Year: 2022

What’s The Difference Between Lead, Prospect And Sales Opportunity

Most people think that “sales lead,” “prospect,” and “opportunity” are the same thing and are used interchangeably. But, in reality, they are different and used for different scenarios in the sales cycle. While all are interlinked in some ways or the other, their distinct characteristics cannot be ignored any further.

This post primarily addresses the fundamental differences between these terms and how they are interconnected. We can discuss the best strategies and practices to convert a lead into a prospect, and a prospect into an opportunity. Also, there are stages and characteristics of an opportunity, which creates the backbone of the sales’ cycle of a brand.

What Are Sales Leads

Sales leads sit at the top of the sales funnel, but they are not qualified yet. Keep in mind, that the efficacy of your sales plans lies in how effectively you are converting your leads. They are the people who are in touch with your brand somehow, but the potential sales lead is aware of the service and products of your company. But that doesn’t say anything about how interested they are as a potential customer. Having a sales lead only means that you win a chance to convert that lead in the long run. In fact, lead generation is the first and crucial step in the sales process.

Who is Prospect

Right after the sales leads, comes the prospects. Prospects are the people or contacts who have been qualified to move down the sales funnel. There is a high chance that they will benefit from your services or products. For that matter, they have shown interest in the first place. A prospect is the one which goes into your sales pipeline and is seen as someone who gives an enthusiastic response to your lead nurturing process and is most likely to buy from you.

What Is a Sales Opportunity

When a qualified prospect has a high chance of becoming a customer (paying), he or she is considered a sales opportunity. That’s where you need to apply your marketing moves. Your product or service must address a clear pain point of the prospect, for which he must be interested in the offer. It’s important to understand your sales opportunity to the core. In order for the prospect to become a sales opportunity, sales representatives must clarify why it is a wonderful offer for the prospect. A prospect must feel confident about your offer and see the deal as good enough to close.

Why Difference In Leads, Prospects And Opportunities Is Important

For a business to thrive and the sales team to close regular new sales, it is important to know the difference between the terms. After all, you will encounter a variety of potential customers, but not all of them will be converted as you plan. Some will be in the sales leads stage for years and no matter what you do will not convert. They are often called dead leads when they completely stop giving results.

Difference between lead and prospect

With a sales lead, you are still unsure whether he or she will become a potential customer. On the contrary, prospects are always your probable customers. These prospects are even more important than leads in the sales funnel.

Let’s find out what goes into turning a lead into a prospect.

Turning leads into prospects

For the conversion of a lead into a prospect, the former has to walk through the company’s sales qualification process. As the leads go through the process, you will be able to assess whether your company’s product or service is the right fit for your potential customer. There are three stages to the lead qualification process, through which your potential leads become prospects:

Stage 1: Organization-Level Qualification
Does your lead meet the criteria of the company’s buyer persona or the ideal customer profile? If yours is a B2B company, you have to see whether the complete organization of the lead matches all the key elements that you want to work with. That is industry, company size, and location. If any of the key elements is missing, your lead does not match he buyer persona of your brand. In that case, the lead will be considered disqualified or low quality lead.

Stage 2: Opportunity-Level Qualification
Even though a lead clears your organization-level qualification, they have to pass the opportunity level. You have to decide whether the prospect can actually utilize the company’s offering. Will the offer, service, or product truly benefit them? If you get a yes and it feels like this lead is the right match, you can proceed to the next stage.

Stakeholder-Level Qualification

As the lead reaches the stakeholder level of qualification, you know it is no longer a lead but a potential prospect. The prospect has a genuine interest in your product or service and needs it. This is the final stage where the contact makes the final purchasing decision.

A lead is qualified as a prospect after completing the qualification process.

Difference between lead and opportunity

Unlike lead, the opportunity is a qualified prospect with a great chance of closing. Turning a lead into a prospect and further into an opportunity involves a lot of nurturing.

Stages Of Sales Opportunity

Prospecting
Prospecting, or qualifying, is a crucial stage of a sales opportunity. You won’t be able to go further without identifying an opportunity that exists. Also, you must ensure that there’s a greater possibility of having it.

The main goal of the prospecting stage is to decide whether the potential opportunity is worthy of your time, effort, and resources. Are you making the right call about it? Is there a real opportunity or not? If there’s an opportunity, study consumer behavior, and evaluate it honestly. You must know whether you can win it and whether it is worth winning. Finally, if the opportunity is a great fit for your company, you can proceed with it.

Not all opportunities will be clear-cut and easy to assess; some may demand your time and evaluation. Some customers may not have any budget in mind yet, and others may be thinking of making the purchase in the far future. So, if you do not have a potential deal yet, you have to keep track of long-term opportunities. Do not forget or neglect customers who require help or extra time.

Now, you don’t want to commit to deals that don’t suit your offer or are not promising at all. It’s okay that many opportunities will fall out of the pipeline at this stage.

Discovery
After identifying a good sales opportunity, it’s time to find out the specific situation of the client. A good sales representative will try to address the pain points of the customer. Accordingly, they can provide a fitting solution to the customer.

You have probably already received general information about these opportunities from the first stage. But in the discovery stage, it’s time to pin down the specifics of these opportunities. What is the budget of each potential customer? What are their timelines? Can you offer them the specifications they need? You may find out at this point that some of these opportunities are not right for your company, and you can remove them from the pipeline.

Proposal Made
Are you getting all the metaphorical green lights and a fantastic sales opportunity? Then you must make a proposal or offer. Your offer can come to the prospect as a formal quote or a variety of pricing options. In proposal mode, it is important for customers to get all the information they need to make decisions about the purchase.

Closing
Closing is the final stage of the deal’s negotiations. This is the stage where you want to have a signed contract with the prospect, along with logistical details prepared and agreed upon in your contract template. The logistic details contain manufacturing or delivery plans.

Closing Lost
You have to understand that at any point in these stages, some deals may be abandoned or lost. It’s time for an assessment of why the deal did not work out. After that, you can take action to improve the process for the next customer. If the opportunity went to a different company, then it is investigation time. You must find out why your competing company got the deal and how you can do better in the future.

Sometimes the budget or timeline shifts for a potential customer, and they can not commit at that moment. Stay in touch with these customers to find out if any opportunities come up in the future.

Closing Won
Without a doubt, winning a deal is the best outcome. But, it does not end here. After winning a deal, you must follow up with the customer on a regular basis. This is called “nurturing,” which ends up giving you a satisfied customer base.

Conclusion

Now you can keep track of all the leads, prospects, and approved sales opportunities with the help of ConvergeHub. This CRM is designed to build an ideal sales pipeline for your company, aiming you toward success.

Alternatives to Merchant Cash Advances: Non-MCA Funding Options

As we all know, businesses can’t run for a long term without the presence of sufficient cash flow. Sufficient cash flow is one of the key elements to a fully-functioning business that runs smoothly. Without the working capital and sufficient cash flow, you will be putting your business at the mercy of not being able to pay bills.

For various companies looking for working capital, one of the prominent sources of funding is merchant cash advances. Banks and conventional lenders have been shying away from lending money to small businesses- for over a decade or so. As the gap appeared a new type of alternative lenders stepped in to fill in the void of funding small businesses and more.

Unlike conventional lenders, MCA lenders can give a green flag to small businesses for funds- within a few days. However, fast funding comes at a great price. The merchant cash advances offer to finance a business in exchange for higher rates than other business funding services. Besides the high rates, the MCA company can charge substantial fees and serve only for short period. With additional costs and the short term, it is stressful for any company’s financial health. That’s the reason, experts always recommend trying alternatives to merchant cash advances first. From this perspective, merchant cash advances are more like the last resort for financing a business if other areas fail.

What Is Merchant Cash Advance?

