sales reps not only slows down the sales process but it also makes way for opportunities to slip or fall through the crack.

In reality, prospective customers always need to hear from the sales reps on an average at least seven times before they decide on making a purchase.
Therefore, if your sales reps have given their prospects a call or have sent their prospects an email which the prospects have not responded, it does not actually mean that the prospects are disinterested in buying your offerings.

It is not strange to hear in this era of stellar growth in digitalization that probably every one of us receives hundreds of cold emails every day and so important emails can easily get buried deep inside the mailbox.
It can also be that perhaps your prospects have read your email but did not find adequate time and opportunity to respond to your calls.

Hence, you can never know the real reasons for your prospect’s silence unless you follow-up with them.

Therefore as it is has been found in different studies done on sales cadence that even if the first email sent to a prospect does not get any response, the second email has 21 percent chances to be read, the golden key to finding a response from your prospective customers is to conduct regular follow-ups with the right sales cadence or a prospecting methodology so that it can result in a sale.

WHAT IS SALES CADENCE?

To reiterate what we said even before, a sales cadence in any business is a sequence of follow-up touch-points with a prospect that helps in establishing a connection for ushering an engagement or hastening a sale.

Hence, sales cadence is typically a schedule that needs to be created for the sales reps to follow-up with each of their prospects via telephone, social media channels, or over emails.

Therefore, sales cadence is a process and a workflow that begins at the first contact and thereafter continues to evolve through a sequence of interactions until the prospective customer is either converted into a sales opportunity or they exits the sales cadence workflow and goes back to the nurturing bucket.

WHY DO YOU REQUIRE A SALES CADENCE?

The complete idea of using a sales cadence is to diversify your sales reps’ outreach by getting in touch with more than one prospect across multiple channels that are used by your business.
This is because, while certain prospective customers might seem more receptive to phone calls, others might prefer communicating through social media or emails.

Hence, in modern times it is extremely important for your sales cadence to incorporate several channels of communication to get connected with the prospects as executing a sales cadence for your sales teams not only helps your organization but also your sales reps.

– How a sales cadence can help the sales reps?

  1. Once you buy CRM for your organization, it is a lead management software that can help in creating a follow-up sequence of emails and calls for every prospect that is stored in the CRM database, which creates a structured framework that completely eliminates guesswork and therefore aids in maintain consistency between every interactions with the prospective customers of your brand.
  2. Hence using sales cadence reps can close more deals in less time by following up with their prospects on a regular basis, ensuring that their leads are moving as anticipated across the different stages in their sales funnels.

– How sales cadence aid businesses?

  1. Prospecting using outbound marketing strategies can definitely bring your business quality leads. However, without the right follow-up strategy, your conversion rates will soon become stagnant. Hence combining a sales cadence along with the right outbound sales tactics can increase conversion rates and help your business to gain its sales momentum in the marketplace.
  2. A sales cadence is created in businesses so that every sales rep abides by the same process. Since adhering to a consistent sales cadence that works for your business is one of the most fundamental keys for predicting accurate numbers that can be generated with the help of your sales process.

HOW TO BUILD A SALES CADENCE?

Building a sales cadence is never a one-time process. This is because, sales cadences differ based on the target market’s demography, personas, offerings that you want to sell, and more.
Rather it can be said that building a sales cadence involves a trial and error approach until the time you find the right cadence that works best for your business.

Nevertheless, the basic terra-firma of any sales cadence remains the same – a timeline of how and when you should contact your prospects.

Sales Cadence

Hence, here are 7 points that all sales reps should follow while designing their sales cadences:

  1. Know your target audience

Do research to understand your prospective customers, what their unique pain points are, which platforms they are most active on, and how your offerings will provide a solution to their problems.

  1. The medium of communication

To reach out to your prospects a good sales cadence must include phone calls, emails, social media channels, text messages and more.
Hence, make a quick list of the channels where your prospective customers are most likely to remain active.

For example, if your prospect is more responsive to Facebook Messenger than emails or phone calls, use that to your advantage by including it into your cadence list.

  1. The number of contact attempts

As we have suggested even before, you in most cases need to contact your prospects at least seven times to get their attention, and so an ideal sales cadence should have anywhere in-between 7-14 touch-points for conversion and sale.

  1. The interval of the touch-points

If you do not want to get on your prospect’s nerves, never touch base with a prospect more than thrice in a day, since less is more in this case, unless you want to lose your deal.

Moreover, make sure that you space your cadence in such a way that you give a day or two before contacting your prospects once again.

  1. The duration of the cadence

The effective length of a sales cadence begins from the first touch-point when your sales rep receives a prospective customer and remains until the sale is concluded, which according to researches done should be about two to four weeks.

Nevertheless, this, of course, depends on the prospect’s nature of engagement with your phone calls, social media messages, and emails.

  1. Target segmentation

One of the best approaches to build your sales cadence is to first categorize your list into tire accounts. These tires can be numbered – one, two, and three.
You can do this segmentation of your prospects by categorizing them by their company size, industry, personas, regions and others.

For example, while enterprise establishments who are your prospective customers can fall in tire one, mid-market, and small and medium businesses can fall in tire two and three respectively.

