Tag: Cloud Based CRM

How To Improve The User Experience Of Your B2B Website

Your business website is in all probability the most vital digital modern-day asset your SMB or startup has in today’s world, as nowadays more small businesses than ever do their businesses exclusively online for business growth. Now, even if you do have just a brick-and-mortar operation, your web presence is probably still necessary as the primary method for reaching out to your customers. In fact, it is much easier now to compete with major players in business those that have a stronger and larger brand recognition than it was just a decade ago in the past. This is the reason as to why carving out a profitable niche for your business requires superior-quality web presence, and these standards for quality are getting higher as more-and-more of our everyday activities are moving online.

Your company website is in all probability the most vital digital modern-day asset your SMB or startup has in today’s world, as nowadays more small businesses than ever do their businesses exclusively online for rapid business growth.

Now, even if you do have just a brick-and-mortar operation, your web presence is probably still necessary as the primary method for reaching out to your customers.

The average CRM user adoption among sales professionals is 73% and the average ROI period is 13 months. - G2’s CRM Software Research (2019) Click To Tweet

In fact, it is much easier now to compete with major players in business those that have a stronger and larger brand recognition than it was just a decade ago in the past.
This is the reason as to why carving out a profitable niche for your business requires superior-quality web presence, and these standards for quality are getting higher as more-and-more of our everyday activities are moving online.

Hence positive UX (User Experience) is absolutely indispensable to succeed online. Since website visitors do not have the tolerance for viewing websites that do not work well, and therefore you got to make sure that you are engaging potential leads and customers, while you have the opportunity to sell them your offerings.

So are you ready to improve your business website and convert more customers?
Since once you get the handle on how you can boost and maintain your site’s UX, it will be easier than ever to build a relationship using an easy to use CRM with your prospects and customers online.

Therefore, before we dive into the big-picture strategies, it is extremely necessary to be familiar with the building blocks for creating a stronger UX that any website should offer in order to not unknowingly turn off new prospective visitors which can hamper your business growth.

  • Fast website loading speed

As all web-visitors are edgy when it comes to viewing websites these days, your business website needs to load quickly for better engagements on your site.

  • Intuitive and clear navigation

Make it easier for your visitors to find quickly what they need. For this ensure that all your web pages are clearly labeled with links to the main sections of your website and place your contact info in the header and footer section on every page.

  • Think about landing pages

Try to anticipate what your visitors needs from your business website and as sending someone directly to your homepage when someone clicks on a link of your site via a social media post or a particular ad might not always be the best way to keep them engaged, create spectacular and informative landing pages where you can collect the contacts of your visitors and store them in your CRM database for nurturing of the leads.

  • Optimize your site for mobile

The majority of website traffic nowadays comes via mobile devices. Therefore, your website needs to be optimized and responsive to work well on small screen devices as it does on desktops.

  • Do not forget about design

Simply put, your website needs to look good, bold and up-to-date. Hence redesign your existing website if it is cluttered and is of an outdated design that might turn away customers or even make them raise the question whether you are still in business.

Now having discussed the above-stated points, it is true that even the best-designed website can always be improved to create a more engaging experience for the users of the site.

Well, you might probably already know that your website could use improvements, so take the time now to find out exactly what those might be.
Therefore to do this try to determine at what point in the buying process do your visitors tend to drop off, or what are your most seen business pages and which are the pages that cause your website visitors to turn away.

This is exactly where web analytics services like Google Analytics can be of real help, so if you do not have Analytics set up on your business website, do it, right today.

In fact, Google Analytics provides your business a free and easy way to measure how your customers are interacting with your website and even point out technical issues that need are needed to be addressed for providing an enhanced experience to the users of your site.

  • Offer social proofs

When a friend, colleague or a family member recommends a brand, we are much likely to actually check it out, rather than if we would have simply seen it in an advertisement.

This is called social proofing- which can a game changer for startups and small businesses.

This is because viewing reviews from other real people (even if they are strangers) can go a long way in creating further engagements.

Hence, incorporate social proofs in your business website by creating a strong testimonial area in the main homepage, upload reviews of your brand on third-party aggregator websites, and mention or share them on social media sites.

You can also integrate tools on your website that displays your brand’s Instagram and Twitter feeds to encourage your website visitors to get engaged with your brand on social media as smart companies know their customers are their best marketers and so increase in public support means a lot for generating consistent business growth.

  • Focus on organically marketing your brand

Traditional email marketing with the help of the best small business CRM software, and digital advertisements can certainly be effective for startups and small business, but it is equally vital to remember that today’s consumers are bombarded by these promotional materials and are have so become somewhat blinded to them.

Now, by marketing by the term more “organically” we indicate creating a web strategy around inviting your consumers to get engaged with your business and brand rather than merely telling them about it.

Some of the ways you might do this for your SMB include:

  • Engaging followers and customers of your brand on social media websites
  • Proactively interacting with reviewers on aggregator sites
  • Building a business partnership with local brands, non-profits, and other related businesses

Now, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is another highly effective means to boost your business website’s visibility online around ‘key terms’ used for your business.

For example as a vendor of a cloud based CRM software vendor, we use “Easy to Use CRM”, “Best CRM for small business” or for the Merchant Cash Advance version of our software we use “MCA CRM” and similar keywords in our whitepapers, articles, social media posts and blogs which helps in attracting more qualified leads to our B2B website, and reduce the use of pop-ups and annoying lead capturing techniques that ruins the UX of the websites of most brands.

Therefore, work with a digital marketing agency or read on some basic SEO tips and strategies to get started on your own.

  • Streamline UX whenever possible

Never needlessly complicate how your customers and visitors engage with your website.

Remember the UX element of your business website need to offer a streamlined experience for the visitors of your site and support the goals for offering a deferential experience for any visitors to your website- existing and new customers alike.

It should also be noted over here as pop-ups and manipulative languages are also a big turn-off, therefore never coerce your visitors to complete an action like creating an account or to log in unless it is absolutely necessary for your lead generation and business growth.

Finally- Integrate with a business tool

On the tech side of things, integrating your website with business tools like an easy to use CRM software , makes it much easier for your business to manage your digital efforts across multiple channels and platforms as CRM is a software that can provide a comprehensive view of your data, which includes web analytics that helps in granting insights on your website’s engagements to further refine your UX strategies and thereby create an effective online presence of your brand that ultimately helps in increasing your businesses’ bottom line and revenue growth.

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Easy Tips for Overcoming B2B Sales Management Bottlenecks in SMB

Anyone working in sales as a manager with or without a easy to use CRM solution knows it takes an intensely strategic and systemic approach to get those astonishing performance results that every leader in sales want to achieve for consistent business growth every month. However, it only takes a few common mistakes to ruin these highly systematic and strategic approaches and lose the battle. Therefore, to bring in consistent and exceptional performance, eliminating existing bottlenecks in sales is most needed to get your sales team met their goals in no time.

Say Bye-Bye to Sales Management Bottlenecks !
Anyone working in sales as a manager with or without an easy to use CRM solution knows it takes an intensely strategic and systemic approach to get those astonishing performance results that every leader in sales want to achieve for consistent business growth every month.

You don’t close a sale, you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise-Patricia Fripp Click To Tweet

However, it only takes a few common mistakes to ruin these highly systematic and strategic approaches and lose the battle.

Therefore, to bring in consistent and exceptional performance, eliminating existing bottlenecks in sales is most needed to get your sales team met their goals in no time.

Hence, to get started, here are a few top sales management tips to eliminate the pain points in managing sales by saying bye to potential bottlenecks:

Bottleneck# 1

The Dearth of Time Management

Sales management is one of the most dynamic and fast-paced positions in any organization. Therefore keeping that in mind, even if you are using a business tool like Salesforce or any other Salesforce Alternative CRM software to streamline your workflow, it is too easy to lose focus and remain in track to make time for the most important tasks.

Solution

Effective planning is one of the most successful ways to avoid sales management bottlenecks related to time management which can be accomplished by defining the role of each sales rep in your team and thereafter making it a habit to review their progress on a weekly basis using metrics found in easy to use CRM software.

Bottleneck# 2

Not Being Consistent

There is always a war between sticking to the rules and then again letting some sales rep get away scot free even after doing things in their own way. This happens because sales managers at times connect better with some sales rep and so even trusts them more.
Now, doing this could lead to a shifting of the sales goals to accommodate their favored reps who are not playing by the rules.

Solution

Consistency is most often one of the differentiating factors between being just good and overwhelmingly great.
Hence while evaluating the performance of your top reps, it is important to remain consistent in the way you treat your salespersons and your expectation of them, hence simply because any of your top reps are bringing in sales at twice the rate of everyone else does not make them untouchables.