Merchant cash advance or business cash advance is ideally a sale of another company’s succeeding receivables at a discount to a funding company (mostly small business). We can’t consider merchant cash advances as loans- because it is not. There’s an involvement of the company’s future receivables, for which we can technically call this a B2B transaction.

There’s a stark difference between the approval of a cash advance and its underwriting process with traditional lenders. Cash advance companies run only a basic credit check and monitor bank statements for a few months before arriving at a decision. If there are no discrepancies they will immediately approve and provide financial aid to the business. After the offer is settled with the business, the cash advance company sends a contract (also some additional stipulations) to seal the deal. Following that, the signed contract and the stipulated documents go to the funding MCA company. As the company receives the signed contract, they deposit the funds to the business account and commence the repayment process from the next business day.

Pros of MCA

Fast Funding
When the approval process of obtaining a merchant cash advance completes within a few hours, why won’t you choose MCA over other financing possibilities? After the approval process, it takes hardly a day or two for funds to be deposited into the company’s account.

Bad Credit OK
With bad credit history, you are not likely to get business funding. But a merchant cash advance funder won’t budge even with poor credit history. The best thing is merchant cash advance lenders are ready to finance the business owners with a credit score- as low as 500. Even if the business owners have business or personal tax liens, the MCA lenders still provide finance for the business.

Access to Additional Funds
After receiving a cash advance, if a small business can repay a portion of the sum- the funding company will give access to additional funds for the business. Most of the MCA lenders provide additional funds to merchants who have already paid back at least 50% of their advance.

Cons of MCA

High Rates
In the business financing sector, merchant cash advance demands the highest rates among other options. Unlike the loan, the merchant cash advance doesn’t get calculated using an APR. The interest rate for merchant cash advance lenders is calculated by a factor rate – a multiple of the loan including the interest rate.

The typical MCA has factor rates that can range between 1.10-1.50. For example, if the MCA is $20,000, the small business would have to pay back $20,000 x 1.10-1.50 (i.e. $22,000- $30,000).

Short Terms
Besides the high rates on cash advances, the terms are also limited for merchant cash advance financing. Especially if we compare it with a bank loan or SBA loan. You will come across many MCA lenders who advertise or claim to give terms ranging up to 2 years. But only a few MCA lenders offer 24 months (2 years) terms.

Typically, a cash advance has a term between 4-12 months. If we calculate the actual APR of the cash advance during the short term, it can get over 100%. Therefore, a short term keeps you on your toes even with good cash flow.

High Fees
The super high rates of cash advance are already bad for a business owner. Upon that, the cash advance lender may wish to charge unreasonably high fees for funding the merchant. Some cash advance lenders charge $395 as a processing fee- but others may charge a percentage (up to 10%) on the total funding amount. Making the total payback amount way higher than usual.

Stress on Cash-Flow
Even if you ignore the high rates, short terms, and high fees, there’s something else that can trigger stress with MCA. The merchant is expected to make regular payments after getting the fund. Either, they have to use the ACH payment method where the transaction happens directly from the company’s bank accounts, or the merchant has to split the merchant credit card processing sales with the MCA funding company every day. When it comes to daily payments, it can press the stress alarm on the company’s cash flow. The pressure can lead the business to obtain additional position cash advances.

6 Types Of Merchant Cash Advance Alternatives

SBA Loans
When companies are seeking long-term, low rates, and small fees to finance their businesses- SBA loans are often an ideal choice. As this conventional financing alternative offers SBA loan guarantee enhancement, conventional lenders take advantage of it.

The guarantee enhancement bestows power to the lenders- if the borrower is unable to repay the complete loan, the government can step in. The government will cover a certain amount of SBA lender’s losses.

As the rates start at 6% with up to 25 years term, nothing can beat an SBA loan as an alternative to merchant cash advance.

Bank Loans
Without any doubt- getting loans from a conventional bank is the best option to finance your small business. Most organizations understand this and choose to stick to the conventional model.

Then why not all businesses choose the best option available for them? The issue with many businesses is meeting the high standards of these conventional lenders. However, when you are ready to meet the requirements, a conventional bank loan is the ideal alternative to a merchant cash advance.

Asset Based Loans
Some companies may have issues with obtaining conventional financing and don’t want an unsecured merchant cash advance. What will they do to finance their business? Here’s the solution- if a company has substantial asset value, it can use those assets as collateral to finance the business.

As an alternative to a merchant cash advance, asset-based loans are different and reduce lenders’ risk exposure. So, the lenders are willing to lend you cash at lower rates benefiting both parties.

Private Investment Loans
If you want private investment loans, some investors or non-bank institutional lenders can come to your aid. These lenders or investors look for a return by offering debt finance to any growing small businesses. Also, they lend their money to some businesses that are burdened by substantial debt and would like to integrate all their cash advances into a single unit of financing product. Due to the longer terms for money return and affordability, private investment loans are a favorite with many businesses.

Invoice Factoring
Do you have a big number ( at least 30-90) of unpaid invoices from another business at your company? Did you know- you can get immediate cash by selling those invoices?
Also, with invoice factoring, you can get funded even within 24 hours if not less. Because of the funding speed and affordability, invoice factoring is an excellent alternative to merchant cash advances.

Equipment Leasing
During the time of emergency, you can choose to take an equipment lease, instead of taking a Merchant Cash Advance. After all, the affordability rate of the equipment lease is higher.

Here’s what happens when you choose to take the lease: the leasing company will invest in the equipment for your business. So, your business will get the equipment on a lease- for a period of time. As terms for equipment leasing are longer and you have to pay monthly- it is indeed a great alternative to merchant cash advance.

Conclusion

It is always recommended to research various financing options available in the market. Each of the business financing options comes with respective pros and cons. Depending on your scenario and requirements you can opt for one. However, you can always reach out to specialists who can help you find the right alternatives to merchant cash advances for your business funding.

CX Failures … and how to avoid them

How often have you heard about CX failures?

Do you hear about ambitious ‘Customer Centric’ initiatives that aimed to overhaul everything and put customers at the center of everything… but really achieved nothing?

Probably not.

Mainly because companies tend not to boast about them.

But they happen all the time.

Businesses decide to become ‘Customer-centric’ … they tear down their existing operational models … rush to choose the biggest CRM name in the market … spend hundreds of thousands of dollars implementing it … and then …

Nothing.

No benefits.

Neither the business nor their customers see any tangible improvements.

Such incidents are then quietly swept under the rug, and everyone goes back to business as usual.

But what is the reason behind these implementation failures?

Often it boils down to 3 main reasons:

  • It costs too much
  • It takes too long
  • It disrupts Business as Usual

So, as 2023 approaches and organizations start planning for new ways to boost Customer Engagement, especially in the current market scenario, here are a few things to keep in mind:

  1. Opt for incremental improvement of business operations
  2. Choose technology that can be implemented quickly (lower cost)
  3. Focus on what is important to the customer and will deliver the most results

Adopting this practical, implementable, and cost-effective approach instead of over-complicated strategies will help you deliver value to your customers without failed promises and major disruptions.

And that is critical for these uncertain times.

If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub can help you drive practical and cost-effective CX improvements by providing one platform that automates tasks and provides insights for marketing, sales and service departments, talk to us.

Or, if you would like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.

12 sales promotion examples to close more deals and set your sales team up for success

Sales determine the growth rate of every business. However, it’s not an overnight affair but a continuous process involving a well-thought-out marketing and promotional plan. Leveraging proper sales promotion techniques takes you closer to secured deals.

While sales promotions are primarily targeted at creating brand awareness, it further translates into a steady revenue source. Here’s how you can run effective sales promotions and script a success story for your brand.