Identically, you can categorize your prospects based on their professional hierarchy whereby decision-makers can be included in tire one, mid-level managers and lower managers can fall in tire two, and three respectively.

Now, once you have segmented your prospects in your lead management software into tires, you can easily design a cadence for each of these tires based on how you must approach them, the number of touch-points they need, the duration and respective channels needed to perform these cadences.

  1. The content is king

Finally, the chances of your prospects getting back to your reps and your brand primarily depend on the quality and uniqueness of your content.

Hence to catch the attention of your prospects, your content must be informative as well as intriguing, since even if you have an awardable sales cadence but a poor content, your cadence strategy will never take off the ground.

EXAMPLE OF A GOOD SALES CADENCE FOR B2B SALES

As we have stated even earlier that sales cadences can vary according to the personas you are reaching out, the size of the company, the target industry, and many more variables.

Nevertheless, here is an example of an ideal sales cadence which can help you to approach a company’s top-level executives:

Day 1

Send a personalized email

To do this start by finding out more about your prospective customer using social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Thereafter understand your prospect’s business and find out how you can benefit them by selling your offerings.

After this research has been done, send a personalized email using the data gathered about your prospect, accompanied by a connection request on LinkedIn.

  • In this email you can congratulate your prospect on their recent achievements, elaborate a little so that the prospect understands that are well-aware of their industry and end the email as to how your solution can help boost their businesses’ productivity.

Day 3

Send an email pitching your offerings

To do this empathize on your prospective customer’s pain-points, elaborate on specific business use cases and express your thoughts as to how your brand helped them to overcome these dark areas of problems.

  • In this email, explain why you are reaching out to your prospect, their pain points and the solution that you can provide to alleviate their issues. You can also talk about any of your prospect’s competitors and how your business has helped them on similar lines.
    In the end, ask your prospect- what is the best way to get 15 min of their precious time?

Day 6

Send the first follow-up email

This is your first follow-up email; therefore keep it short, simple and crisp. Remember the goal of this email is to find a simple “Yes” or “No” from your prospect.

  • In this email, you can say that you just wanted to follow-up and see if your prospect has received your previous emails. Ask your prospect if they will allow a short phone call or an email exchange and thereafter decide if they would like to take the discussion further for knowing more about your offerings.

Day 8

Make a phone call (leave a voicemail and an email if unanswered)

In this step in your sales cadence make the first call to your prospect (preferably during the evening) and if it goes unanswered leave a voice mail with your name, company’s name and phone number, requesting the prospect to call back at their convenience.

You can also drop an email to your prospect saying you tried to call them and have left a voice mail in their absence.

Day 11

Send the second follow-up email

This email should essentially talk about the features of your offerings that are in relevance to your prospect’s pain points.

Day 13

Send the third follow-up email

In this email, you can send more success stories and case studies of how your offerings have helped others in uprooting problems associated with their businesses.

Day 16

Breakup email

This must essentially be the last email in your communication chain, in which you should for the one last time highlight the challenges faced by your prospect and remind them how your solution can help them to overcome their pain points.

Always remember to end this final breakup email in a positive note, so that you can leave an open door for future potential collaborations and opportunities.

SALES CADENCE- BEST PRACTICES

  • The best time to make cold calls is from 1000 Hrs till 1230 Hrs and thereafter from 1400 Hrs till 1600 Hrs.
  • The worst time to make cold calls is from 0800 Hrs till 1000 Hrs.
  • The worst time to call is the best time to send emails to your prospects.
  • During cold calls talk less about yourself and try to learn more about your prospects.
  • Never make use of more than three touch-points in a day. For example, if your prospect does not pick up the phone, leave a voice message and an email, but make sure that you do not exceed three touch-points on the same day.
  • When you receive “No” from prospects try to understand the reason for the rejection which will help you to identify patterns and improve on your offerings.

HOW TO MEASURE AND TRACK THE RESULTS?

Manually following up with your leads and prospects can be really challenging, especially when you are dealing with a very high volume of leads.

Therefore, buy CRM and use this lead management software that can leverage technology to automate the sales cadence with Sales Force Automation (SFA) tools.

Now once you have a sales cadence to know if it is working and judge the success of your strategy here are four metrics that you need to track with the help of your easy to use CRM software:

  1. Email open and click-through rate
    This shows if your email has caught the prospect’s attention, and makes you aware when there is room to change or tweak your email outreach strategies.
  1. Email open to reply ratio
    A high email reply rate signifies that your email contents resonate with your prospect’s pain points and if it is not it means you need to rework on your email content’s verbiage.
  1. Call to appointments ratio
    Tracking this metric helps you to understand your ideal customer’s profile and lets you decide on the market and industry you should focus on (and also hold off) for selling your offerings.
  1. Bounce rate
    In a gist, this shows how clean your email list is as a high bounce rate calls for pruning the email list in your CRM database.

CONCLUSION

A sales cadence makes sure that your prospective leads do not fall through the crack and are steadily moving across the different successive stages in your sales funnel.

Therefore test the sales cadence that you build and adjust it if needed until you discover what best works for your business.