Always remember, everyone in your sales team has the responsibility to be a good employee, and so if anyone cannot play by the rules, let them go, as they will certainly undermine the morale, create unnecessary divisions, and poison others in your sales team.

Bottleneck# 3

Lack of Training

Training and developing sales reps is one of the most challenging jobs that a sales manager need to do. Hence, as a sales manager never tell your reps what to do, but instead teach them, as just instructing the reps what to do as an alternative of teaching them creates ill-equipped sales reps those who fail to work through problems or handle challenges.

Solution

To eliminate this sales management bottleneck coach your sales reps to make the most out of them and teach your salespersons what they can be. Avoid stooping every time to their rescue, but instead, set goals for them and provide the tool they need (like easy to use CRM software) and let them handle their own issues.

Bottleneck# 4

Unaligned Sales and Marketing Departments

There has always been a huge rift between the marketing and sales teams in most sales-oriented organizations, which a big part that creates bottlenecks in sales management jobs.
This is because, if you take a big picture view, to a lot extent both these two departments in an organization share similar objectives, and hence a divide between them most often hampers productivity.

It has been observed by us as one of the award-winning vendors of small business CRM software solution, that sales often blames marketing of not generating enough leads, while on the other hand marketers feel that the sales teams are not putting-in adequate efforts in order to convert the leads they generate into a sale.

Therefore having these two teams on a collision course often times results in limited productivity as both these teams are needed to tackle challenges together with their effort overlapping each other for finding rapid business growth .

 Solution

The earlier you can align your sales and marketing teams the sooner your sales management will start paying off which in turn will help in eliminating sales management bottlenecks.

Hence to get started primarily ensure that the communication between these two departments in your organization is streamlined and thereafter create aligned objectives to motive both the teams to work together for creating marketing campaigns and strategies using easy to use CRM software solutions for boosting sales and business growth.

Bottleneck# 5

Lack of Data Analysis

Understanding your sales data in the easy to use CRM database also plays an effective role in eliminating sales management bottlenecks.

Therefore, create a data-driven strategy and analyze the available data for drawing insights from the information available in your CRM database.

Solution

There are several tools available for data analyzing and reporting. Most businesses nowadays use cloud based CRM tools to get access to a comprehensive report in the form of graphs, maps, and charts which makes it easier to diagnose issues in the sales pipeline, seal loopholes in the sales management process and streamline your sales teams efforts for finding optimal efficiency.

Takeaway- Navigating the Hurdles

Solutions for winnowing out sales management hurdles and bottlenecks are never one-size-fits-all strategies. Therefore, as a sales manager, you are required to keep adapting your methods to changing times as no object on the sales management path is insurmountable, since as a manager when your employees feel like you have their best interest at heart, they are more likely to respond positively and work towards winning more sales for your business.

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Three “Not” Easy To Use CRM Features That Can Overcomplicate Your Small Business

In a world of Walmart(s) and Amazon(s), startups and small businesses are ever-wondering how they can compete against million dollar establishments if they are incapable of spending more on marketing, sales and customer service for the growth of their business. This is because; enterprise companies can easily afford to throw in thousands and even millions on finding the right customization, and spend on robust CRM software solutions, while on the other hand small businesses, are always on tight budgets and therefore cannot afford to spend on CRMs like Salesforce but look for same feature-rich solution in Salesforce Alternatives CRM solutions like ConvergeHub and others in the easy to use CRM space.

In a world of Walmart(s) and Amazon(s), startups and small businesses are ever-wondering how they can compete against million dollar establishments if they are incapable of spending more on marketing, sales and customer service for the growth of their business.
This is because; enterprise companies can easily afford to throw in thousands and even millions on finding the right customization, and spend on robust CRM software solutions, while on the other hand small businesses, are always on tight budgets and therefore cannot afford to spend on CRMs like Salesforce but look for same feature-rich solution in Salesforce Alternatives CRM solutions like ConvergeHub and others in the easy to use CRM space.

More than 13% of startups and small businesses plan to augment their spending on cloud based CRM software solutions in 2019- Keap Click To Tweet

Now, it might seem like increasing the budget on your CRM software will also increase the benefits of the software, which explains as to why according to Keap (a private company that offers an e-mail marketing and sales platform for small businesses) more than 13% of startups and small businesses plan to augment their spending on cloud based CRM software solutions in 2019.

However, SMB establishments should be cautious of buyer’s remorse, especially when it comes to adopting costly CRM software like Salesforce, as according to Amazon Web Services nearly 50% of its CRM licenses remain unused.

Hence, where is the disconnect?

Why is it that so many startups and small businesses are leaving their hard earned money on the table?

This is because, more often than not, small businesses are using a piece of software that was not built with them in mind.

The Power of Simplicity

In the past, CRM vendors sold feature-rich and pricy CRM software platforms because at that point of time Customer Relationship Management software solutions served only large organizations that needed the complexity.

However today’s CRM solutions are accessible to all businesses of all sizes, but nevertheless what works for an enterprise does not necessarily translate to the SMB space.

For example, there are CRM companies that started by marketing their products to small businesses, since the early versions of their CRM software solutions were too simple for enterprise needs.
However, with the passage of time it is not uncommon for these CRM companies to move up-market as their CRM platforms became more complicated in order to acquire those enterprise level sales, which when happens makes the CRM that once fit a small business just right becomes excessively expensive and complicated, and ultimately unusable for the initial users of their software.

Admittedly, bleeding-edge CRM features are not going anywhere. Large establishments can afford more complex software solutions as organizations of their stature demands high-tech solutions, but it must also be remembered that a product is only valuable as long as it meets your needs.

Therefore, here are three CRM features that are usually not needed by small businesses and so indicate that these features might be designed for a business having a bigger budget and different needs.

  1. AI and Machine Learning

Over the next couple of years, we will see more and more business software companies promoting AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Machine Learning in their cloud based CRM software solutions with the promise of delivering dead accurate forecasting in sales, lead scoring and for predicting the future health of a company.
However, the question that immediately comes to our minds is how much of this is a marketing hype with very little payoff for startups and small businesses?

Considering that Machine Learning is capable of combing through massive data-sets in order to find patterns, ML and AI might be valuable for big enterprise-level organizations; however, SMB(s) do not have enough data in their CRM database to justify this investment.

This is because, as a startup or a small business, you simply do not need a CRM with ML to understand which lead to focus on and which ones are most likely to close.

In fact, what you need for your SMB setup is a bird’s-eye 360-degree view of all your deals, with a customizable sales pipeline feature that permits tacking of existing customers, prospects, and projects which is readily found in most easy to use Salesforce Alternative CRM software and so using easy to use CRM solutions like ConvergeHub and others that are exclusively designed for small businesses you can use its sales pipeline to sort or filter your leads by priority and glean other insights from reporting.

  1. AI Powered Automation

Large organizations require AI-powered automation since they are trying to turn their processes into an assembly line and they need to make sure that their individual employees is adhering to a specific procedure.
However, heavy automation is not only expensive but it is also most confusing to many and most importantly it eliminates the human touch that is required for the growth of small businesses.

This is because startups and small businesses require personal interactions rather than lightening-speed efficiency to provide them with a competitive edge.

Therefore, instead of relying on your AI-powered computers to tell you when and how you should interact with your leads, prospects, and customers it is more pragmatic to rely on simple reminder feature in the CRM software to schedule purposeful and effective follow-ups.

According to a study by a leading Salesforce Alternative CRM platform on lead management studies, sales reps should call their leads and prospects at least 6 times before giving up and therefore by staying on top of the reminder tool in your easy to use CRM, most small businesses will be more likely to close their deals more effectively.

  1. Advanced Reporting

In large establishments, executives, departmental heads and managers require a plethora of sartorial and customizable reporting dashboards in their CRM make sure that they hit their business goals.

However, in a small business, managers and entrepreneur(s) often do not require complex reporting, but just need a quick snapshot of all the prospects and leads, a summary of their last month’s deals, each support and sales rep’s activities, which are not vanity metrics but data that you can actually work on.

Conclusion

Therefore, as a startup or a small business, you need to invest in an easy to use CRM that works for your business, and not against you.

It is natural that companies like Salesforce and others will never stop from developing CRM solutions that are bloated with features (it is how they make money), but you as an entrepreneur of an SMB you need to understand and evaluate what you require out of your best small business CRM software and what you do not for rapid business growth .

