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Stop the Loss! Know The Top benefits of CRM System for Your Business

The CRM system is valuable because the information that the system provides can help amplify and boost the general business goals of any organization.Here are some of the crucial benefits offered by a CRM to any organizations without any discrimination as to whether it has been implemented in a big multinational organization or for a small business.

According to APICS, CRM system or Customer Relationship Management is illustrated as:

Marketing philosophy based on making the customer the highest priority. It consists of the collection and analysis of information designed for sales and marketing to understand and support existing and potential customer needs. This analysis includes account management, catalog and order entry, payment processing, and customer credits and adjustments.

Therefore, the CRM system can be described as a set of software applications that can help any organization determine the preference and needs of the customers by organizing, tracking, managing and, storing all customer interactions in its database. The CRM system deploys advanced technology to replace manual documentation and handwritten processes of the past, which helps users to document everything, starting from basic contact information of leads, and prospects, to specific conversations with the customers.

The CRM system is valuable because the information that the system provides can help amplify and boost the general business goals of any organization. For example, if sales consultants are aware of the specific needs and preferences of their customers, by adopting CRM technology they can deliver a more personalized service by creating a more client-specific business environment. CRM systems are also capable of providing a digitalized central documentation reparatory, allowing employees across different verticals and departments to access the same information at the same time.

Here are some of the crucial benefits offered by a CRM to any organizations without any discrimination as to whether it has been implemented in a big multinational organization or for a small business:

Organize customer interactions in a central location
Manage customer contact information
Measure success of campaigns
Track customer actions, habits, and preferences
Provide instant metrics
Track industry trends
Manage customer service requests
Weaken expense and business risk, and therefore
Create more personalized customer experiences

There are primarily 2 types of CRM platforms.

On-Premise CRM and
Cloud-Based CRM systems

An On-Premise CRM system puts the onus of security, administration, control, and maintenance of the CRM’s database and information on the company itself. Users of this CRM systems purchases licenses upfront for implementation of the CRM system, instead of buying monthly, quarterly or annual subscriptions. The On-Premise CRM system’s software and database resides on the company’s server and it requires a prolonged installation process for integration of the software with other existing and traditional software (if any), used by the company. In general, a very large business organization with highly complex Customer Relationship Management needs benefits more from this type of CRM.

Cloud-based CRM which is also as on-demand or SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) CRM system, is a platform, where data is stored on a remote, external network that users of the CRM can access anytime, with the help of an Internet connection. In many cases, third-party services are deployed to oversee maintenance and installation of these CRM systems. The Cloud-based CRM system needs relatively easy and quick installation and is so adopted by companies who have limited expertise, technology, or resources. Cloud-based CRM is also more cost-effective as vendors of these CRM systems charge users on a subscription basis with the option of yearly, monthly, or quarterly payments.

There is also another type of CRM programs, which are known as Open Source CRM, where the vendors of these CRM make their source codes available to the public. This allows users of Open Source CRM to alter the program with no cost involved in making the addition and customization of data links to social media channels, which helps users of these CRM improve their Social CRM practices.

The choice of adoption of any of these CRM deployment methods in any organization depends on the company’s business needs, resources, and goals.

Recent Trends in CRM systems

With the proliferation of mobile devices and the advent of social media, CRM system provides have also upgraded their offerings to include additional new features that cater to customers who use these technologies.

Social CRM refers to use of the CRM system for engaging leads, prospects, and customers directly through the social media websites and platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and others. Using Social CRM technology companies can also capture sentiments of their brand admirers and customers in order to develop their marketing strategies and service plans.

Lastly with the growth of mobile technology, we presently also have CRM system applications that are built for tablets and smartphones. Mobile CRM apps use features that are unique to mobile devices, such as Voice-recognition capabilities, GPS, and others in order to better serve the customers and provide access to the employees using this technology on the go.