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How To Determine The Outcome Of Your Sales Process

Sales forecasting is agony for most sales managers. Since managers are expected to deliver accurate sales forecasts, although at times they lack the large volume required for statistical forecasting of their efforts. Therefore most managers rely on subjective appraisals of their sales pipelines for business growth. That means what the pipeline consists today and how that compares to their experiences with the same sales pipeline in the past.

Sales forecasting is agony for most sales managers. Since managers are expected to deliver accurate sales forecasts, although at times they lack the large volume required for statistical forecasting of their efforts.
Therefore most managers rely on subjective appraisals of their sales pipelines for business growth. That means what the pipeline consists today and how that compares to their experiences with the same sales pipeline in the past.

74% of companies utilizing CRM reported better customer relationships. Click To Tweet

Now, while this type of sales forecasting by comparisons are less scientific and more of art, nevertheless such comparisons also leverage solid insights, which include designing, monitoring and analyzing the sales processes which are the key to improving B2B sales forecasting for your brand.

Hence, validating the link between sales pipe and its results is thus an enticing challenge for most B2B organizations, whereby mathematically speaking it is like looking for the function “x” in the equation:

Sales forecasting = x*(sales pipeline)

FRAGMENTING THE SALES PIPELINE

The term “Sales Pipeline” is a feeble input for a potential equation that relates to your business growth . Hence we must fragment it into more specific parts since doing so will also increase the data availability for analysis once we are using an easy to use CRM for boosting sales and revenue for the prosperity of our businesses.

For example, viewing sales pipeline transitions (opportunities moving from one stage in the pipeline into another) instead of looking just at the pipeline outcome (closed opportunities) increased data volume collected in the CRM database breaks down the information by a factor of three.

These three-dimensional attributes are:

Attributes of the opportunities

The sales pipeline is filled with opportunities, all of which has numerous attributes that are potentially infinite which affects the outcome of any sales process, such as customer types, product lines, deal sizes and more.

Attributes of the sales process

The number of stages in the pipeline, their durations, the corresponding tasks and the number of participants involved are some of the structural attributes in the sales process that influences accurate forecasting.
For example sales pipelines with just two or three stages, and that concludes in a few weeks and involves only one decision-maker, will obviously be an easier model than more complex sales processes.

Attributes of the sales rep

Lastly, the sales rep actually running the sales process will also influence its outcome. Per say, over here we are looking for indicators that help in measuring effort and competency, which in most organizations are found in metrics that are measure by activity volume or quota attainment.

THE UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

Therefore in an ideal situation, the function “x” would include:

  • A minimum of 3 to 4 opportunity attributes
  • A maximum of 3 to 4 factors summarizing the structure of the sales process
  • A minimum of 3 to 4 proxies for salesperson attributes

We would then replace function “x” on previous sales process data, to recognize the statistically important factors and their significant coefficients, and use that calibrated function for the purpose of forecasting.

Now that is severe data crunching, which is accompanied by equally serious limitations, since:

  • This may only be possible with vast computing and consulting resources (for most sales managers which is a dream).
  • There is a trade-off between robustness and sophistication. This is because; the more sophisticated this model is the more sensitive it will be to the company’s environment and would require frequent calibrations.
  • As we also want the salespersons to understand the corresponding calculations, since just producing accurate forecasts is not enough, hence “black box” forecasts would be perceived as just another enforcement tool.

Therefore, let us resist the golden algorithmic fallacy and find out rational and practical ways to improve the accuracy of sales forecasting as suggested and can be implemented with no trouble in context of traditional easy to use CRM software.

PRACTICAL ALTERNATIVES

  1. Refine your sales process

The more ‘realistic’ is your sales process the easier it will be to determine its outcome. Over here ‘realistic’ implies measuring the dynamics (like conversion rates, time to wins, durations) that reflects the decision making process of the buyer.

  1. Explain your assumptions

It is inevitable that B2B sales forecasting include judgmental elements. Now, while your sales reps may be biased, they also possess undisputable market knowledge.
Hence, writing one-liners explaining the reason for such judgments increases the reliability of their forecasts significantly.

  1. Build detailed sales simulations

Opportunity-by-opportunity simulation is of great help, going beyond the traditional best-case and worst-case scenario and building details, especially when you have an opportunity that is so large that can make or break your forecast.

  1. Use multiple forecasting methodologies

Instead of relying on a single, more sophisticated sales forecasting methodology, for more better results it is advisable to average 3 to 4 simple forecasts to find an “enlightened judgment”.

  1. Monitor forecast errors

To forecast accurately B2B organizations are recommended to measure forecasting errors rigorously.

Since closing dates are so important in a B2B context we recommend brands to measure opportunity amount and closing dates that should provide you with useful indications on how to improve your sales forecasting accuracy and hence not only make way for fewer mistakes in the times to come leading to consistent business growth.

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How Can You Make Easy to Use CRM Implementation A Success For Your Business

Selecting an efficient CRM platform has become more difficult over the last few years, as several lead management vendors have upped their game, and has thereby made the playing field more level than ever before. Now, if you are still at a loss in understanding what is CRM software, here is your answer is a gist: What is CRM software? Customer Relationship Management or CRM means a mishmash of business strategies, software and business processes that aids in building long-standing relationships between organizations and their consumers. While healthy competition ultimately benefits the consumers, nevertheless those tasked with selecting the right and easy to use CRM solution for their organization, the selection process by signing up for free trials and by rounding up leading CRM vendors for demonstration, can take a lot longer than you really want it to be.