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Where To Start While Creating A Unified End-To-End Service Excellence For Your Brand

Nowadays for catering to modern customers, brands must support a wide range of different touch-points using easy to use CRM software. Now the question that arises is how can brands deliver an impeccable end-to-end experience that surpasses the expectations of your customers? The real challenge for organizations is that nowadays service journey of brands can encompass a multitude of different touch-points, distributors, channels, and partners- and the consumers expect all of these components to work in tandem seamlessly.

Nowadays for catering to modern customers, brands must support a wide range of different touch-points using easy to use CRM software.

Now the question that arises is how can brands deliver an impeccable end-to-end experience that surpasses the expectations of your customers?

The real challenge for organizations is that nowadays service journey of brands can encompass a multitude of different touch-points, distributors, channels, and partners- and the consumers expect all of these components to work in tandem seamlessly.

One of the key factors behind the growth of CRM is accessibility.Companies want access to customer data in real-time, with mobile and cloud solutions leading the way.- SuperOffice Click To Tweet

Broadly speaking these touch-points can be broken down into three main categories, and businesses that are willing to differentiate themselves with their service must explore how each of these pieces makes a contribution to delivering a unified end-to-end experience to the customers of their brands.

No-touch service

This touch-point covers self-service support solutions such as online knowledge base, phone lines, and chatbots.

Business seeking to provide end-to-end experience to their customers should be exploring questions in this touch-point such as:

  • How can you help customers help themselves?
  • How can you help customers to seek out solutions to their own issues, without ever having to engage them?
  • How can you possibly do that using Knowledgebase, IVR, Chatbots and/or online communities?

Low-touch service

This touch-point covers self-service support solutions such as social media, chat, email, and SMS.

Business seeking to provide end-to-end experience to their customers should be exploring questions in this touch-point such as:

  • When a customer is in contact, how can you find how they got to this point?
  • What info can you access that will aid in the conversation?

High-touch service

This support facility is concerned for more complex needs and thereby requires well-trained staffs, which also include field-support agents apart from partner networks to solve the issues.

Business seeking to provide end-to-end experience to their customers should be exploring questions in this touch-point such as:

  • How do you send a field support technician to fix the issues in a most effective way?
  • How can you select the field support technician who has the appropriate skills?
  • How do you understand whether it is best to use your field support agents or one from the partner ecosystem?
  • How do you find the field support agent who is in a closer geo-location to the customer?

Support infrastructure

The infrastructure that is required to be in place to help businesses answer all these questions must understand that a united end-to-end experience can be supported only by three key components that include:

  • Communications infrastructure
  • System of records
  • Customer listening platform

Communications infrastructure

With the right channel infrastructure in place, it is feasible to take all the different inputs and thereafter prioritize the customers appropriately.
Easy to use CRM is a business solution that helps you to connect to your social channels, phone lines, SMS gateways and so on.

Hence, if you are an SMB, best small business CRM software would ensure, that if a customer is emailing for support to your company, it will help you to read the email in the context of the importance of the customer, correlating the customer’s info from the easy to use CRM database , as opposed to just another email and let you understand that responding to that email could be more important than replying the ringing phone from another customer.

Systems of record

Having a system of record like cloud based easy to use CRM software helps support teams in businesses to manage the expectations of their customers.

For example, if there is a delay in shipment because of a natural calamity in North America, or if your organization needs someone with the right level of technical skills to solve the customer-facing issue, and you have just one person to accomplish the job and he is on a holiday for the next seven days, you need to have that understanding recorded into your system of records so that although customers do not like getting bad news, nevertheless they prefer to be informed than deal with a brand that is not aware of what is happening.

Customer listening

The final part of creating a united end-to-end experience is how your company’s support teams learn to listen and improve.

Now, traditionally VoC (Voice of the Customer) meant collecting an NPS (Net Promoter Score) at the end of every month to take a look and find how happy your customers are.
But, what happens if there is a major issue, can you wait until the end of the month to improve it?

Therefore it is extremely important that you should constantly listen to your customer feedbacks and work out means to engage and respond to their issues.

Using easy to use CRM software helps businesses to deliver real-time engagements, and thereby recognize and understand the pulse of the customer and also learn how to respond to their problems speedily.

Obstacles to overcome

Now, with all the technologies and tools readily available along with the growing awareness of the completive advantage of providing world-class customer experience, it does raise the question of why most businesses are not delivering unified end-to-end support excellence to their customers.

According to many it is believed that the tradition of “point solution” approaches is to be blamed, whereby businesses adopt a “sticking plaster approach” to solve tactical customer support challenges as and when they happen, rather than moving a step back to find a more holistic look at what is needed to improve the customer experience of their brands.

Therefore organizations that are encumbered by legacy infrastructures prevents them from delivering a joined-up experience and so using a business tool like easy to use CRM software that combines sales, marketing, collaborations, and support in a unified platform and is hence better aligned with the bigger goals of the company is the only solution for providing end-to-end service excellence to the customers which help eliminate creating tactical resolutions in isolation for your business growth.

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Key Reasons Why You Need A Cloud Based CRM For Your Small Business

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the most popular buzzword in today’s competitive business landscape, as most of us know that easy to use cloud based CRM can bring significant benefits to your business. It really does not matter if your organization employees 10 or more than a 1000 people. Since when it comes to choosing a CRM solution, the first thing that we should look at is that this tool should be able to help you right here, right now; should be capable of handling all your unique business needs without any major customization, help you to establish closer connections with your leads, prospects and customers; can be accessed day and night in and out of your office, should not be complicated to use, must be affordable for startups and small businesses and lastly make your business sell more and grow faster in your marketplace.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the most popular buzzword in today’s competitive business landscape, as most of us know that easy to use cloud based CRM can bring significant benefits to your business.

It really does not matter if your organization employees 10 or more than a 1000 people.

Cloud-based services will continue to grow in 2019, predicting a 23% growth compared to what it was 5 years ago- International Data Corporation Click To Tweet

Since when it comes to choosing a CRM solution, the first thing that we should look at is that this tool should be able to help you right here, right now; should be capable of handling all your unique business needs without any major customization, help you to establish closer connections with your leads, prospects and customers; can be accessed day and night in and out of your office, should not be complicated to use, must be affordable for startups and small businesses and lastly make your business sell more and grow faster in your marketplace.

So let us steer you in this article through these unchartered CRM waters, help you to find the best small business CRM software for your SMB, and make you appreciate and understand the advantages of using a cloud based CRM software over traditional on-premise CRM solutions that are still available but rarely sold in the CRM space.

What is cloud based CRM?

Cloud based CRM or SaaS CRM software solutions, defines an easy to use CRM solution that is hosted in the Cloud.

Cloud based CRM software platforms like Salesforce and many other Salesforce Alternative CRM solutions can be accessed through the internet, making it convenient for all users to access the same info at any time through desktop, mobile or tablets, irrespective of their geo-locations across the globe.

Why lifting your business up to the Cloud?

IT Cloud services, in general, have seen stellar and unprecedented growth in the recent times. According to an IDC (International Data Corporation), report spending on cloud-based services will continue to grow in 2019, predicting a 23 percent growth compared to what it was 5 years ago.

Therefore here are some of the key reasons why easy to use cloud based CRM software is a tool that all businesses (especially small business and startups) should sincerely consider to harness rapid business growth.

Trouble-free installation

There is a deep-rooted fear even today that CRM solutions come with complex installation processes. Nevertheless, in 2019, this is completely erroneous and untrue.

Unlike traditional on-premise CRM solutions, modern cloud based easy to use CRM software solutions are extremely easy to learn and can be up and running in no time.
Simple as it is, all you need to install a cloud based CRM software is just an access to the internet.

Seamless access

Accessibility round-the-clock is by far the biggest advantage of using a cloud based CRM software.

For example, imagine you need to make a game-changing and urgent sales call while on the go, or quickly find a contact’s phone no. or email, or amend a sales proposal when you are out of your office. Well, in all these varied circumstances, cloud based CRM software is the only solution that can let you access your best CRM for small business from anywhere using a desktop, laptop, tablet, or even a cheap smartphone. Again all you need to access your easy to use CRM software remotely is an internet.

Therefore, as your employees can access and remain connected with the centralized CRM database using a cloud based CRM even outside working hours (if need be), cloud based CRM software platforms are particularly handy for any modern businesses.

Ease of use

Using a CRM cannot get easier than using a cloud based CRM software platform.
All you need to do, to use a SaaS CRM solution; you need to buy a software package at a fixed monthly pricing and thereafter log-in with the access code provided by your CRM vendor while making sure that you have reasonably fast internet connectivity at all times.

Cloud based CRM software solutions are maintained by the vendors of the CRM and it is also accompanied by a wide range of self-service online system maintenance tools.