Best Tips For Small Business For Buying CRM This Black Friday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ease of use

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

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

Third-party integration

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

Niche-based

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

Cloud-based

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

Mobile access

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

Security

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

Takeaway

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

How to Effectively Convince Your Employee on a Brand New CRM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prepare a cost-benefit analysis

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

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

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

Finally, give your employee the ROI.

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

Develop an implementation plan

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

Here is what you must consider:

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

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

Present to your employee

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

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

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

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

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

Rally internal support

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

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

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

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

Move to Plan ‘B’

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

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

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

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

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

3 Reasons Why Creative Agencies Should Use CRM

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

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

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

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

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

Data, Data and Data

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

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

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

Provide a Jump in Your Revenue Stream

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

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

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

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

Lead Segmentation

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

Find More Value From Your Software With CRM Workflows

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

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

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

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

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

Workflow # 1: Website Visitors

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

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Workflow # 2: Trade Shows

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

Workflow # 3: Lost Customers

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

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

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

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

7 Undemanding Ways to Earn Trust and Confidence of Your C-Suit Prospects

Unless you are selling Boy Scout popcorns to your friends and families, remember your prospects are not making their purchasing decisions based on how they know you. C-Suit prospects are far more concerned with buying their company’s products and services from someone they respect and trust. Hence, if you want to be a trusted advisor and close more sales with high-level prospects, stop trying to be everyone’s friend. Rather, be intentional about earning the trust of your C-Suit prospects.

Hence, if you want to be a trusted advisor and close more sales with high-level prospects, stop trying to be everyone’s friend. Rather, be intentional about earning the trust of your C-Suit prospects.

Here are 7 undemanding and easy ways to get started:

1. Check body language

Body language often plays a vital role in influencing how a prospect looks at you even before you get a chance to introduce yourself or utter your name. In fact, according to Barbara Pease the author of the book ‘The Definitive Book of Body Language: The Hidden Meaning Behind People’s Gestures and Expressions’ states that tonality and body language accounts for more than 95% of how you are perceived by your customers and prospects. Hence, it is critical that you need to pay serious attention to those little details. Since research shows people are always more inclined to trust those who seem similar to them, so try matching each prospect’s body languages. Does your prospect lean in, stand tall or crosses his/her arms? Pay close attention to your prospects and customers and match your body language to create an invisible connection with your prospects.

2. Be a handshake Pro

Handshakes typically can fall on a scale between super strong to passively soft. If the handshake with your prospect falls on the opposite end of the spectrum, you will both immediately feel disconnected. Hence, try to avoid that ill at ease situation by acting like a handshake pro. Pay close attention to your customer’s or prospect’s approach and then match it instantly. Studies on human behavior show that this is an excellent way to connect with any prospect, and it also increases the likelihood that your prospect will believe in your words and trust you for the rest of your meeting.

3. Show your expertise

C-level prospects often consider themselves as experts in the own fields. However, the good news is as a professional you are also an expert in your field. Nevertheless, while high-level professionals only see the challenges they are facing in their organization, you can observe the industry trends from a wider bird’s eye view. Therefore, when you meet any C-level prospects, begin your meeting by listing a couple of common challenges that you have seen and then ask if any of those rings true to your prospect. Once you do this, your prospect will appreciate your valuable insight and start trusting you as an expert in your field.

4. Match your prospect’s tonality

In most cases, while making a sales call, what you say is not as much important as to how you express it. Tonality is what constitutes the volume and pace of your speech. Although the meaning of ideal tonality differs from person to person, so the safest bet is to match your tonality with that of your prospect in this arena. Try to gauge whether your prospect speaks loudly and quickly or softly and slowly and match your tonality accordingly so that they can remain comfortable talking to you.

5. Trade enthusiasm for a low-key approach

To make your offer sound irresistible you do not always have to be overly enthusiastic. Rather, being too excited does make most salespeople sound cheesy. Record your next few sales calls and playback them to yourself later. Do you feel that your voice sounds louder than it should have been? If it is so, slow yourself down and focus on forming a genuine connection with your prospects with a low-key approach.