Selecting an efficient and easy to use CRM platform has become more difficult over the last few years, as several lead management vendors have upped their game, and has thereby made the playing field more level than ever before.
Now, if you are still at a loss in understanding what is CRM software, here is your answer is a gist:

What is CRM software?

Customer Relationship Management or CRM means a mishmash of business strategies, software and business processes that aids in building long-standing relationships between organizations and their consumers.

While healthy competition ultimately benefits the consumers, nevertheless those tasked with selecting the right and easy to use CRM solution for their organization, the selection process by signing up for free trials and by rounding up leading CRM vendors for demonstration, can take a lot longer than you really want it to be.

CRM is considered one of the most important aspects of sales right next to lead generation and lead engagement - Bowery Capital (2017) Click To Tweet

Now, as there is always a hidden cost involved to an extended selection timeline, and choosing the wrong CRM can result in substantial multi-year expenditure with little returns, here are five steps to accelerate your CRM selection process which is one of the most popular business growth technology and tools of the modern times.

  1. Interview End Users and Stakeholders

Now that you know what is CRM software, the primary thing you need for a successful CRM selection is to address the requirements of both the management and the end-users of your desired easy to use CRM platform.

Especially inputs from the would-be end users of the software solution is highly valuable while you buy CRM since when the right type of questions are asked, areas of customer dissatisfaction and operational inefficiencies will often emerge, which the management may not have even been aware of.

Moreover, when the ends users feel that they have are a part of the CRM purchasing process, they will naturally be even more willing to participate in using the software, once the solution is rolled out in your company.

  1. Assemble and Analyze Input

Once the information from the end-users and the management staff has been gathered, you need to organize and analyze the user inputs in reasonable detail.

Additionally, relevant details about the existing systems in your organization, ranging from shared spreadsheets to ERP systems (if any) and how these solutions are currently working or not, should also be a part of the analysis.

Since, the output of this step, once you are aware of what is CRM, will become an integral part of the next step.

  1. Develop a Vendor Ranking System

After prioritizing the list of all the requirements, this information should be organized in a manner that the participant of the CRM selection process can rank the CRM vendors on their abilities to meet the documented needs.

Moreover documenting the requirements of your organization also helps the CRM vendors to address the highest priority requirements first and the rest in a logical sequence of the data.

  1. Select the Easy to Use CRM Solution

After the demonstrations by the CRM vendors, now that you know what is CRM software all about, there will inevitably be follow up questions for the CRM vendors regarding specific functionalities and deliverables of their CRM software platforms.

Remember to consolidate all the participating CRM vendors’ rankings in a single document, so that they can be further scrutinized easily in case of a close call.

Additionally as a part of this step, ask for the implementation timeline from the selected CRM vendors at this stage, before you buy CRM, which will help the management of your organization to find a solid basis for their initial estimates of implementing the solution in your company.

  1. Negotiate and Procure

Once you have finalized on the chosen CRM vendor, there are additional works now, which needs to be done. For example, the chosen lead management software may have multiple editions, so the CRM vendor may allow you to mix, and match functionality licenses within your CRM edition, to tailor the solution as per your company’s needs.

It is best and it also makes financial sense to purchase a limited number of user licenses for all departments in your organization, during the roll-out and then purchase additional licenses of this business growth technology in the near future once all the departments in your organization get well adapted in using the software.

Also, check the contact duration before rolling out your easy to use CRM , which should be determined at this stage.

Takeaway

Now that you know what is CRM, as a parting note can assure you that a formal process for choosing the right CRM solution provides a lot more benefits than just buying the CRM software. Since the perspective that you will gain about your business by gathering this valuable information while you buy CRM and implement this lead management tool can be used also as inputs for planning and strategic thinking for the further growth of your business.

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Utility Of CRM Database In Your Lead Management Software Tool For Business Growth

It is not only large companies that can benefit out of easy to use CRM software, lead management solutions can also be especially important for small and mid-sized organizations. This is because maintaining a CRM database in the right way is an excellent means for keeping track of your entire customer related information and processes and so it forms the basis of any customer relationship management system.

It is not only large companies that can benefit out of easy to use CRM software, lead management solutions can also be especially important for small and mid-sized organizations.
This is because maintaining a CRM database in the right way is an excellent means for keeping track of your entire customer related information and processes and so it forms the basis of any customer relationship management system.

64.2% of businesses view CRM tools as impactful on their bottom line - LinkedIn(2018) Click To Tweet

What is a CRM database?

To tell the truth, a CRM database in a lead management system does not vary much from the common database that we have in our smart phones and desktops.
Nevertheless, the main idea of buying database management software is to store data, which can be accumulated from different sources, so that all employees and departments in your organization can access the same information from a centralized repository that reduces the time spent in digging out information and diminishes errors in their workflow.

To maintain a proper customer database after you buy CRM , the database needs to have several characteristics to make it useful and functional.

Firstly, all the information in the database should be saved correctly without any spelling mistakes.
Secondly, there should not be any duplication of data since each customer data needs to be clearly identifiable with an ID as a unique identifier created by the CRM tool.