Affordability

Another major benefit of using cloud based CRM software over on-premise traditional CRM systems is that this business-enhancement software will certainly never break your bank or rip your budget.

This is because no business especially if it is an SMB or a startup organization likes to allocate a big sum of their budget for a one-off purchase, but prefer to use a business solution which can be availed by smaller regular installments.

Now, all cloud based CRM software platforms operates on the pay-as-you-go subscription business model, which, needs minimal upfront investments. Moreover, there are no hidden costs associated with the tool, such as buying additional hardware or license fees.

For example, if you are using ConvergeHub, the best small business CRM software, which is an award-winning cloud based CRM platform, the subscription can be as low as $11 per user/ month (billed quarterly) or $9 per user/month (billed annually).

Uncompromised security

An extremely serious concern for all businesses using cloud based information storage system is undoubtedly security.

Truthfully, the security of the CRM database is one of the most prevailing reasons as to why companies were wary of installing a cloud based solution for their businesses.

Nevertheless, in recent times, CRM vendors that offer online SaaS solutions know that very well and therefore take security issues most seriously.

Not surprisingly, in 2019, the information security levels in cloud based CRM software solutions are much higher than on-premise CRM tools.

This is because, cloud based CRM vendors offer advanced and automated data backup strategies that have an impeccable data recovery plan, two-step verification, and also strong password protection (more after the introduction of GDRP on May 25th, 2018) to counteract any data breach in their systems.

Reliability

No business wants to deploy a system that you use every day to crash at a moment’s notice, bringing potential financial meltdown for your business.

The good news is that with cloud based CRM software such a situation almost never occurs as its server has multiple replicas in the cloud. Therefore, if one server fails it is immediately replaced by another and so SaaS CRM software systems continue to remain operational 99.99% of the time and are hence reliable enough even for the fussiest of organizations in the business world.

Flexible potential

When adopting their chosen best small business CRM software, most SMBs like to start with only the features that can help with them with their unique needs.

However, with time as your company expands, you may come to a decision that you need, for example, new features, integrations and more for your business growth.

In this case, if you are using a cloud based CRM, you can immediately update the CRM to satisfy your novel business needs.

For example, you might like to integrate QuickBooks accounting software that you have been using since long for your business with your CRM, and so by easily integrating the two software use QuickBooks CRM you can make your idea come true which offers QuickBooks CRM integration free.

Hence, cloud based CRM offers bigger and better integrations and is capable of developing more innovative and robust CRM software solutions that can be provided to you straight away.

Enhanced compatibility

Silo products and solutions have little chance of success in today’s IT world.

Therefore, the exchange of information between already available technologies is considered paramount nowadays.

Hence, much like QuickBooks CRM, several other integrations and compatibility with other products and services is the key to ensure the longevity and effective utilization of your cloud based CRM software platform.

Cloud based CRM can easily integrate with software and applications, such as email clients, MS products, predictive dialers, business automation, and documentation software solutions and more, which make SaaS CRM software the appropriate choice for modern startups and small businesses.

Takeaway

Hence, when you are adopting a cloud based CRM solution, after reading this article make sure that your vendor provides a flexible SaaS solution that is able to sustain your business growth .

Now if you want to know further and learn more as to how cloud based CRM can impact your business, request a personalized demo by clicking the link below.

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Quickly Meet Customer Experience Expectations with Easy To Use CRM

The executive VP of Comcast who is in charge of CX (Customer Experience) for the brand Charlie Herrin once said: “Customer service is what happens when customer experience breaks.” Well, this is indeed an insightful observation that suggested that if businesses do their job rightly, understand their customer’s intent, get into the minds of their customers, anticipate their customer’s needs and thereafter deliver world-class experience, we may no longer need contact centers across the globe to field communications from disgruntled and confused peoples.

The executive VP of Comcast who is in charge of CX (Customer Experience) for the brand Charlie Herrin once said:
“Customer service is what happens when customer experience breaks.”
Well, this is indeed an insightful observation that suggested that if businesses do their job rightly, understand their customer’s intent, get into the minds of their customers, anticipate their customer’s needs and thereafter deliver world-class experience, we may no longer need contact centers across the globe to field communications from disgruntled and confused peoples.
In fact, customer communication cannot be confined to any single channel in this age of digital transformation but rather should be designed to match your modern customer’s wants and needs.
Hence primarily businesses should build a 360-degree view of their customers using easy to use CRM software to engage their customers more effectively.

Customer service is what happens when customer experience breaks - Charlie Herrin (Comcast) Click To Tweet

As Scott Rice at Sprint sums up the challenges faced by businesses for delivering modern customer experience stats:

“It isn’t just a cool website…. Digital needs to be applied across every interaction channel because it affects how you make decisions and use information to solve a problem or to sell.”

According to Forrester, in the present times as we have entered the “Age of the Customer” in a global survey done by Oracle it has been found that more the 75% of consumer feel brands provide inefficient customer service, and 25-30 percent of consumers feel that they would remain more loyal to brands that use chat, voice, video and other modern customer engagement technologies to instantly route support tickets to the appropriate people having the information they desire to resolve their issues.

Now, if like most organizations you also know that you need to boost the customer experience of your brand with technologies like adopting easy to use CRM software, but is perplexed to find where to focus; here are five places that can get you started:

  1. Create a One-Stop Mobile Experience

According to Comscore (an American media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises), it has been stated on average consumers spend 70% of their media time on their smartphones.

Therefore, any organization that is looking for delivering better customer experience for its consumers needs to create a mobile app for its brand to boost its engagement with the customers.

Moreover, this mobile app should also make it simple for the customers to directly interact with the brand within the app, so that the branded mobile application can be a one-stop-shop for anything that a consumer needs to resolve their pain-points and issues.

  1. Eliminate the Waiting Game

According to a survey done by Oracle, it has been observed that long waiting time is one of the most predominant factors (approximately 51%) that leads to customer dissatisfaction and consequentially increase in churn.

In this digital age of cutting edge technology and easy to use CRM platforms customers hate to be put on hold or navigate complex IVR
(Interactive Voice Response ) systems for information to solve their issues, whereby they often end-up speaking with the wrong agents.

Now, with bots powered by AI (Artificial Intelligence) and machine learning, these types of problems will soon vanish as cloud based CRM software platforms both Salesforce and Salesforce Alternative CRM software solutions are gearing up speedily for including both these technologies to counteract these issues and provide enhanced customer experience to the consumers.

  1. Engage Customers throughout Their Journey

Always expecting the consumers to take the first step to contact a brand and tell them about their needs is a traditional scenario, not liked by several Millennial(s) who are becoming the biggest consumer in the U.S.A.

Since according to the U.S Census Bureau:

“Millennial(s) are expected to overtake Boomers in population in 2019 as their numbers swell to 73 million and Boomers decline to 72 million.”

Therefore, customers now expect more from businesses and so brands also must now invest in understanding, identifying, and deploying new means for connecting with their consumers and service their customers throughout their customer journeys.

Comcast’s Charlie Herrin notes that the first thing that his company did for the transformation of customer service was to proactively reach out to their consumers throughout their customer journey with updates about anything that is affecting their customer’s experiences.
For example, by incessantly monitoring communications of the customers on social media platforms made Comcast decreased its response time from weeks to 10-15 minutes, while on the other hand expanding it SMS database from zero to 6.5 million users for sending text-based “stay in touch” messages to its customers, and presently disseminates approximately 15 million SMS messages per month with the help of Marketing Automation solution in their easy to use CRM software.

  1. Give Emphasis to Context in Customer Journeys

Always remember, you need proper technology to handle your brand so that your support employees never have to ask security questions when your customer is already dialing to your call center or logging on to your business website or app.

Therefore, it is most important that businesses that are proactively working to provide stellar customer experience to their consumers must use easy to use CRM so that they can remain totally prepared for every call with relevant information about the caller which they can view in front of them at a moment’s notice.

This is because contextual data of the customers stored in the CRM database , like who are they, what they already searched on the website or app, if they are a preferred member, and more, can be easily made ready in all situations using easy to use CRM software for businesses.

  1. Always Be Listening and Learning

In addition to what the customers see, your organization must invest in back end systems that can help to optimize your organization’s ability to capture, analyze, and mine data across all their customer channels integrated with their easy to use CRM.

All media types and interactions with your customers (like screen sharing, video, text, voice, etc.) should be recorded in real-time so that they can be available for insights later, which will ultimately allow the businesses to modify their customer experience scenarios and provide even better customer experience for rapid business growth.

Conclusion

Therefore, irrespective of your business model and industry personalized and proactive interactions with the customers are both mission-critical for understanding the mindset of today’s empowered customers which can be only done by leveraging on technologies like easy to use CRM software solutions which makes businesses remain better prepared to avoid “breaking the experience” and meet their customer’s needs.