Sales Promotion is a Strategic Move

Sales promotion is several short-term campaigns intended to spark interest and create demand for products and services. However, every promotion is unique with a particular objective and designed around the business needs at that moment. An ideal sales promotional plan triggers customers to make an instant purchase.

12 Sales Promotions Ideas or Examples

These promotional examples will inspire you no matter to which industry you belong.

1. Flash Sales or a Limited-period Price Drop Offers
Price drops are always interesting, but a time cap triggers a sense of urgency, thus nudging a buyer for an instant purchase. Ideally, it’s “moment marketing,” which helps companies reach their sales goals effectively.

Though the buying window remains short in flash sales, it can generate interest much ahead of time.

2.Competitions And Giveaways
Competitions and giveaways make an excellent way to reach out to your customers. Brands run competitions occasionally to reach out to the audience and keep them talking about their products and services. Popular brands across industries nowadays leverage social media to create a buzz around their business by running competitions and giveaways. Besides rewarding winners, such giveaways work as an effective promotional effort. Many interested participants buy or subscribe to your products and services even if they don’t win the competition.

3. Free Trial or Demo
Offering free trials is excellent if you have just launched new products or services. Free trial plans have far-reaching effects on building your brand identity. As they have no risk or commitment to purchase from you immediately, many people will be interested in getting a free trial or demo. No doubt that serves you a great way to build trust. By providing free samples, customers are encouraged to make a purchase. But B2B or B2C services can give their leads a free trial or demo of their services or products. It opens the door for potential buyers who might translate into consumers in the long run.

4. Bundle Products or Services
Can you offer your products or services in bundles? If yes, bundling your products and services can positively impact your brand-building efforts. As bundles come with multiple items, selling them as one package (that too at a discounted rate) can help increase overall sales. Also, it provides your potential customers a value for money.

How can it be beneficial for both you and your customers? Bundling products or services means taking several useful items in one package deal for your customers. This way, your customers have a better way to know about your products & services and make an informed decision.

5. Limited-time Freebies
You can be flexible on pricing for better sales promotion. You can still create a sense of urgency by offering limited-time offers. You can announce freebies (a free product or service added to the order) for a short period. It can be an existing low-budget product or service as an add-on or a free bonus feature with the main purchase. Thus the value of your less popular products will increase without affecting the intent of the primary purchase.

6. Short-term Free Shipping
According to some surveys, most consumers abandon their online shopping cart even after having multiple items in it. Studies reveal that almost 50% of cart abandonments happen due to extra shipping costs, fees, and taxes. Thus, free shipping often works as a lure for such customers. It helps boost your sales while making a lasting impact on your customer. Many such promotional campaigns nowadays have a huge success rate, with people making instant purchase decisions.

7. Buy one, get one free
It is not always “Buy one, get one free.” Sometimes the buy-and-get ratio varies, like “Buy 3 and get the fourth free,” etc. These are insanely popular promotional tactics. Such campaigns instantly make an emotional impact, thus triggering your potential customers to make the purchase without a second thought. These promotional campaigns create brand awareness on a broader level. Keep in mind that when your customer gets something more than what they intended, they are more likely to purchase extra items for their close ones. It will promote your brand, thus making way for more sales eventually.

8. Tripwire (upsell)
Tripwire is basically upselling your products. Through tripwire, you can promote a base-level product or service to your potential customers and try to create their interest in it. When your salesperson goes out and does this, they bring in potential customers to your ecosystem. Then sales reps can start nurturing them at every phase of their buying journey. Continuous nurturing helps build trust while deeply impacting an emotional plane. Through tripwire, you can make them feel interested in your product and inform them why upgrading to higher-priced offers is better.

9. Coupon or Voucher
A traditional yet relevant sales promotion strategy is giving away coupons or voucher codes. You can deliver the coupons in various ways like through push messages, social media, websites, or print materials. Vouchers or coupons are excellent ways to thank your existing customers and encourage new customers to make more purchases.

10. Recurring Sale
Recurring sales are only suitable for some businesses, so before you opt for it, check if it is relevant to your business or not. Many companies use this promotional idea to promote their brands and sale. When your business offers recurring sales, it builds anticipation amongst people. In the recurring sale strategy, people are excited and ready to spend.

11. Donate A Portion of the Purchase To a Charitable Cause
Even though many business owners are skeptical about donating a portion of a purchase to a charitable cause, it is a great strategy to make your brand popular. When your customers are going to make their purchases, they will feel good about it. Your brand image will enhance to the highest degree when you associate it with an important cause. This helps with building customer loyalty with leads that support it. A 2018 Cox Consumer Pulse report reveals that more than 70% of people said they would purchase from small businesses more if they support environmental or social causes.

12. Build Loyalty Program For Exclusive Offers
You can provide exclusive offers to your loyal customers. It will further encourage them to participate in more programs. They feel appreciated for their continuous commitment to the brand as they receive exclusive offers.

Making Your Sales Promotion Effective

You are running promotional campaigns to achieve your business goals. It’s essential to plan those campaigns in such a way so that you can make the most of them. Here are some of the best ways to do so:

Well-defined Sales Promotion Objectives
Your sales promotion requires thorough planning to reach specific objectives. Consider your various business goals, segregate achievable and non-achievable goals, and plan the campaign and budget later. It also helps in achieving your goals without spending your fortune.

Select Your Target Audience
Before creating a sales promotion campaign, you must learn about your target audience. Research a bit on your demographics. Send surveys online and offline to understand your buyers’ needs, preferences, interests, and buying behavior.

Offer Practical Value
Are your sales promotions adding value to your clients? If there’s no value added to your customers, you will fail to reach your goal and damage your brand reputation. While designing your sales promotion, you must place the highest value on customer experience. Also, you must not forget that the sales promotion aligns with your brand’s ethical values and culture.

Referral Programs
Referral programs are a great way to reward those who send businesses to you. Some reports show that most respondents trust their family and friends for recommendations before trusting advertisements. So, a referral program is a beautiful way of taking advantage of word-of-mouth conversations.

Review, test, and improve
After you run your sales promotions, you should take some time to review the results before creating another one. Of course, try scheduling your analysis at a particular time that benefits the sales cycle. After comparing one campaign with a certain objective, decide what you want to improve for the next sales promotion campaign.

Promote Sales During Common Shopping Holidays
When your sales promotion aligns with the common shopping holidays, it is a stunning way to catch the customer’s interest. During holiday times, customers are already looking for gifts. So, when you give special offers or limited-time deals, it instantly reaches the targeted segments of your consumers.

Create a Sense of Urgency or Scarcity
Sales promotions meet with huge success because your audience knows the sales won’t last long. When you highlight that the special offer will cease away soon, it creates the fear of missing out, thus triggering purchase decisions.

Conclusion

Sales promotions are designed to grab your audience’s attention and keep them engaged until they make a purchase. A well-planned campaign thus boosts sales while building a solid brand identity.

Best CRM for Startups – Know Before You Pick

Startups in various niches are growing up at every passing second. Budding entrepreneurs with fantastic ideas reign the business landscape, making way for new inventions. However, the emergence of startups has made the business landscape extremely competitive. Survival of the fittest amidst this cut-throat competition totally depends on how effectively you serve your customer relationships. Here comes the CRM- vital to managing and streamlining your customer relationships. But, with so many software products in the market, it’s easier to get baffled. Finding the best CRM for startups thus seems challenging.

The ideal software is one that automatically and accurately tracks the valuable customer insights that really matter. It simplifies daily manual tasks by automating them and tracking interactions for better understanding. There’s practically nothing other than CRM to keep your customers engaged and well-managed throughout the sales cycle.