Why is CRM database in lead management software important for businesses?

Small and midsized organizations often struggle with the large amount of data, which are generated from all types of sources. For organizations, those who do not maintain customer database using easy to use CRM software, in worse cases have to save their data on individual computing systems and hard drives.
Hence, it is not surprising, under this circumstance, communication between the sales, marketing, billing and customer support departments can be a problem when data is not consistently saved for use of all departments. Therefore having a universal storage for customer-related information and other relevant business data can solve numerous problems in your company.

Here are some of the advantages of maintaining a well-maintained customer database in a CRM system:

Data cleansing made easy: Although in an ideal scenario data cleansing is not at all necessary, but the cleansing of data becomes much more complex when every department within an organization has their own set of data.

Hence using a centralized CRM database, helps in cleansing customer data, when it may be required, that can be universally supported by all working in the organization.

Useful system integration: Communication with the leads, prospects, and customers in day-to-day business is often done using a variety of software. However, when an easy to use CRM system is integrated with other business application tools like Outlook and Gmail for emails, QuickBooks for accounts, Evernote for note taking and others, all important information of your conversations with the leads or customers can be directly saved in the centralized database of the CRM system. Hence, when any employee in your organization wants to contact the same customers, they can access the readily existing data in the CRM system, which is the most cutting-edge business growth technology that significantly reduces the possibility of data redundancy in the organization’s customer database.

Data security: Concerning security CRM database, helps in centrally storing data, which remains safe and it is easier to manage the integrity of the stored data. Moreover, the privacy of the data is also enhanced in the CRM database, as companies have to comply with privacy regulations (like GDPR) when they deal with customer data that is stored in their servers.

Conclusion

Therefore maintaining a proper CRM database in your easy to use lead management software, not only aids in boosting customer relationships, but it also improves the ability to cross sell, improve your businesses’ efficiency in providing world-class customer support, increases team collaboration, boosts staff satisfaction that in return increases profitability and revenue by saving cost leading to business growth.

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Buy CRM And Beat Your Competition With Business Growth Technology And Tools

Unless you are selling some unique product or service, your business must encounter competition. Now, separating your brand from this competition involves more than beating your rivals with a new concept or lowering price. Instead, buy CRM and let stellar customer management service push you ahead of the pack. To understand customer service priorities, Harvard Business Review recently conducted a poll on thousands of customers many of whom even use easy to use CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software and arrived at the conclusion that what clienteles wants the most is an ‘effort free’ experience.

Unless you are selling some unique product or service, your business must encounter competition.
Now, separating your brand from this competition involves more than beating your rivals with a new concept or lowering price.
Instead, buy CRM and let stellar customer management service push you ahead of the pack.
To understand customer service priorities, Harvard Business Review recently conducted a poll on thousands of customers many of whom even use easy to use CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software and arrived at the conclusion that what clienteles wants the most is an ‘effort free’ experience.

The CRM market is expected to reach over $80 billion by 2025, it’s no surprise that CRM is the fastest growing product in the software market. Click To Tweet

This is so because the more effort customers have to expend to get their requirements, the more dissatisfied customers become with the brand.
According to the findings, just promising your customer outstanding service has a surprisingly minimal impact on customer satisfaction, as customers were found to be more concerned whether their purchases would arrive on time than with other ordinary measures.

Here are 5 steps that you can follow once you buy CRM, to lower the efforts your customers make and improve your customer management skills:

  1. Empower your employees with excellent product knowledge

When all the employees in your organization can act as support, your customers will be able to get all their questions answered promptly. This will save the customers from calling up the help desk for trivial issues, which shall go a long way towards making them remain happy with your brand.

  1. Educate your employees in customer empathy

As a part of customer management strategy, train your employees that interactions with the customers can be both emotional and factual. Therefore, provide your employees with the necessary customer management and business growth technology and tools to share happy customer’s enthusiasm and reduce the tension of frustrated customers. Make your employees understand how they can make the customers feel that they are being truly listened to and not just simply heard.

  1. Build infrastructure that helps in great customer support

Build ticket-tracking facilities for the customers. You can also create self-help options on your website for your customers and implement call back facilities using easy to use CRM software instead of making your customers feel irritated with lengthy hold times.

According to researchers, customers find it more encouraging to read frequently asked questions or looking up at a tracking ticket, an activity that involves less effort, than calling up the company’s help line.

  1. Resolve customer issues at the first point of contact

Customers most often find it intensely frustrating to repeat a problem to a chain of customer service representative, so improve your support team’s first contact resolution policy by ensuring that the customer support personnel who initially handled the call takes full responsibility for the support ticket until the issue has been resolved.

Offering live support on your website is also another unique way for allowing more teamwork behind the scene, where veteran agents can teach the new hires by helping them with the answers as they chat with the customers on their problems online.

  1. Deliver your promises

Every product that works or package that arrives as intended reinforces customer’s trust in your organization. Hence, deliver your promises on time and with a smile.

Takeaway

Lastly, apologize sincerely and quickly if you cannot meet your promises for any reason, and make your apology personal.