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New Trends to Boost Your Best Small Business CRM in 2019

With the arrival of 2019, different kinds of easy to use CRM software (even Salesforce Alternative CRM software solutions) are predicted to go through substantial overhauls and renovations- in terms of better intelligence, enhanced automation, new integrations and much more. Hence, the transformation in the cloud based CRM industry for small businesses is as good as its ability to gear up with the latest trends in the software industry, which consequentially makes us look at a number of new features that will surely revolutionize the way we use easy to use best small business CRM today.

Best small business CRM software solutions in modern times are all about better supporting and serving the customers during their journey.
Modern CRM for small businesses software platforms empower startups and small business establishments to form an emotional bonding with their prospects and customers by looking out for their best interests as a consumer of their offerings. Additionally easy to use CRM software solutions also ensures the customer-facing employees of an organization to find the right information and data from their best small business CRM software about their customers at the right time, so that they can better focus on nurturing relationships.

The Service Desk Institute has found that more than 80 percent of IT departments are using self-service as a way to meet this need. Click To Tweet

Just like any other advancements in technology with every passing year, easy to use CRM software is also undergoing futuristic transformations, bringing new innovations and simplifications to this three-lettered workplace, within an entire organization.
Therefore, be it marketing, sales, accounts, operations, or even event management and collaborations, modern best small business CRM like ConvergeHub can only get better and smarter.

With the arrival of 2019, different kinds of easy to use CRM software (even Salesforce Alternative CRM software solutions) are predicted to go through substantial overhauls and renovations- in terms of better intelligence, enhanced automation, new integrations and much more.

Hence, the transformation in the cloud based CRM industry for small businesses is as good as its ability to gear up with the latest trends in the software industry, which consequentially makes us look at a number of new features that will surely revolutionize the way we use easy to use best small business CRM today.

  1. Automatic Workflows and Intuitive User-Interface Reconfiguration

Using AI (Artificial Intelligence), modern best small business CRM software platforms will be able to adjust workflows more effectively and perform with lesser turn-around time.

This will be done by using technologies like AI and machine learning- two of the most advanced technologies that can simulate human behaviors using a non-human entity.

By learning and understanding the usage patterns and trends of the users, easy to use CRM software for small businesses and startup organizations will automatically take over mundane repetitive tasks and even adapt the user interfaces to individual usage based on their usage patterns.

Manash Chaudhuri (CTO of ConvergeHub- The #1 Easiest Converged CRM for SMB) remarks:

“At ConvergeHub, we are in the process of incorporating AI and Machine Learning into the future of our sales and marketing tools. Using AI in the sales and marketing processes creates a more tailored and user-specific experience for the buyers and can help small business organizations get found by more prospective customers, convert more new leads and thereby sell their products and services to more customers.”

  1. CRM at the Center of an Omni-channel Approach

Nowadays, more than six touch points are needed before any typical sale, which happens across several channels.
According to us as small business CRM vendor and consultants, we have realized that simply initiating touch points across multiple channels is not enough- rather the consistency of customer experience is what that really counts as much as the breadth of engagement.

Therefore, the fewer touch points that you use the better will be your sales process as a small business organization.
Hence, in 2019 easy to use CRM platforms will proactively look towards ramping up their integration algorithms and API with the objective of attaining leaner and tighter integrations with external services and tools.

In the modern times, easy to use cloud based CRM software systems are therefore evolving to serve as the never center for this omnichannel approach, unifying mobile marketing, landing pages, social campaigns, customer support ticketing, sales calls, accounting processes and other channels into a coherent whole.

In the recent times in 2018, ConvergeHub has integrated QuickBooks online, with its CRM systems, and is now one of the most popular QuickBooks CRM in the small business CRM marketplace, offering QuickBooks CRM integration free.

  1. Self-Service via easy to use CRM platforms

One particular channel that will witness a stellar growth and deeper integration with CRM for small and medium businesses- is self service.

While Gartner predicts that by 2020:

“A customer will manage 85% of the relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human, so make sure to give your customers the direction and tools they need to accomplish tasks themselves.“

In another whitepaper published by ZenDesk states:

“50% of customers think it’s important to solve product or service issues themselves and 70% expect a company’s website to include a self-service application.“

In 2019 it is predicted that more than half of the modern consumers are likely to abandon an online purchase if they cannot get an answer to their questions quickly.

According to Forrester Research:

“The Service Desk Institute has found that more than 80 percent of IT departments are using self-service as a way to meet this need.”

Therefore, the link between easy to use CRM and self-service is a natural one as CRM application when integrated with ChatBots is capable of customizing self-service interactions and render a customer care feedback loop that sales, marketing, and support teams can also tap into in real-time as and when it is needed.

Hence, small and medium business CRM software vendors like ConvergeHub have also taken into notice the need for customer-service integration and self-service in particular, which is on a rise.

  1. From CRM to Social CRM

The transition to easy to use social CRM is imminent. Engaging customers by creating virtual communities is a more pertinent way that will be the new trend in social media marketing.
Therefore, it is predicted that in 2019 and beyond these communities and social media as a whole will take a greater shape as an important element within all best small business CRM software platforms.

Since being social will not only help businesses interact more closely with their consumers, but it will also provide hitherto unseen insights into customer’s buying patterns and their behaviors, which in turn will enhance to the lead nurturing capability of the easy to use CRM for small business in a big way.

  1. Enhanced Mobility

Customers of easy to use CRM for small businesses are no longer bound to their PCs and are constantly accessing data on the go. Therefore, customer support resources and front line sales and marketing employees will be increasingly empowered by mobile devices for support.

In 2019 we should also see NLP (Natural Language Processing) making its way into best small business CRM software platforms as a precursor to adding functionalities such as recording minutes of the meetings, updating records, and several other voice-based interactions that can revolutionize the way we interact with cloud based CRM software technology today.

Finally- On-premises CRM has become the exception

Adoption of cloud based CRM for startups and small and medium businesses used to be a tough sell.
However, that is no longer the case.

According to our research, we found that 80 percent of all new CRM purchases are in the cloud.

This is because not only finding sufficient talents and vendor support to maintain these on-premise legacy systems will become more difficult to find over time but the increasing need to access the CRM software from multiple locations and devices has also led to the rise of using cloud based CRM solutions in small businesses.

Therefore, if privacy protection was an obstacle to cloud based CRM adoption in the past, after the enforcement of the GDPR rules, this year may be the time to look again for cloud based CRM in the market for better and deeper interactions with your leads, prospects, and customers.

Do you want 2019 to be the year where you achieve massive revenue growth?

Then start planning NOW.

Create your revenue growth strategy for 2019.

If you would like to get some ideas or brainstorm on how ConvergeHub can provide the right technology to achieve your company’s marketing and sales goals, and retain your existing customers by enhancing customer’s experience with your brand, you can reserve a confidential consultation with one of our experts.

On this 30-45 minute call we will:

  • Take a deep-dive into your business process
  • Pinpoint areas with most growth potential
  • Discuss how to implement an effective marketing automation system that lets you focus on the most important tasks

Click here to check out how you can achieve your sales growth plans in 2019!

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The Importance Of A Clean CRM Database To A Successful Sales Team

Regardless of what industry you are in, growing your business to new heights can really be a challenging up-hill job. In any business, its sales teams achieve success for a number of reasons, and so it is often tough to exactly pinpoint why one business or a sales team is more successful than another. Nevertheless, there are in general two important factors that most thriving sales teams employ for success and growth of their businesses- the right easy to use CRM software and proper data management of their CRM database.

Regardless of what industry you are in, growing your business to new heights can really be a challenging up-hill job.
In any business, its sales teams achieve success for a number of reasons, and so it is often tough to exactly pinpoint why one business or a sales team is more successful than another.
Nevertheless, there are in general two important factors that most thriving sales teams employ for success and growth of their businesses- the right easy to use CRM software and proper data management of their CRM database.

Why?

This is because to move ahead in this modern competitive marketplace, businesses need to have the right people and essentially the right tools to work hand in hand.

ConvergeHub's ROCKET LAUNCH 2019 can help you acquire leads, automate your sales process, improve your conversion and get more referrals from satisfied customers. Click To Tweet

Therefore, when businesses use the data utilized by their sales teams on a day-to-day basis (which includes actions taken by the sales teams to turn prospective leads into customers) and input that data into the CRM database, it creates a potent business model that provides any business an edge over its competitions.

After all, there is simply no point in adopting a robust and easy to use CRM software , if you cannot use it to its full advantage- manage all your businesses’ data, and streamline the sales process for your marketing and sales teams.