Here’s a look at a few CRM platforms that stood the test of time and were trusted by most of the successful startups of the time: HubSpot, ConvergeHub, Salesforce, Zendesk, Salesmate, and Pipedrive. Read through the reviews about these preferred CRM software products to find the perfect one for your business.

These enterprise-grade CRMs are designed to keep a growing company’s needs in mind. Customer management is often the biggest problem that startups must deal with. They do not have enough resources to take care of the different aspects of the business process. With a CRM, they can automate most of their tasks with the highest level of accuracy. Management becomes way more hassle-free when you have a CRM.

HubSpot

Regarding CRMs, HubSpot is no less than an inspiration for many startups. This CRM is one of the most widely used products global enterprises use to automate customer interactions.

With HubSpot, companies receive many features, including sales workflow, marketing automation, and CRM analytics. It can be seamlessly integrated with other third-party customer service and marketing tools. So, it leaves space for you to share data between various apps, boosts, and supports your company’s operation.

One of the best parts of using Hubspot is that it helps us identify the right audience so that you get the opportunity to reach out to them, nurture them and eventually translate them into paying customers. It allows running inbound marketing campaigns via one platform.

HubSpot CRM Subscription: You can sign up for a demo of Hubspot CRM before you pick. So, if you want to start without investing much fortune, HubSpot can be a great choice. However, it will be chargeable when you want to scale up. It becomes difficult for many startups to afford at the initial stage.

HubSpot CRM Features:

  • Lead scoring system
  • Lead management system
  • Email campaigns and automation
  • Sales pipeline management
  • Social media integration
  • Contact relationship management
  • Collaboration tools for teams
  • Reporting and analytics dashboards

ConvergeHub

ConvergeHub steals the spot for being the most used CRM software by SMEs in 2022. For businesses of any range, this software is a perfect investment option.

This software automates all the repetitive tasks of selling. Sales reps get to focus on closing the deals with their leads. ConvergeHub arms the sales reps with complete details about the leads and customers, which they can use as per the requirements.

When you are using ConvergeHub for your startup, you can use the software to manage business sales, marketing, billing, and support. Investing in one software will solve many customer relationship management tasks all alone.

ConvergeHub CRM Subscription: Though ConvergeHub charges a nominal cost to start, it is worth the investment. It is not free from the start, but it doesn’t make you lose thousands of dollars when you want to upscale. The Starter Pack of Convergehub is exclusively designed for startups planning to scale up.

The starter pack starts at $9/month, or you can check the free trial before you choose the package according to your business requirements. You can choose yearly or quarterly billing as you deem fit.

ConvergeHub CRM Features:

  • Automated sales and marketing tasks
  • Eliminate redundant work and increase efficiency
  • Fast-track growth and accelerate your development plans
  • Fantastic customer support
  • Dynamic billing process
  • Quick setup
  • Secure, fast, and high-availability via Amazon cloud data centers

Salesforce

Salesforce is one of the most preferred software for enterprises. It is an integrated CRM software that comes with multiple customizable options. With Salesforce, you get all the essential tools for sales, marketing, and more that serve every aspect of your business.

This software can help your business to grow revenues by up to 5X, pushing the right products for marketing. With Salesforce, your sales reps can approach the right customers when it’s time. The best part is, Salesforce keeps getting every year with new features rolling out at frequent intervals.

Salesforce CRM Subscription: You can opt for a monthly or annual subscription for this. However, you can try for free for 14 days before investing. Add-ons can increase investments as well.

Salesforce CRM Features:

  • The integrated platform, AI app development
  • Ease of design and implementation at high speed with high ROI
  • Scalable and flexible CRM
  • Connect sales, marketing, services, commerce, and IT together for the best result
  • Dashboards show a visual representation of data
  • Improved messaging with automation
  • polished, trustworthy reporting
  • Proactive service
  • Simplified collaboration
  • Efficiency enhanced

Zendesk

Among the top picks of CRM software in the current scenario, Zendesk certainty is the one that deserves special mention. This integrated and well-designed software product helps startups and enterprises build conversational customer relationships and take them to the next level.

The dashboard of Zendesk is super impressive. This navigates easily, and they have a ready tutorial on each feature as you log into the software for the first time.

Zendesk CRM Subscription: Zendesk offers multiple subscription plans as you plan to scale up. Also, it offers a free trial to make your investment decision on CRM software a bit easier.

Zendesk CRM Features :

  • Long-term customer relationship
  • Customer context and AI capabilities
  • Unified view of each customer interaction
  • Builds long-term relationships
  • Automation of workflows

Salesmate

For any growing startup, Salesmate is the one to go forward with. With its powerful automation functionalities, it helps streamline sales, marketing, and customer support process simultaneously.

It is an easy-to-use CRM that enables you to create scalable processes. It offers advanced features like workflow automation, marketing automation, sales automation, live chat, web forms, analytics, and 700+ integrations.

You can automate your workflows with a 360° view of the sales pipeline and make informed decisions. With Salesmate, you can build rich customer experiences at every point with your customers. Also, the multiple communication channels help you with seamless communication.

Salesmate CRM Subscription: With Salesmate, you get 15 days of the free trial before making the purchase.

Salesmate CRM Features:

  • Web forms
  • Marketing automation
  • Sales automation
  • Sales sequences
  • Built-in calling and texting
  • Email automation
  • Contact management
  • Workflow automation
  • Sales pipeline management
  • Live chat
  • Sales reports and forecasting
  • Integration with 700+ apps
  • Shared team inbox

Pipedrive

If you are looking for incredible customer service features, Pipedrive is the software for the startup. Pipedrive integrates other marketing automation tools without interrupting the workflow.

The super-flexible CRM software is wonderful for new startups that require various marketing automation capabilities in one place. Pipedrive enables you to stay on top of things without employing highly skilled workers for mundane tasks in sales, marketing, and more.

Pipedrive enables customized data fields and workflows for distinct business processes which evolve over time. As the CRM system comes with mobile apps for both iOS and Android, you can access it from anywhere.

Pipedrive CRM Subscription: Pipedrive offers annual subscription.However, no matter which plans you choose, you can try it free for 14 days, just like most other startup CRMs.

Pipedrive CRM Features:

  • Lead Management
  • Automation of marketing and sales
  • Reporting and analytics
  • Integrated CRM for easy contact management
  • Tracks clear workflow from Lead to Closed (Lost or Won)
  • Email marketing campaigns
  • Social media marketing analytics
  • Integrating blogs and website
  • Multiple customizable sales pipelines

Conclusion

Investing in a CRM is one of the best steps that a startup can take to accelerate its growth. When you automate most of your manual and repetitive tasks, you get enough time to invest in the core jobs like consulting and business development. Moreover, with a CRM, you can nurture your customers, who can serve as your regular income stream. When your customers are the secret behind your success, investing in a CRM makes sense. Without one, the sales and marketing teams of your startup will encounter hard times meeting their targets.

So, what are you waiting for? Make the most of your customer management by investing in a feature-rich CRM Software. Read through these software features and decide what’s the best fit for your business.

Differences Between ERP and CRM

When companies look to automate their core business processes, they typically look for two main software solutions, customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP). CRM helps a company manage customer interaction, while ERP helps companies run business processes by seamlessly connecting operational, and financial systems.

Both of the software solutions serve as important data management reservoirs. But they also look after other departments, even though they are built on the exact same platform. Companies purchase both separately and integrate them within the system when needed. However, some of the products (both ERP and CRM) come with one system integrated with the other. In this case, companies need to invest in only one and get the benefits of both.

Read on to explore the key concepts of both ERP and CRM and their differences in meeting business needs.

What Is ERP?

ERP or enterprise resource planning streamlines a company’s day-to-day functions like logistics, management, and more. ERP originally evolved from MRP, or material requirements planning. It was a way for manufacturers to manage all the resources required for operating a successful business.