Therefore, setting things right for your customers after you buy CRM goes a long way in restoring the experience that your clientele prefers. Something, which makes them, to select you for your customer experience management skills over your competition every time.

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Why Small Businesses Need Cloud Based Business Growth Technology And Tools

In the modern times, you just cannot debate the necessity of easy to use CRM tools for both small, medium-sized, and enterprise-level businesses. This is because Customer Relationship Management software platforms have outgrown to be a robust platform for sustaining optimal customer relationships. Therefore, most businesses have invested in world-class business growth technology platforms to enhance and maintain the efficiency of their CRM systems. In recent times, one of the major emerging trends in easy to use CRM solutions is the use of cloud based CRM software platforms. While there are a lot of debates going around as to whether an organization that has already used on-premise CRM software, should use cloud based CRM platforms, here are some of the key reasons as to why cloud based CRM is so very popular among small and medium-sized business owners across the globe.

In the modern times, you just cannot debate the necessity of easy to use CRM tools for both small, medium-sized, and enterprise-level businesses. This is because Customer Relationship Management software platforms have outgrown to be a robust platform for sustaining optimal customer relationships.
Therefore, most businesses have invested in world-class business growth technology platforms to enhance and maintain the efficiency of their CRM systems.

In 2008, only 12% of businesses used cloud-based CRM. This figure has now increased to 87% - SuperOffice (2018) Click To Tweet

In recent times, one of the major emerging trends in easy to use CRM solutions is the use of cloud based CRM software platforms.
While there are a lot of debates going around as to whether an organization that has already used on-premise CRM software, should use cloud based CRM platforms, here are some of the key reasons as to why cloud based CRM is so very popular among small and medium-sized business owners across the globe.

  1. Easy accessibility

Accessibility is the key to successful customer relationship management. This is because in the modern time sales reps need to access the CRM software wherever and whenever they want. Hence, a platform that allows sales reps to log-in and works from anywhere as long as there is an internet connection, proves to be helpful in critical situations where salespersons must have to make last minute calls to a customer. Hence, cloud based CRM software platforms allow your sales teams to close deals from remote areas and also generate new leads on the go.

  1. Scalability

Cloud based CRM software systems are also extremely flexible while considering the scalability factor of the tool. This is because when you buy CRM that are hosted in the cloud it allow companies to adjust their scope of operation, by either scaling up or down depending on the growth or fall in their businesses. While using a cloud based CRM software organizations can call up the CRM vendor, who can make the adjustments instantly to accommodate any growth or downfall in the data input capacity for the company.

  1. Flexible integrations

Another pertinent reason for small and medium businesses to buy CRM software tools that are cloud based is its ability to accommodate flexible integrations.

For most businesses using cloud based CRM to store their vital customer related information and initiatives, can integrate financial and accounting software, like QuickBooks CRM software, or emails and many other similar business growth technology and tools, that helps in establishing a seamless flow of data in both the applications needed for the growth of the organization.

  1. Allow Collaborations

Cloud based CRM software systems allow its multiple users to work inside one integrated platform without any type of interferences. For example, it permits each member of your sales, marketing, support, and accounts teams to have their own login, whereby it allows the possibility to log on multiple accounts at the same time. This feature of an easy to use cloud based system also offers enhanced security, since it prevents someone unauthorized from stealing any data from the CRM database .

  1. Centralization of information

Gathering information on the prospects, leads, and customers is often an uphill task for both small and medium-sized businesses, which can even be frustrating and time-consuming at times. With a cloud based CRM system, it is easily possible to collect all the customer information from one central location and also, share the information with different members in an organization.

  1. Increase productivity

Since with a cloud based CRM solution your team can work without being tied to an office desk, hence once you buy CRM that are cloud based it helps to increase the rate of productivity in your workplace. Additionally, cloud based CRM software not only allows your teams to track their customers and prospects from anywhere, but it also helps in collecting real-time data and initiating meaningful conversations that increase customer engagements to increase productivity across the board.

  1. Enhanced security

More so, after the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) norms, system security has become one of the most critical factors of any business. As cyber-attacks can always happen on the local systems used by on-premise CRM systems, the level of security offered once you buy CRM platforms that are cloud based are cheaper and more efficient, which reduces some major investments needed for implementing onsite security of the network running in the office.

  1. Hassle-free and quick deployment

In this age of advanced digitalization, it takes only a few minutes to lose a customer. As time is the essence of customer relationship in modern times therefore, sales reps need a business growth technology solution that can allow them to interact with their customers from anywhere, before they change their minds. Cloud based CRM software allows faster execution and deployment of commands regardless of the user’s location, which reduces unnecessary pressure on the IT teams.
In other words, cloud based easy to use CRM systems allows businesses to reduce their time-lag considerable while increasing their rate of quality services which boosts sales and customer experience.

  1. Data backup

Data backup is just another most critical function that usually consumes a lot of resources for most businesses. Given that a CRM database collects and stores a lot of confidential and important information about their leads, prospects, and customers, cloud based CRM allows companies to back up their data and retrieve it easily in case of any unforeseen breach of data, or system breakdowns.

  1. Easy installation

Last but not the least, most easy to use cloud based CRM software solutions can be installed in a matter of hours, which helps in not impeding the day-to-day workflow of small and medium-sized businesses, whereas on-premise CRM software needs few weeks and at times even months for proper adoption and deployment.