Since, proper and effective CRM data management in combination with an intelligent and intuitive CRM software not only escalates your businesses’ marketing, sales, and customer relationships, but it also keep your sales teams working efficiently, which in turn boosts revenue growth inevitably.

Reasons you require CRM software to manage data and boost sales

Are you still using pen and paper or a spreadsheet to track your customer’s sales history and not using an easy to use CRM software to manage your customers or track your sales data and business processes?

Do not worry! If your customer data management is still stuck in the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age, there is no better time than now for an upgrade.

With incredible CRM software platforms now available like ConvergeHub CRM for small business and others, your business can easily organize and integrate not only all your lead and customer data, but even your entire sales process (from managing leads and prospects to closing deals). In addition, CRM also provide comprehensive data analytics, and customer relationship management that are acceptable to your entire sales, marketing, and support teams.

This means, even if one sales rep in your company picks up where another sales person left off, they can find complete customer communication and interaction history, which in turn makes the customer feel important and valued.
With a small business CRM software platform like ConvergeHub, important information, and data is seamlessly updated across all networks, which allows every person in your organization to stay focused and up-to-date on what that matters the most- THE CUSTOMER.

Inputting your business data in the CRM database in an easy to use CRM software can even free up time spent on analyzing customer data for generating leads, sending follow-up emails, or setting up appointments for your sales teams. Since, these tedious tasks can kill time that takes away critical opportunities for harvesting revenue, away from your sales teams.

Easy to use CRM software when used efficiently acts as the heart of your organization and helps your sales teams to streamline data and sales processes. By managing and tracking all sales and customer-facing interactions, easy to use CRM software like ConvergeHub, provides everything that you need to close deals and keep your customers happy at your fingertips, which is the true driving force behind any successful business.

By organizing your customer data in the CRM database into helpful categories like Customers, Lost deals, Influencers, Potential partners, and many more, an easy to use CRM platform ensures that your sales reps never fail to meet the requirements of every person that contributes to the growth of your business.

Beyond this, CRM software also offers robust analytical tools that can help your organization to make strategic sales, and budget decisions, by viewing wins-losses, rep performances, and analyzing gaps in your sales processes.

Therefore, what does all this ultimately means?

The answer is- Happier customers, happy sales teams, and therefore, more sales and revenue.

THE TIME TO GET ORGANIZED- IS NOW!

According to a research conducted by a reputed global agency in 2017, it was shocking to find that an astounding 40% of businesses nationwide do not use any data management software and still rely on spreadsheets to mange leads and opportunities, before turning to more often than not cloud based CRM software platforms.

Therefore, by now we guess that must be saying to yourself: “I am in- but how do I get started?”

Well, actually it is all very simple.. So here we go!

STEP #1- SIGN UP

If your small and medium-sized business does not already have an easy to use small business CRM software, it is time to sign up now.

With all the options, that are on-hand these days, you might feel a bit inundated and overwhelmed, but with a little research, you can quickly find which robust small business CRM software, might work best for your business and your sales teams.

STEP# 2- INPUT YOUR DATA INTO YOUR CRM SOFTWARE

Primarily, once you begin, you need to be really careful about how you input your data in the CRM database, so that it matches your sales processes and help you to track your customers exactly as you would like it to do.

Luckily, most easy to use cloud based CRM software like ConvergeHub, comes with systematic, and explicit tutorials that will ensure that all your data is entered in the most appropriate ways, which can efficiently help you to drive your sales teams, and keep them organized.

All best sales CRM software solutions out there offers features to manage all your customer data in the CRM database, through the sales process, including:

  • Leads
  • Campaigns
  • Products
  • Pricing
  • Opportunities
  • Invoicing and Quotes

In all fairness, while even an easy to use CRM software is incredibly useful for businesses, nevertheless, it is not a perfect system.
Hence, inputting data in the CRM database, may initially have some pushback from your sales reps and make them feel that their time could have been more profitably spent making sales (and not inputting data), but in this case, remind your team that ensuring input of quality data in the software is vital for long-term success of any sales team.

STEP#3- OBSERVE YOUR BUSINESS GROW

Once your sales and customer data in the CRM database is organized and is used efficiently, you can expect to see a flourish in the growth of your sales revenue and hence your sales teams will finally find time to focus on their customers- which is the “numero uno” method for improving sales and profitability.

Remember, in today’s competitive marketplace, adopting an easy to use CRM software like ConvergeHub for growing sales and getting your customer data organized is no longer an option, but an absolute necessity for taking your business to the next level of success.

Is your business stuck with mediocre or no growth?

See how ConvergeHub can skyrocket your revenue growth in 2019 and beyond.

Just click here to schedule a 30-minute ROCKET LAUNCH Session to scale your business to next level.

Here is what ConvergeHub can do for your businesses:

    • Acquire leads through structured marketing campaigns

    • Build your own sales process to follow up and nurture leads

    • Drive sales with efficient sales automation

    • Turn your customers into raving fans through efficient customer support

    • Grow revenue through single click Quotes and Invoices

    • Get 360-degree customer view to provide highest customer satisfaction

    • Multichannel touch points in real time with all prospects and customers

    • Automate your workflow to increase team productivity

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Why SMBs Have Embraced Cloud Based Easy to Use CRM Platforms

For all business organizations, especially small and medium-sized businesses and startups growth is indispensable to meet up competition in the market. SMBs also have another factor; they mostly have a tight budget and a quick time frame for making their brand make a mark in the business world. As growth with a limited budget can be a hard task for any small organization, however, small and medium businesses are discovering Cloud based easy to use CRM platforms nowadays, which is making it easier for them to achieve this feat. Also popularly known as Software as a Service (SaaS), On Demand, or Cloud based CRM, it simply means that your information and data is stored in the Cloud, instead of, in your own server as in On-Premise CRM systems.

For all business organizations, especially small and medium-sized businesses and startups growth is indispensable to meet up competition in the market.
SMBs also have another factor; they mostly have a tight budget and a quick time frame for making their brand make a mark in the business world.
Growth with a limited budget can be a hard task for any small organization, however, small and medium businesses are discovering Cloud based easy to use CRM platforms nowadays, which is making it easier for them to achieve this feat.

In 2018, 87% of the businesses are estimated to use cloud-based CRM, while a mere 13% are pegged to use on-premise CRM. Click To Tweet

Also popularly known as Software as a Service (SaaS), On Demand, or Cloud based CRM, it simply means that your information and data is stored in the Cloud, instead of, in your own server as in On-Premise CRM systems.

While it may sound very obvious that you would always like to store your data in your own server, but the truth remains that Cloud is actually more secure, requires less maintenance, and you are less likely to lose access to your data once it is uploaded on the Cloud.

According to a recent survey by CBR (Computer Business Review), it is reported that 86% of small and medium businesses found improvement in their business processes since adopting an easy to use CRM software platform that is cloud based. CBR also reported in the same research study that the SMB cloud services markets would escalate by approximately 17% by 2021.

Now if you are curious to know “why”, here are 3 compelling reasons to go for easy to use CRM software platforms like ConvergeHub that are built on the Cloud.

  1. It Is Cost Effective

Unlike traditional On-Premise CRM systems, with easy to use CRM solutions that are Cloud based Customer Relationship Management software platforms, you do not need to buy and maintain a private server. Rather in a Cloud based CRM, you can easily access a website that is created for the customers through a hosting service. Additionally, Cloud based CRM systems save time and money during CRM implementation process, as easy to use CRM software platforms, which are Cloud based CRM gets you up and running in few hours, without impeding your daily workflow.

  1. Your Data Is Always Available and Protected

As it was a decade before, when your CRM software lives on your personal server, it becomes solely your responsibility to make sure that your CRM database is consistently backed up, just in case your server may fail one day. Cloud based CRM software like ConvergeHub takes backups of your software’s data, and manages them using Cloud infrastructure that is used for building the easy to use CRM platform.

This way, you never have to worry and fret about how long it has been since you last backed up the data in your easy to use CRM database.

With Cloud based CRM systems even, a power outage also does not mean it is lights out for your business. Word class data centers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) used by ConvergeHub have redundant storage, power, and overflow of seamless internet connectivity all available to maintain your CRM system during the most challenging situations, all the time.

However, if your CRM’s server is On-Premise, it signifies that even a small power outage invariably signifies a loss of all access to your CRM database until power is restored.
Nevertheless, with a Cloud based CRM, since your information is stored in the Cloud, you and your employees can still access the data even during a power outage, from any location that caters to power and internet.