The software serves as a shared database for every part of an organization. It helps in maintaining stability within the main functions of a business, like order management, human resources, accounting, etc. Also, the ERP system focuses on production, distribution, and fulfillment. There are some ERP systems that offer HRMS, eCommerce, and even CRM.

What Is CRM?

CRM or customer relationship management is a business software that manages customers’ interactions with the business. At first, the features of CRM software were developed for just sales departments. That is why it was previously known as sales force automation.

Other systems were developed subsequently for managing customer service interactions, marketing, and more. With a new addition and development process, software vendors started combining all the disciplines under a single roof and named it customer relationship management.

The CRM system also touches on the areas of sales performance and sales incentive compensation. However, these systems are mostly sold separately, as they are also complex, like the CRM system.

Benefits Of ERP

  • As ERP is a single, shared database for all the financial and operational data, it is beneficial for a company. It impacts both the static monthly reporting and the ad hoc reporting requested by the leadership. The single source of both operational and financial data means that the employees can look into the reports and uncover financial insights with ease. With the integration of ERP, they do not need IT or finance teams to conduct any analysis and/or reporting.
  • Now businesses can make fast, data-backed decisions that can impact everything from new growth opportunities to creating order across the company to profitability. Thanks to the ERP system,
  • The financial department of an organization benefits from the implementation of the ERP system. In companies, the financial teams take into account all the income and expenses before tabulating the results. They have to compile the results at the end of each month or quarter as part of closing the books. Closing the result books with a basic accounting system or spreadsheets requires a lot of manual labor. It would take them to contact various different departments to obtain financial information and enter it manually into the database. But when there is a centralized ERP system, the monthly closing time is reduced.
  • With ERP systems, organizations have greater financial control as they offer a centralized system. Also, the system offers you role-based permissions. So, those who have the right designations get access to various sensitive data, reduce financial risk, and even improve audit trails.

CRM Advantages

  • Customer relationship management, or CRM, helps any business with its central repository of customer data and tracks all customer interactions.
  • When businesses have such potent data at their fingertips, they can analyze the data.
  • With the help of data analysis, businesses can make informed decisions about pursuing particular customers.
  • The CRM also gives you updates on how the sales team performs and how to provide services to customers efficiently and appropriately.

Similarities between ERP and CRM

Before we dive into the differences between ERP and CRM, we must first know about the similarities.

  • First, ERP and CRM are business software that stores and analyzes data in relational databases.
  • Both the software and the services are delivered via software as a service or a traditional on-premises model. It means that the vendor manages the software in its own data centre while customers access it via the cloud.

The Difference Between ERP and CRM

  • ERPs are all software solutions that help organizations manage their business processes. CRM is software that automates organizations’ customer communication.
  • ERP is a centralized system that streamlines each and every process. CRM has a single platform that turns leads or customers into clients.
  • If there are other terms for ERP, then it is a superset of SAP. However, CRM is like a subset of SAP.
  • Enterprise resource planning is a web-based application, whereas CRM is a web-based solution.
  • ERP systems put more focus on the organization, its growth, and reducing costs. On the other hand, CRM systems are completely focused on customer relations with the organization.
  • The ERP system supports an organization’s back office activities, while CRM looks after the front office activities of an organization.

Are you looking for ERP, CRM, or both?

Almost all growing companies, from SMBs (small and midsize businesses) to enterprises, require both ERP and CRM at some point in time. Otherwise, a single platform for ERP and CRM is required. Companies that run their financial equations on spreadsheets or QuickBooks often choose ERP systems over existing ones. It happens when companies realize that these systems are not helping them grow exponentially.

For businesses that manage their customer relationships on different applications like spreadsheets, individual email clients, or some contact management systems, it is the same equation. Whether a company invests in ERP or CRM first, depends solely on its business model. A company with a few sets of high-value customers and complex financials might opt for ERP first. But when a company has straightforward financials and a huge customer base that requires frequent contact, it may choose CRM. However, the need for automated software like ERP or CRM is constantly on the rise. With digital transformation becoming mainstream in every industrial sector, the need for these systems becomes a survival imperative for brands.

Keep the Following Things in Mind while Choosing ERP or CRM

While looking for an ERP or a CRM software, make sure you keep an eye over these points before making an investment.

One experience does not fit all – Whenever you invest in a software product, make sure that it brings all the features to make it an absolute requirement for the business. Both of these products can be effortlessly customized and you can also reap the benefits accordingly.

Don’t wait, anticipate – A proper system enables managers to touch, monitor and adapt every one of their specific shop processes for real-time improvement that delivers greater profitability.

Strive for ‘first experience’ resolution – A high-quality management system like ConvergeHub helps companies discover and resolve problems faster. Reminders appear to inform of special instructions. Shift-to-shift information is contained on the screen. A hassle-free email system distributes messages to specific areas or persons as per the requirement. It also sends automatic notifications to the concerned recipient without any manual invention on the sender’s part. No doubt, it facilitates easy decisions and quick actions.

Respond facts to critical interactions – A high-quality CRM or ERP helps to speed up the process of the companies. While traditional planning systems are accounting based – meaning they measure cost, but do nothing to improve performance and increase production speed – a real-time management system is based on the actual “activity” of the floor. It modifies and customizes workflow in such a way that it helps in the “real world” production events, with the goal of improved performance.

Increase access to real-time information – A shop floor management system delivers real-time, continuous improvement for greater profitability and faster delivery to customers. By blending planning technology with new, factory floor activity technology, such a system affords employees the opportunity to use touch screen computers right where they need them – on the factory floor. As a result, they can enter and retrieve data on the spot, providing their clients with new instantaneous updates. They simply touch-in current job data in a real-time environment that improves accuracy and provides a faster time to discovery of problems.

The Takeaway

CRM Software like ConvergeHub comes with ERP capabilities integrated with it. For SMEs, this kind of software system is no less than a blessing. It’s redefining their customer relationship management capabilities as well as the small and mid-sized sector over the course of the past six years. CRM software for small business is undergoing a rapid series of innovations and product evolutions, increasing in affordability and reliability while simultaneously expanding in capabilities. However, considering the integrated business solution like ConvergeHub results in a wide range of business benefits.

Doing More with Less

The mood is gloomy … The predictions are dire …

Newsrooms as well as water cooler discussions are filled with talk about slowing growth, budget cuts, layoffs, …

Trimming the fat …

Tightening the belt …

Faced with an economic recession just around the corner, businesses are bracing for a long hard winter.

What do you do?

How do you respond?

This is the time to do more with less.

Efficiency is now the name of the game.

Are you facing this challenge too?

Are things slowing down in your organization too?

Are you having to do more with less?

If that is the case, here are 3 strategies that will help you drive growth in your organization during these challenging times:

  1. Narrow down your focus to the high-potential and high-revenue customers and markets. Prioritize what works. Create a plan to target your best customers and the best markets for new sales opportunities. Leverage a tool that includes real time data to track progress of leads and accounts, and does it across marketing, sales, and service departments.
  2. Use automation to increase efficiency. A tool that automates tedious manual tasks and takes care of day-to-day communications and notifications is important during normal times of course, but is absolutely critical during these times when you may find yourself short-staffed but with the same long list of deliverables.
  3. Simplify your technology by reducing the number of apps and tools. In most organizations, sales and service reps spend less time selling and attending to customers and more time doing tedious tasks like data entry on multiple apps and outdated tools. This would be a good time to take inventory of all the tools that are used by your organization or department and remove any that don’t add significant value or take the business process forward.

What strategies are you using in your organization to drive efficiency and do more with less?

If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub can help you drive efficiency by providing one platform that automates tasks and provides insights for marketing, sales and service departments, talk to us.

Or, if you would like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.