Conclusion

Given these following advantages, small businesses should not ignore the impact of a cloud based business growth technology like a cloud based CRM systems, be it Salesforce or any other Salesforce Alternative CRM mostly used by startups and small businesses since it is time that companies must overcome the use of outdated legacy customer relationship management technologies and explore effective and financially viable ways to improve their customer relationships.

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Effective Ways to Evaluate and Boost Your Customer Service in Small Business

Is your customer service team meeting their expectations for your small business? Most often than not the answer to this above-stated question is revealed only when businesses are in a negative place and your customers are not happy with your services and/or offerings. This is because it is only when your customers are unhappy, we audit our customer’s satisfaction with their service experiences and try to douse the fire before things go out of our hands. Now while held up in traffic on a busy morning, you might find yourself jammed and stuck behind a public vehicle with a bumper sticker that reads- “Hello! How is my driving?” Well, even though it is one way of showing that cars with bumper stickers stuck on them like these shows that they are ready to continuously evaluate their own performances, nevertheless asking “How are we doing” is a good step in showing that your business does care about how potential customers think about your brand and your company.

Is your customer service team meeting their expectations for your small business even after using easy to use CRM solution for customer service and business growth?

Most often than not the answer to this above-stated question is revealed only when businesses are in a negative place and your customers are not happy with your services and/or offerings.

This is because it is only when your customers are unhappy, we audit our customer’s satisfaction with their service experiences and try to douse the fire before things go out of our hands.

Now while held up in traffic on a busy morning, you might find yourself jammed and stuck behind a public vehicle with a bumper sticker that reads- “Hello! How is my driving?”

Well, even though it is one way of showing that cars with bumper stickers stuck on them like these shows that they are ready to continuously evaluate their own performances, nevertheless asking “How are we doing” is a good step in showing that your business does care about how potential customers think about your brand and your company.
This is because it takes more than just asking the public to figure out if the customer service that your company is providing is meeting the real expectations of your customers.

Globally, 54% of all consumers say that they have higher customer service expectations than they did just one year ago - Microsoft Click To Tweet

Companies (especially small businesses) have pretty comprehensible indications when their customer service is bad.

Therefore, it is only when it becomes just about impossible to keep up with a volley of negative remarks and criticisms on social media and when sales start to dwindle or they are increasingly having to offer ‘make goods’ that managers and leaders are quick to see how they can improve the way questions and complains are handled by the service teams in the organization.

However, by the time they reach that aforesaid point, it might already be too late to keep up with a valuable relationship or prevent permanent damage happening to the brand.

Hence, most successful small businesses have learned to stop and make changes wherever it is necessary based on the variety and volume of customer complains coming through.

In fact, successful businesses take a hard look in the rear-viewing mirror before continuing on their customer support journey, to ensure that they have not missed any important markers on their way.

Therefore for ascertaining if the service provided to your customers is good enough can involve a mixture of subjective indicators and formal methods, out of which below are five to consider for your business growth:

  1. Find Out What Is Good Enough

There are several anecdotal indicators of customer service metrics to choose from, and there are also a lot more of it what is common across your industry.

Irrespective of whether you are using Salesforce or any other Salesforce Alternative CRM software these data can be readily captured as they directly impact your business growth.

Some of the most popular metrics found in easy to use CRM software include CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) score, NPS (Net Promoter Score), and CES (Customer Effort Score).

Although it is really hard to reach 100% in any of them, nevertheless based on Revenue per Customer, and Customer Retention and Churn rate, determine what looks good and what appears to be great for your startup or small business.

  1. Use Multiple Effective Feedback Loops

Most businesses big or small do some kind of survey to measure the quality of their customer service at one point of time or another.
This can work if your business has some sort of solid email database in the easy to use CRM, or you know of a convenient point in the customer journey where purchasers are most willing to complete your survey questionnaire.

In other cases, several small businesses and startup organizations even offer simple online forms on their websites to collect feedback of their support services, or in the modern times a ‘hashtag’ that can be used on social media for viewing their feedbacks.

Always remember presently we dwell in an omnichannel world and so according to certain research conducted it states that more than 40 percent of customers prefer not to do business with brands if they are incapable of using their preferred channel(s) for conveying their issues and feedbacks.

  1. Remain Aware Of Organic Feedback

Even if you have set up channels to get the opinions of your customers and find the right metrics for measuring your customer satisfaction scores, there will always be certain customers of your brand those that share their experiences (good as well as bad) on their own accord.

This can be a comment made by the customer to a sales rep (once they approached for selling a new product), something said in a public forum, or on stage at an industry-specific event.

Therefore remember to check and pay special attention to these customers who take time to send snail mails even in this era of digitalization and social media as to whether they have been pleased or displeased about the customer service they received from your brand.

  1. Test The Effectiveness Of Self-Service Tools

Your small business might create a solid product/service manual, or create a knowledge base and an open library of necessary documentation and other contents online to aid your customers help themselves.

However, if most of these generated contents go unused, it becomes pretty obvious on how good these resources have been marketed or developed for helping your customer’s needs.