  1. Superior Security

Many small business owners may have an uneasy feeling about keeping their precious and sensitive customer data in the Cloud, remembering frequent headlines we often hear about hacking and data breaches. However, with Cloud based CRM software platforms, your data always remains in the hands of professionals. Cloud providers like AWS, MS Azure, and others provide their employs with state-of-the-art security measures so that they can obtain and keep their customers happy.

Any small business owner using an On-Premise CRM software can rarely afford such extravagant measures, and so users of Cloud based software platforms get enterprise-level security for their SMB with the Cloud.

In fact, Cloud companies and data centers also invest millions of dollars in professional security services to monitor and guard their servers 24 hours a day.

Moreover, user sessions with Cloud are also fully SSL encrypted, which helps in establishing highly secured end-to-end connections between the server and the points of use.

Conclusion                      

Therefore, although  it completely depends on the needs of your business whether you choose Cloud or On-Premise CRM software for your company, Cloud  based easy to use CRM software solutions indisputably have several benefits over On-Premise CRM software, which makes SMBs embrace CRM(s) like ConvergeHub, which is an award-winning Cloud based  easy to use CRM platform.

If you are new to ConvergeHub, the best CRM for SMB, click on the link below for a 14-day trial of the software.

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Practical Guide For Upselling And Cross-Selling With An Effective QuickBooks CRM Software

We all have been sometimes or the other on the receiving end of pushy sale pitches, and hence knows why up-selling and cross-selling often gets a bad rap. However, if it is done effectively, with a robust QuickBooks CRM software both these marketing strategies are actually great weapons to grow your business by leveraging on your brands existing customer base. Therefore, primarily, let us clarify the difference between up-selling and cross-selling before we talk about the great strategies that can make it happen in reality.

We all have been sometimes or the other on the receiving end of pushy sale pitches, and hence know why up-selling and cross-selling often gets a bad rap.
However, if it is done effectively, with a robust QuickBooks CRM software both these marketing strategies are actually great weapons to grow your business by leveraging on your brand’s existing customer base.

Therefore, primarily, let us clarify the difference between up-selling and cross-selling before we talk about the great strategies that can make it happen in reality.

First thing first, Up-selling happens when you encourage and convince an existing customer to buy a more expensive item, version, or an upgrade of their intended purchase. A classic example of up-selling is when someone asks you in a restaurant “Would you prefer potato-chips with that?”
Here up-selling happens as the customer has already purchased one food item and adding fries to the menu just makes it a more delicious and expensive combo.

A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10%- Emmet Murphy & Mark Murphy Click To Tweet

On the other hand, cross-selling happens when you try to persuade your customer to buy add-on products or services that complement the customer’s initial purchase. For an example, when you purchase a two-wheeler, the seller will encourage you (hopefully) to add a fog-light and a helmet in the interest of the buyer’s safety.

Hence, regardless of whatever that your company sells, the act of selling becomes more effective at up selling, whereas cross-selling aids in generating repeat business and increase your revenue.

Are you now ready to get started?

Then, keep reading or download this PDF to learn how best CRM for QuickBooks online like ConvergeHub makes it easier to achieve these goals.

Always remain transparent about the pricing

While up-selling and cross-selling your products or services, your customers must never feel like they have been tricked into spending more. Therefore, advice your employees using your QuickBooks CRM for sales teams, to be upfront about what the add-on offering(s) will cost before telling the benefits of buying the products or services. Remember customers always appreciate honesty, and so they are more likely to consider the value of your proposed offerings if they are not distracted by unknown numbers.

It is always helpful to present your customers with an estimate that provides a line-by-line pricing break-up of your offerings.

Using QuickBooks CRM software allows your sales executives to create estimates easily directly within the easy to use CRM software, without requiring to wait for someone else to access the QuickBooks.

Bundle related offerings together

Here is the reason why “Would you prefer potato-chips with that?” is so very effective. Prospective customers always love a good deal, and it is typically cheaper to purchase a combo offer, than to buy, their burger first and go back again for potato chips later.

Now, if you find that your customer is debating whether to include an additional item to their purchase, try offering a time-bound discount on the combo offer, which certainly provides an incentive to buy now rather than waiting.

Therefore, if you want to refer to the regular prices of items in your selling list before making the big promises, QuickBooks CRM software platforms like ConvergeHub, allows your representatives to easily view your list of offerings and their usual pricing without leaving the CRM.

Know your customers’ preferences

According to Marketing Metrics, one of the leading market research firms focusing solely on advisor-sold investments and insurance across the world, states, “the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 – 70%, while the probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%”.
This happens largely because if you are using an easy to use CRM software, your employees already know who your existing customers are and what they prefer to buy at large.

Therefore, using a best CRM software for QuickBooks like ConvergeHub that offers QuickBooks CRM integration free your employees can track your customer’s past purchases and preferences, which can be thereafter used for identifying up-selling and cross-selling opportunities that are most relevant to their likings.

Using a QuickBooks CRM software like ConvergeHub not only provides a 360-degree picture of a customer’s history with your businesses, but it also provides every single personal detail and past communications with the customers which include notes, phone conversations, their response to your customized email campaigns in a centralized location, before formulating a new sales pitch.

Understand your customers’ journeys

Pay attention to the storyline that led to your customer’s first purchase, Even if you find them busy and focused on eliminating one problem or achieve a goal, they may have also mentioned other pain points that are related to that cause. Therefore, taking note of these long-term plans of your customers opens up opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling, when the customers are ready to take their next big step.

Hence, always encourage your employees to record every single communication with their customer interactions as a mandatory activity and ensure that everyone on your sales, marketing, and customer support teams has an access to the customer information to assist the customers on their journey with your brand.

Conclusion

Hence, up-selling and cross-selling need not always have to be a shady affair, since the key to both these strategic approaches focuses on delivering vales to your customer.

Luckily, a QuickBooks CRM software like ConvergeHub, makes up-selling and cross-selling strategic approaches focused on delivering values to your customers, which consequently increase your revenue.

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How Best Small Business CRM Solution’s Sales Automation Software Separates The Amateurs From The Pros

When you think of activities that are most important for making a sale, you must be probably thinking about several actions that need the human touch of the sales reps in your organization. Like listening to the needs of your leads and prospects, developing a solution to their pain points, and thereafter ask for the sale. Sales automation refers to any software tool that facilitates or automates manual tasks for your sales teams. Therefore, the most popular purpose of using sales automation in your best small business CRM software is to eliminate tasks that do not involve direct interaction or relationship building activities with your customers and reduce the amount of effort a sales team spends on managing and organizing their sales processes.

When you think of activities that are most important for making a sale, you must be probably thinking about several actions that need the human touch of the sales reps in your organization. Like listening to the needs of your leads and prospects, developing a solution to their pain points, and thereafter ask for the sale.

In 2018, 87% of the businesses are estimated to use cloud-based CRM, while a mere 13% are pegged to use on-premise CRM. Click To Tweet

However, apart from selling there are also several other tasks that your sales reps need to perform on a regular basis, as according to a recent survey done by InsideSales stated:

“Sales reps only spend 35.2% of their time actually selling, with the majority of their day spent on administrative tasks, research, and other non-selling obligations.”

These non-selling obligations can be things like:

  • Updating lead records and logging activities in their best small business CRM
  • Finding prospect’s phone number before making a call and then writing call notes afterward
  • Researching on the prospects (like finding their job titles, social media accounts, and location)
  • Emailing customized contents to the prospects with respect to their stage in the buying cycle

For the managers in your sales teams, the most widespread non-selling activity may include assigning leads to their sales reps or training new salespersons on the team’s sales processes.

What Is Sales Automation in your best small business CRM?

Sales automation refers to any software tool that facilitates or automates manual tasks for your sales teams.

Therefore, the most popular purpose of using sales automation in your best small business CRM software is to eliminate tasks that do not involve direct interaction or relationship building activities with your customers and reduce the amount of effort a sales team spends on managing and organizing their sales processes.

However, in spite of what the word “sales automation” may imply, it cannot replace the basic task that a sales rep do- Selling.

In fact, sales automation is a process that makes the actual work of a sales rep more valuable, as it permits them to invest more attention and time on quality sales-related actions, like improving the sales process, qualifying leads, or give the best prospects more attention to hasten the sale.

Types of Sales Automation

Sales Automation is a general terminology that can take many different forms.

Many organizations use silo sales automation platforms that focus on one specific part of the sales process (like prospecting or sending cold emails), while other those who rely on their best CRM for small business like ConvergeHub, can automate numerous activities throughout the sales process with salesforce automation integrated into the CRM.