Top 5 CRM Software For Healthcare And Their Benefits

Managing customer interactions is the hardest thing ever. For healthcare organizations, this is even more challenging. Keeping track of patients’ data requires a lot of dedication and accuracy, which is almost impossible when you do it manually. Having a healthcare CRM in place makes the job hassle-free while increasing its accuracy level. In recent times, there have been many CRM Software For Healthcare in the market, but not all live up to the mark.

Amidst all the top-performing CRM, finding the one that best serves your needs is difficult. Following is a list of the most popular ones that are used by healthcare sectors across the globe.

HubSpot is for companies that want to scale their marketing efforts. The software helps hospitals and clinics by integrating its social media and website tools. HubSpot allows healthcare companies to drive traffic to their sites with targeted campaigns. The users can segment the audience by organic search keywords, email, and social media management.

ConvergeHub is a robust and integrated CRM software. It has features like targeted email automation workflows, website visitor tracking, on-site patient engagement analytics, lead generation campaigns, and more.

Why Do You Need A CRM Software For Healthcare Management?

Customer relationship management is part of healthcare. Having a robust CRM in place aids in the smooth and streamlined processing of daily workflows. A CRM tool automates manual tasks and increases efficiency at every touchpoint of healthcare management. It comes with an array of vital features, such as:

  • Health assistant mechanisms that include the Clinical Decision Support System.
  • Integration of the complete health facility’s EHR systems.
  • Medication and appointment reminders, patient intake management, and automation processes.
  • Encryption, security, and access restrictions for protecting sensitive medical records. If you have CRM software like ConvergeHub, it will help you to maintain patient records with the highest level of security.

With healthcare CRM, you can significantly improve the quality of service by eliminating the manual errors of patient record management. It keeps miscommunication at bay while enhancing customer satisfaction levels to the farthest extent. CRM software improves decision-making and offers comprehensive financial and medical analysis.

Modern healthcare CRM solutions like ConvergeHub integrate sales and marketing processes to run things in a more streamlined manner. Such a feature-rich CRM not only helps healthcare organizations reach new levels but also helps them maintain customer relationships seamlessly.

Benefits of a Healthcare CRM

The healthcare system has to deal with customers regularly, just like in other sectors. The way customers are dealt with has a direct impact on the reputation of the hospital or clinic. With a CRM, every process gets automated and streamlined.

Offers Personalization
A CRM system allows your clinic’s customer service agents to segregate different patients based on their medical history, visit history, demographics, income, and more. Accordingly, you can send personalized emails, bills, and even post-visit communication to keep in touch with them. It facilitates patient satisfaction and retains a cordial relationship with existing and new patients.

Understand Customers Better
With CRM healthcare software, you can understand your customers better. As the software provides exceptional customer service, you know all the details about your patients long before providing support.
From collecting patient data via multiple sources to tracking every customer interaction, CRM automates the process. When your support agents have a better understanding of the process, they can serve customers better. It further helps in building your brand recognition.

Enhance Patient Health
Healthcare CRM software has tools like autoresponders, email broadcasts, and push notifications. The tool sends out vital information automatically to patients and helps them to stay healthy.

Enhances Marketing Initiatives
Healthcare CRM software offers real-time analytics and reports to help hospitals and clinics estimate the success rate of sales campaigns and marketing initiatives. This way, it’s easier to keep a tab on the efforts you make as well as enrich your brand reputation.

Five Of The Best Healthcare CRM Software

Finding the best of the healthcare system is a daunting task, especially when most of the products offer a set of crucial benefits. However, we have thoroughly researched and handpicked the products that are being widely used in the healthcare sector these days. Read on to explore.

1. HubSpot

HubSpot is widely-known CRM software. It’s featured with several crucial tools for marketing your products and streamlining customer service.

HubSpot Features

Hospitals and clinics using Hubspot can have a 360-degree view of patients, thus making it easier for agents to deal with patients. It automates manual tickets, thus prioritizing the patients based on their urgency, and sending them to the right practitioners.

Hospitals can also leverage the on-the-go content optimization facility of HubSpot. It assists you with the creation of optimized content by providing proper ideas, keywords, and live tips for your job.

The landing page builder of HubSpot lets you drag and drop elements to create functional and user-friendly pages quickly. There’s an option for A/B testing as well.

2. ConvergeHub

If you are up for well-integrated CRM software that serves both marketing and sales, then ConvergeHub is the one for you. In the healthcare domain, this works like a revenue generator. The software helps you capture leads wisely, nurture them and convert them into happy customers.

The free onboarding sessions, multiple integrations, and migration services smoothly integrate with the existing system and transfer vital information to ConvergeHub. The best part is, ConvergeHub has a minimal setup, though it offers some powerful features and tools to boost growth.

ConvergeHub Features

ConvergeHub has intelligent features that let you segregate potential leads and patients into different lists based on transaction history, demographics, medical conditions, lead scores, and more. Applying custom rules to segregate patient data makes the process hassle-free and fun.

One can leverage email sequences and broadcasts to send personalized and timely updates to every stakeholder regularly. It offers a two-fold benefit, where patients are updated with vital information, customer support agents stay updated about patient billing and more. Some auto-responders automatically send medical reminders, diagnostics, birthday wishes, and appointments to patients.

Also, you can A/B test each element on the landing page to identify if it would generate high conversions. Measure the success rate and efficacy of your CTAs, headers, and links using this software. The 360-degree customer view gives you a holistic view of patients, thus enabling you to diagnose and offer various treatment plans effectively and quickly.

3. Keap

The healthcare CRM tool Keap offers multiple benefits to better manage patients as well as the clinic.

Keap Features

Keap helps you to find leads of potential customers, segment patients into various lists, and organize them by using tags. The software allows them to send personalized content and medical reminders from time to time. It has a calendar booking feature, which makes booking and scheduling appointments seamless and hassle-free.

Keap also enables easy integration with a plethora of third-party business applications. Mostly, Keap is known for its excellent patient management capabilities.

4. Salesforce

Salesforce is cloud-based CRM software and one of the best healthcare CRM software. It offers tools for all the stages of the customer journey till a potential lead converts into a long-term engagement.

Salesforce Features

The software allows you to trace all connections across the workforce and patients using contact tracing. It also helps to a great extent in hassle-free lead management- one can track the leads from start to finish across multiple channels. It helps you to make smart decisions and close deals fast.

Salesforce is equipped with mobile healthcare tools, which makes it quite portable. So, you can log into your calls, read reports and track some good leads on the go.

5. Pipedrive

Pipedrive offers a great range of healthcare CRM features and tools. These tools and features are functional elements for any healthcare organization.

Pipedrive Features

Among all the other top CRM software, Pipedrive is an AI-based sales assistant. It helps you improve the automation process via reports, ideas, notifications, performance graphs, and workflow tips. With Pipedrive, you can send out crucial health broadcasts, design impactful and responsive email templates, launch group emails to different patients with specific ailments, and more.

This AI-based CRM captures all the critical details of your patients through various channels and touchpoints. Also, it helps you to find hot leads and offers specific tools to convert them into paying customers.

What is the best free healthcare CRM software? 

While several factors come into play while choosing healthcare CRM software, there are certain common aspects that CRM software must have. With ConvergeHub, you can have all the features to help you increase patient engagement, increase productivity and more. With ConvergeHub improving the quality of care, lowering the costs and effective utilization of patient information, helping healthcare providers to sustain their business in a competitive environment.

Taking care of patient data and managing them:  The software helps efficiently manage patient information, appointments, and medical records. As a result, it’s easier to maintain a seamless connection between all stakeholders, which results in streamlined operations across all departments. Such a connected system facilitates friction-free communication and collaboration among healthcare professionals, enabling them to share information, track progress, and coordinate care seamlessly.