Self-service is just another customer service channel. Irrespective of whether it is a sophisticated chatbot, or simply a community of online users where your customers can come up with answers aided by their peers, the use of self-service in customer support shows how well they trust your brand to empower them with DIY (Do It Yourself) capabilities.

As it has been seen in research that 68 percent of consumers rather use self-service channels for resolving simple questions, and so if your self-service is not good enough, it will not only going to annoy your customers but it will also put more burden on your customer support teams.

  1. Ensure That You Are Capturing Referrals

If your small business is working in a B2B landscape, customer testimonials and case studies are valuable business development resources.

Hence check the measurements in your easy to use small business CRM software , to find a quick look at the number of times, your support reps have asked for testimonials and case studies and their acceptance rate versus rejections to gauge the quality of your customer support activities.

Now willingness of your existing customers to encourage family, friends and colleagues to use their same brand can be considered as a healthy sign of strong customer service, which can be easily captured through simple enquiries about how the new customer first heard about your offerings, or by including a question in their survey forms as to whether they would recommend your brand following the sale of your offerings.

Takeaway

Finally, you can also access cutting edge business growth technology to easily access the quality of your customer service, by using AI (Artificial Intelligence) that have also been integrated with service tools, which helps organizations to be more proactive to provide the customers what they need in advance, by analyzing current trends which ultimately leads to revenue growth.

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Buy CRM- Since A Successful Business Comes From Building A Successful CRM Strategy

Customers are very important when we think of any business; nevertheless, most businesses do not have a proper plan and clear strategy to capitalize on existing and prospective customers. This is where comes the role of CRM software which ensures you provide the best possible service, keeps automated business practices in place, ensure customers never face billing-related problem keeping both reminders and bills on time. Hence a complete five-star service is what Salesforce or any other Salesforce Alternative CRM brings for your business. The major benefits that your business can get from business growth technology like CRM software include.

Customers are very important when we think of any business; nevertheless, most businesses do not have a proper plan and clear strategy to capitalize on existing and prospective customers.
This is where comes the role of CRM software, since once you buy CRM it ensures that you provide the best possible service, keeps automated business practices in place, ensure customers never face billing-related problem keeping both reminders and bills on time.
Hence a complete five-star service is what Salesforce or any other Salesforce Alternative CRM brings for your business.

Each year, 70% of businesses state they plan to increase spending on bsuiness growth technology. The figure remains the same in 2019 - SuperOffice Click To Tweet

The major benefits that your business can get from business growth technology like CRM software include:

  1. Understand customers better with enhanced and increased knowledge

When you have more and better information about your customer you are better placed to take a decision on what service you can deliver delivered irrespective of whether it is selling an offering or communicating something to your customers.

  1. Improve process to find a better return on investment

Once you buy CRM and set up your business processes aided by an easy to use CRM the main improvement that you can see is more conversion of the leads, better interaction with customers leading to a more satisfied and happy customer base.

  1. Better coordination between sales and marketing teams

The functions of the marketing team lead to better sales output. The major gap between sales and marketing teams has always been a lack of a dedicated channel of communication. Easy to use CRM is a business growth technology that bridges the gap and creates connections that result in a more cohesive operation between the employees in your company.

  1. Create a world-class customer experience

As a vendor of award-winning small business CRM software, working with several businesses we have learned how to bring better customer experience and how it can change the ways most people do business in their company. CRM software builds standard processes that help not only the in-house employees in business but also networking partners and external agencies associated with the company.

  1. Empower customer service team

It has been a worry of most customer service desk of not able to provide support because of the lack of a unified and answerable system operating for all departments within the company. CRM is a business growth technology that makes every department within the organization liable to deliver its job on time and builds a better and coordinated system to help customer service teams to provide world-class services to the consumers of their brand’s offerings.

  1. Plan the ways marketing budget is spent and improving on the existing ways

Want to check how your email marketing working or how the sales team converting the prospective leads? Want to know whether leads are being followed up in time and with correct details? Buy CRM to end all your worries and get them solved overnight. Additionally when SFA (Sales Force Automation) is integrated with easy to use CRM it helps in creating a better-planned marketing campaign and thereby aid in improved business functionalities.

  1. Help in accurate decision making

Easy to use CRM empowers you to take correct decisions based on many facts and data stored in the CRM database . With the power of data, this business growth technology helps you to know the working styles of the employees and whether their service gets delivered in time, which helps the management to take on time, better and accurate decisions for consistent revenue growth.

  1. Find better and new prospects with the use of modern technology

These days easy to use CRM can be integrated with social media which helps you to stay connected with your prospects and customers. Social media listening enables CRM platforms not only to ushers a more cohesive work culture in the organization but it also increases point to point delivery of the work faster bringing more liability on each head. This is how better and improved prospect finding starts and continues for sales growth.

  1. Build long term relationships

CRM brings many important things on Sales Force Automation which your customers need like an immediate and timely response of their queries, easy availability of information, and automation of business process helping them stay with you for more by keeping them happy and satisfied over time.

Takeaway

Therefore with the clear intent to keep customers happy and to keep all other related processes well placed and automated buy CRM to keep your entire organizations focus on not only keeping customers satisfied but also reduce churn leading to increased business growth.

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