Here are some of the key areas that sales automation can help to undo some of the frustrating and busywork out of a sale rep’s daily work, using salesforce automation (SFA) friendly CRM like ConvergeHub, which caters to almost all of these helpful tools.

  1. Automate Record Creation

Sales automation in best small business CRM software can instantaneously generate easy to use CRM records when a business card is scanned, a web-form is filled out by a visitor, whereby it saves the reps from having to create new lead records and fresh contacts manually.

  1. Automated activity logging in best small and medium business CRM software

One of the most annoying and frustrating “non-selling tasks” for any sales rep is the need to log in phone calls, emails, and several other customer communications for the benefit of the managers and other employees in the organization. Sales automation software is capable of logging those activities into your easy to use CRM software as soon as they happen, without the sales rep having to do the task times and again manually.

  1. Automated research

A sales automation software integrated into an easy to use CRM that has the ability to scour the Web for information can aid the sales team in several ways, from gathering publicly available data on the prospects and adding them to the CRM database to searching social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn to identify potential customers.
Per say, users of ConvergeHub CRM for small business can also avail its FREE LEAD GENERATION TOOL for visiting anyone’s social media page and capture all information instantly with no manual typing.

  1. Automated data entry

Sales automation software platforms are also capable of doing many more things that involve typing. For example, if you need to create a proposal for your prospects, sales automation can auto-fill your leads’ and prospect’s details like name, address, pricing, and particulars of your offerings. Additionally, an automated dialer like Click-to-Call when integrated with an easy to use CRM software solution reduces the need for the salespeople to punch in phone numbers manually for outbound calls.

  1. Communication automation

Although no sales automation software even when integrated with an online lead management software like an easy to use CRM solution can put one-on-one communication on autopilot, nevertheless, many of the grunt-jobs involved in connecting with the prospects, delivering customized contents, or following up with the prospects at the right time, can be automated.

Sales email campaigns for prospecting targeted leads, scheduling meetings, and sending automated voicemails that permit sales reps to drop pre-recorded messages to the prospect’s mailbox when they do not answer their phones, can be easily automated using salesforce automation in a CRM.

  1. Lead management automation

One of primary thing that a sales manager needs to do when a lead comes into the sales pipeline is to assign the lead to the most capable rep that is most likely to close the deal, which is based on factors like demographic preferences, or how comfortable the sales rep is with the specific product line.

Sales automation software in easy to use CRM software, allows managers to automatically distribute leads to the reps by setting automatic lead assignment rules based on their preferred criteria.

Apart from this after a lead is assigned to a sales rep, sales automation can eliminate the need for the rep to manually advance the lead through the sales funnel in the CRM, when stage goals are accomplished, or update the lead score when a lead progresses from one stage to another and ends up (hopefully) into a sale.

  1. Automated guidance

With automated reminders implemented in an easy to use best small business CRM software, sale reps always know what they need to do next, which ensures that important meetings, and follow-ups with the prospects and leads, are completed on time.

How sales automation separate the amateurs from the pros?

Concisely, the basic and the most fundamental difference between the amateur and the pro sales reps lie in consistency.
Therefore sale automation software when integrated with best small business CRM software creates this consistency that is needed for a team to accurately measure the health of their sales funnel and impact of their sales and marketing efforts, which ultimately helps the team to make improvements in their sales strategies accordingly.

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What Is CRM And How It Can Unlock Massive Sales Enablement Benefits For Your Business

You may know by now what is CRM software, but are you aware of the term ‘Sales Enablement’ and what it means to your business? Well, in general, sales enablement refers to a process of providing your sales teams with the most effective tools they need to sell your offerings successfully. Therefore, sales enablement provides your sales teams with the right technology and content to better engage their prospects in the buying cycle. It is a tool that can unlock significant benefits that in turn will increase your sales and drive more revenue.

You may know by now what is CRM software, but are you aware of the term ‘Sales Enablement’ and what it means to your business?

Well, in general, sales enablement refers to a process of providing your sales teams with the most effective tools they need to sell your offerings successfully. Therefore, sales enablement provides your sales teams with the right technology and content to better engage their prospects in the buying cycle. It is a tool that can unlock significant benefits that in turn will increase your sales and drive more revenue.

Leads that are nurtured in the CRM system convert 47% of the time- Annuitas Group Click To Tweet

For example, ConvergeHub small business CRM software is a sales enablement tool that can empower your sales teams to convert more leads and prospects into customers in a much lesser time.

Therefore, with a small business sales enablement tool like a CRM in place, your business has the potential to provide more ROI rapidly.

However, what are these benefits that you can unlock with a best small business CRM like ConvergeHub?

Now that we know what is CRM software, let us dive in see!

Automating manual tasks

A sales enablement CRM for small and medium business drastically increases the efficiency of your sales teams by automating their day-to-day tasks. Therefore, when you use a Converged CRM that includes sales, marketing, customer support, and also accounts (if you are using a QuickBooks CRM), your efficiency increases dramatically.

Here are a few examples:

  1. Data Entry

Lead data is captured successfully when you leverage lead-generation forms. That means, your sales reps do not need to enter data manually, and they can use that time to focus on more important issues.

  1. Appointment scheduling

CRM helps to automate the process of scheduling the appointment process. This allows prospects and customers to schedule meeting with reps with their convenience, freeing them from having to conduct the actions manually.

  1. Lead Scoring

This process helps sales reps to take actions by viewing the propensity of the buyers. Lead scoring methods help in improving the quality of the leads. Hence, small business CRM software that includes lead scoring capabilities helps reps to focus on other things and at the same time have an insight into, leads, which are sales-ready, and those leads that need more nurturing.

  1. Telephony

If you easy to use CRM provides telephony integrations, like Ring Central and others, it helps your sales reps make more calls in less time. Using telephony integration you can select a group of leads to call and let the software call them in sequence without your sales reps having to call up each of the dialed numbers manually, resulting in increased productivity.

  1. Voicemail Drop

Another great benefit of using telephony integrations with your small business CRM software is the ability to leave pre-recorded voice mail drops. Hence, when your sales reps call someone and get sent to the prospect’s voicemail, they click the voicemail drop they want to leave, which thereafter gets delivered automatically.

  1. More Insight Into Customers And Prospects

A CRM software that provides sales enablement stores extensive data on customer and prospects, which includes demographic and personal data of the prospects and the customers. For users who know what is CRM software and its capabilities, can easily track such data for finding behaviors such as clicking on an email, attending a webinar, or viewing a content, which can help sales reps to leverage sales enablement software to maintain more insights into who the customers are and what they need.

  1. Understanding past buying behavior

Sales enablement software like ConvergeHub software helps to track all deals that have been created by your reps.
Once you are using a QuickBooks CRM for sales teams, which offers QuickBooks CRM integration free, your reps can easily open a contact’s records in the CRM database to see which product has been bought by the customer in the past. It can also show which products the prospects and customers have been interested but did not purchase, which allows reps to understand which types of offerings the customers are interested in that in turn drastically increases up-selling opportunities.

  1. Knowing customer’s pain points

When you use a Converged CRM like ConvergeHub, you can track all the customer support tickets, and easily see which problems a customer has faced with your offerings by reviewing their ticket history in the CRM database. Therefore, before up-selling to any customer, using a CRM you can see if the customer is having an issue, and up-sell until the customer is satisfied again.

  1. Arming representatives with the right resources

Sales enablement is also about sending the right resources and content to the leads, prospects, and customers at the right time. Therefore using easy to use CRM software platform, your reps can check where each lead are in the sales funnel, and provide them contents that correctly aligns with the sales process, which can be leveraged by using marketing automation functionalities of the CRM software.

  1. Automated tasks and alerts

You can use small business CRM software to send alerts to sales reps instantaneously when leads become sales qualified that help to remind reps that they need to reach out immediately and start a conversation with the prospect. It is like striking when the iron is hot.

Moreover, using CRM software when speaking to a lead that would benefit from a particular resource, sales reps can simply open the saved email and hit send, which lets them quickly provide the resources and content that leads need at each stage of the sales funnel.

  1. Understanding results

Sales and marketing teams need constant insight into their efforts to improve their results. With a robust sales enablement software like ConvergeHub CRM , you can use its powerful reporting functionalities to view how they are performing against their goals. Sales CRM software helps in checking the health of your sales pipeline, see growth reports, check your rep’s call rates and much more, to identify areas that need improvement or fix broken processes and make data-driven decisions they need to improve to close more deals.

 Conclusion

Now that you know what is CRM software and how it can help you as one of the most efficient sales enablement tools, use ConvergeHub the award winning CRM platform for small businesses, to unlock the benefits described above to make your reps work faster, smarter, and convert more leads into customers in less time.

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