Marketing Automation made easy: ConvergeHub is featured with robust marketing automation tools. It helps clinics and hospitals engage with patients directly with zero hassles. It facilitates lead generation and nurtures relationships. Also, it becomes easier to run targeted campaigns, personalized communication, and automated follow-ups. In the long run, it helps enhance patient engagement and improve satisfaction levels.

Advanced Reporting Features: ConvergeHub provides advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing healthcare organizations to gain valuable insights into their day-to-day operations. Secondly, you can identify trends based on the data – thus making data-driven decisions. Also it helps organizations stay compliant with data privacy regulations, thus ensuring the highest level of security and confidentiality.

Telehealth software vs. Telemedicine

There are several differences between telemedicine and telehealth in reality. However, both are used synonymously at times. While telemedicine focuses more on providing virtual medical services, telehealth goes beyond that. It also includes a lot of things from the non-medical space as well- such as training and virtual clinical meetings, and a lot more. Both telehealth and telemedicine help extend healthcare services to remote areas, thus connecting more people at a time.    

What is the importance of a scalable telehealth platform for healthcare providers?

A scalable telehealth platform comes with a range of productive advantages, which help increase the efficiency of a telehealth platform.

  1. Expandable Access to Patient Care: Scalable telehealth platforms go beyond geographical barriers, thus allowing healthcare professionals to reach out to remote patients and provide healthcare accordingly. Simultaneously, patients can have direct access on the application form from the comfort of their own homes, thus reducing wait times.
  2. Improved Patient Convenience: A scalable platform makes virtual appointment scheduling easier than ever. It eliminates traditional in-person visits and makes way for virtual meetings. Such flexibility enhances patient satisfaction and improves engagement, leading to better health outcomes.
  3. Enhanced Provider Collaboration: Scalable telehealth platforms facilitate remote collaboration to the next level. This collaboration improves the quality of care and promotes knowledge sharing within the healthcare ecosystem.

What Are the Most Important Features Of a CRM Software?

Modern customer relationship management (CRM) solutions offer far more than mere contact organization and a digital address book. By leveraging advanced functionalities, CRM software can significantly enhance your sales efforts. From nurturing potential leads to sealing deals and fostering customer loyalty, CRM systems are invaluable in maximizing sales. Furthermore, they can streamline your operations, saving you valuable time and resources through automated sales force management.

Workflow Automation

Streamline your daily operations effortlessly with CRM software, which offers the convenience of automated workflows. Seek out a software solution that empowers you to establish personalized rules and includes robust sales force automation capabilities, enabling you and your team to enhance productivity and efficiency.

Smart Third-party Integration

Maximize your time and cost savings by seamlessly integrating your CRM software with other essential solutions you already utilize. The majority of CRM programs provide the option for third-party software integrations. The key lies in selecting a CRM system that seamlessly integrates with your existing software and is effortless to implement. Take, for example, the renowned CRM software Salesforce, which offers its own marketplace known as AppExchange. Through AppExchange, users can effortlessly connect Salesforce with a multitude of solutions, including QuickBooks accounting software, Mailchimp email marketing software, and DocuSign electronic signatures, simplifying your workflow and enhancing your productivity.

Effortless Customer Service Features

Elevate your customer acquisition and retention efforts with the aid of CRM software, enabling you to deliver exceptional customer service. When seeking the ideal solution, prioritize the following capabilities to empower your sales representatives and customer support team to excel:

Seamless Lead Management Features

Efficiently identify and track your leads throughout the sales cycle using this feature. This functionality empowers you to assess the actions taken by each lead, assign scores based on their engagement level, and seamlessly distribute them to the appropriate team member for further nurturing. 

Superb Analytics

With smart analytics features, you can have a detailed look on your  day to day activities . Thus, it’s easier for the SMBs to simplify customer segmentation analysis for improved readability and comprehension. Simultaneously, businesses can effortlessly keep a track of the  profit and loss data to make informed decisions about your return on investment (ROI). Also this insightful web analytics showcases customers’ website usage and behaviors, providing valuable insights into user engagement.

What is the role of CRM in the hospital industry? What are the different types of healthcare CRM software?

Healthcare CRM is no different from the CRM in general, at least in terms of functionalities and features. However, it is designed for the healthcare domain exclusively.  The product is tailored for healthcare organizations with a primary objective of enhancing  patient retention and attracting new patients. By consolidating diverse data sources, it generates comprehensive patient profiles, so that it is easier to maintain and streamline them. 

Regarding different types of healthcare CRM software, here are a few examples:

  • Patient Relationship Management (PRM) software: Specifically designed for managing patient interactions and engagement, PRM systems focus on improving patient experience and communication.
  • Healthcare Marketing Automation software: These CRM tools focus on automating marketing campaigns, managing patient outreach, and tracking marketing effectiveness in the healthcare industry.
  • Electronic Health Record (EHR) integrated CRM: Some CRM solutions are integrated with EHR systems, allowing seamless access to patient health records alongside CRM functionalities.
  • Referral Management software: These CRM systems streamline and manage the referral process, enabling healthcare organizations to efficiently track and coordinate patient referrals among different providers.

Improve Your Patient Experience with ConvergeHub

ConvergeHub is one of the leading software for the healthcare industry in recent times. According to Software Reviews, ConvergeHub is the most preferred CRM product (the ranking is based on user reviews). From patient management to keeping a tab on hospital management, ConvergeHub helps to build and thrive in a seamless ecosystem. Also, ConvergeHub helps with perfect branding and marketing when you use it efficiently. It streamlines patient management as well as eases manual administrative tasks.

If you are planning to invest in a CRM tool for your hospital or clinic, give ConvergeHub a try. Talk to us and book a free demo!

CRM Software For Accountants 7 Key Features

Accounting is not just about pressing numbers and getting results. From forecasting business trends and providing cost reduction guidance to keeping clients’ financial space out of harm’s way-an accountant’s job extends beyond what meets the eye. Having an accounting CRM streamlines the core accounting process while taking care of monotonous manual tasks. It automates most of the manual jobs, thus enabling you to focus on the bigger picture for the business.

If you plan to invest in an accounting CRM, here’s what you must look for in the software.

Software Used By Accounting Firms

Accounting firms with multiple clients often need several tools to streamline their daily jobs. Most of the time, firms invest in the following set of tools.

  • A digital calendar for scheduling meetings and tasks
  • A time tracker for keeping a tab on billable hours
  • Tools for file sharing
  • An invoicing software
  • Project management tools
  • Spreadsheets for forecasting and financial analysis

However, a feature-rich CRM tool can integrate all these functions and perform even more. According to a QuickBooks research, accountants devote 86% of their total work hours to tasks that can be automated easily. Automation helps accountants to have enough free hours to execute more crucial tasks like consultation, sales, and analysis.

The Impact Of Cloud Accounting Software On Accounting Firms

With the arrival of cloud solutions, the accounting industry has entered a new era. It allows the hassle-free storing and accessing of data through the internet instead of having any physical storage system.

Of course, this technology has been here for some time now, and the power of cloud computing is undeniable. With hundreds of cloud-based CRM tools, it’s easier for accountants to get things done and save time.

Benefits of this cloud computing software:

  • Real-time updates of the financial information
  • Cross-device availability of accounting data
  • Scale up license numbers seamlessly with cloud computing
  • Keeping overhead costs lower

Safety Quotient Of Cloud Software for Accounting

For accountants, the most concerning thing is whether there would be security concerns with cloud accounting services. It’s something that accountants must take care of to protect crucial client information like finances.

More than 4,000 cyberattacks have been reported on government sites, medical organizations, and businesses during the pandemic. However, with modern cloud software, security breaches are never a concern.

  • In cloud-based software, data remains encrypted between your device and the cloud server. It becomes difficult for a third party to intercept.
  • As the data stay offsite, it reduces the risk of getting compromised if the physical devices are damaged or stolen. Cloud offers a data backup place for your current and future needs.

CRM In Accounting

With an accounting CRM, you can easily augment traditional customer service. It allows storing and retrieving client data in one centralized location, facilitating seamless client communication. Better interactions and communication improve your customer relationships, thus directly impacting your business.

What CRM Can Do For Accounting Firm

The blessings of CRM software for accounting are undeniable. Here are some ways CRM software can ignite an accounting firm’s prosperity:

  • It enables you to serve your clients with instant self-service through online portals.
  • You gain sales and market performance information just by applying a few clicks.
  • The software gives you all the details of every customer since their arrival, which leads to repeat purchases.
  • It can maximize the productivity of accountants by automating some tedious tasks.

When you have a powerful CRM at your access, it is possible to simplify various aspects of accounting practice and grow client lists of your firm. But before you choose a CRM system, you must look for the following features:

What Features Do Accountants Look For In A CRM?

There are several features of an accounting CRM, and you need to consider those while selecting the right product for yourself. CRM systems like ConvergeHub are equipped with the following features.

Integrating Accounting And CRM Feature

A self-service portal is essential for an accountant, as it gives all details of your client’s purchase. With crucial data, you can always provide professional and consistent accounting services.

Therefore, the logical step is to select a product that integrates with your firm’s existing accounting software. Such CRM software will allow you to enter a new client’s information or any transaction in both programs and have it synced automatically.
The right CRM software can sync everything from transaction history to previous interactions in one place. So, you get one system that covers all aspects of the customer-accountant relationship. You won’t have to backtrack and double-check dates or various figures, indulging in tedious and time-consuming tasks. As you take advantage of the integration feature of a CRM system, your entire workflow becomes much more efficient.

Efficient Client Onboarding

When your accounting firm brings on a new client, they must go through the client onboarding process. It ensures that your client knows the tasks and timelines you are providing to them through your services. Everyone knows what is happening, so it saves your client money and time.

For your accounting firm, you must look for a CRM platform that allows you to set up and organize a client onboarding strategy. Every new client will receive the same information on that same timeline through features like email templates, document storage, and scheduled reminders. When you can automate repetitive tasks, it leads to a better experience for both you and your clients.

Better Client Management

With a CRM system, you collect all the client information in one place. But you must ensure that everyone on your accounting team can access the information quickly. Here are some considerations for you to make the CRM-selection process right:

  • Does the CRM allow anytime and anywhere access?
  • Is this CRM cloud-based?
  • Is the CRM customizable to your organization’s needs?
  • Does your team feel comfortable using the user interface of the CRM software?

If you choose a program that your team is very comfortable working with, it will reduce errors in communication and data entry. After all, communication errors and incorrect data entry can cost you some valuable clients.

When you integrate a sound client management system, it helps the firm organically gain more clients. Managing client information through CRM helps to build improved relationships through personalized services. When clients are satisfied, they are willing to provide you with free marketing referrals and word-of-mouth. In return, your ROI on investing in dedicated CRM software increases.

Easier Client Communications

Accountants have various ways of communicating with their clients, like via phone calls, video chats, and email. But can you track all those messages and emails for a long time? Probably not. If not, it is high time to implement CRM software that can deal with customer service with all the data in place.

Your CRM can maintain a detailed communication history with your clients separately. Therefore, you can refer back to this information whenever you want. Next time, whoever contacts the client will have a prior conversation history to serve them efficiently and effectively.

With the CRM solution, your team can take care of your clients without backtracking any information. Also, your clients will value your attention to detail. Your clients will feel at ease investing in your accounting services. And when they feel satisfied with your accounting firm, your company will prosper.

Self-sufficiency Among Clients

If you are looking forward to saving more hours during the workday, then CRM software is a must-have tool. CRM software like ConvergeHub comes with various tools that build self-sufficiency among clients. A CRM service can offer built-in self-serving portals for clients, giving clients better access to their interactions with your firm.

With the self-serving portals, clients can view their transaction history and invoices. So, you have to encounter fewer calls and emails from them. Some CRM systems allow clients to make payments using these portals. It reduces the administrative burden on your team.

Brand-Creation Tools

For any business to thrive, branding matters a lot. The same goes for your accounting firm or your freelance accounting project. When you are an accountant, your professional and personal branding follows you in your career.

Therefore, when choosing a CRM, look for its tools that help you build a brand. With a CRM, you can streamline your daily process, thus serving your customers better. No doubt, it gains your client’s confidence.

Customizable Automated Workflows

Accounting software helps set up an automated workflow of crucial accounting tasks. Products like ConvergeHub helps in customizing that workflow using a specific set of tool.

It helps in simply modifying the workflows and updating them as required. With the customizable CRM software, you can also implement equations and document storage.

Conclusion
You may want to spend your days as an accountant without a dedicated CRM system. But, without one, you may need to focus on figures the entire day. It will automatically shift your attention from customer service. You must provide the best services possible to meet your client’s financial needs if you have an accounting firm.

Using a CRM will save substantial time for core accounting and saves your firm’s overhead costs. It automates a large volume of tasks you have been doing manually. A streamlined process will undoubtedly enable you to serve your clients better and build a deeper connection with them.

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Unscripted

Does the customer service in your organization have a heart?
For a very long time … for decades really … predictability, consistency and efficiency have been the main mantra of customer service in all businesses, especially large enterprises. And companies have tried to achieve this with rigorous training of their customer service reps and asking them to follow a rigid script for every customer interaction. The more complex and emotionally charged the customer interactions are, the more companies used technology to double down on this rigid approach by automating the interactions.

But as technology is evolving, a more human approach to customer service is taking hold. We can call it ‘human-centric customer service’. This is the model where human agents work in tandem with high-tech platforms and yet use their human skills of complex problem-solving, communication, and emotional engagement to provide the best experience to their customers.

When you ask agents to follow scripts that have a decision-tree, you train them to behave more like machines that follow a certain algorithm. Although this approach is easier to automate, agents end up losing their human skills like creativity and empathy.

Even if this rigid approach results in improving metrics like reduced call times, it ultimately results in poor customer experience and dissatisfied customers.

So it’s important that instead of looking at customer interactions as isolated events or ‘transactions’, we look at them as important steps along the customer journey.

Great service requires authentic human connection … and human connection can never be scripted.

If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub can help you create a human connection with your customers by helping you stay in close touch with them, talk to us.

Or, if you would like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.

Why don’t people buy

If your almost-closed deals are not closing at the last minute and your prospective buyers are consistently backing out and your revenue targets are not being met, it’s time to dig deeper and look for the reason why this is happening.

Here are the 5 main reasons why people don’t buy:

  1. No need – Pretty straightforward – the person doesn’t need your product or service.
  2. No hurry – This is the classic ‘Let me think about it’ response.
  3. No trust – If the prospect does not trust you, there is no way you can close the sale.
  4. No time – Sometimes the prospect is busy and has a lot on her plate, and you are not the priority right now. Other times, this is just procrastination and initial inertia of committing to your product or service.
  5. No money – Sometimes ‘no money’ really means that they don’t have the money to purchase. Often, it means they don’t have budget for it at this time. Or, it could be that they don’t think that buying your product is money well spent.

If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub lets you overcome these objections and help you close more deals, talk to us.

Or, if you would like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.

ConvergeHub is an enterprise-grade customer relationship management software that helps businesses build long-term relationships with their customers and prospects. It is easy to implement, can be quickly customized to suit any business, needs very little training, and will quickly get your business on the path to 10X growth.