6. Keep an unwavering focus

C-level prospects only care about themselves. However, unfortunately, the same stigma can be placed on most salespeople. Therefore, if you are too hasty about pitching the features and benefits of your products and services that you are offering, you will be marked as someone who is little more then necessarily eager about closing the sale. On the other hand, if you let your prospect talk, you will earn their trust when they recognize that you are a person who cares to understand and is ready to serve them according to their needs.

7. Dig deep into challenges

It is just not enough to find out what your prospect’s problems are, superficially. Instead, if you dig deeper to find out your prospect’s deepest frustrations you can establish yourself as a trustworthy expert. Doing this will not only create a massive value around the solutions that you present later on to your prospect, but it will also make you stand apart as a knowledgeable salesperson, someone who is different from the crowd.

Are you still struggling to earn the respect of your C-level prospects? Let us know in ConvergeHub how you will use these tips to adjust your sales approaches in the future, in the comment box below.

Why Should You Consider Integrating CRM With ERP?

With a plethora of consumer data, being generated on a daily basis, business owners are presently experiencing more complex business environments than ever before. Since, if this customer centric data is not handled in a proper manner, it can become the biggest pain point for efficiency with decision-making, forecasting and ultimately- the purchase and sales processes. Happy customers are the most valuable and possessed assets to any business. But, how can you successfully deal with all these challenges, whilst building up profitable customer relationships? To combat this dilemmatic issue, businesses typically buy CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software solutions separately or mostly integrate a CRM with an ERP.

With a plethora of consumer data, being generated on a daily basis, business owners are presently experiencing more complex business environments than ever before. Since, if this customer centric data is not handled in a proper manner, it can become the biggest pain point for efficiency with decision-making, forecasting and ultimately- the purchase and sales processes.
Happy customers are the most valuable and possessed assets to any business. But, how can you successfully deal with all these challenges, whilst building up profitable customer relationships?
To combat this dilemmatic issue, businesses typically buy CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software solutions separately or mostly integrate a CRM with ERP.

The advantage of integrating these two enterprise business solutions help CRM to deal with front end information such as prospecting, recording customer interactions, sales tracking, pipeline management and creating/evaluating marketing campaigns.

So, while CRM helps businesses to manage relationships and sales pipelines, understand prospect and clients, and upsell and cross-sell products, ERP software is entrusted to handle critical backend processes. These ERP back end processes include supply chain management details, purchase history, accounting information, financial data, and billing and shipping details.

Although apparently having separate systems might appear more manageable, but integrating into one complete software solution certainly, boosts productivity and streamlines business processes to a greater extent.

Statics indicates that ERP provides an inventory accuracy level of 98% whilst it increases the order-to-shipment time by 24% and considering satisfied customers are the most precious assets to any business, it is not hard to understand the benefits of a unified system.

With these in mind, here are some of the other advantages of CRM and ERP integration for business owners, pertaining to all ranks.

Why is this integration so crucial?

Firstly, if you implement ERP and CRM systems as a unified business process you do not have to constantly worry about keeping these two databases synchronized. Any changes in one system will not have to be transferred to the other manually, which most often results in slower operations and an increased risk of database errors.

So implementing an integrated CRM process to your ERP solution will make certain that both these systems use one common shared database, whereby any update in any of the systems will be visible instantaneously.

This will not only help in faster billing but it will also provide a clearer look at all levels of your commercial enterprise’s sales process.

360-degree customer view

One of the major rewards of ERP and CRM integration is that it allows an overall view of your customers. Right from sales and support to accounting and finance departments, these systems provide an unparalleled visibility on your customer’s buying habits, order history, and general needs, which in turn helps in building long lasting relationships with the customers, and finding out if there is potential for any other future growths.

This data also provides you with enhanced analytics and reporting, so that you can track any changes that may happen in your customer’s preferences and loyalty towards your products or services.

Increased mobility

Imagine your sales team is in the middle of an important touch-point thought a customer’s journey having access to all the orders and customer inventory, alongside pricing and product information- will it not help in closing deals more efficiently? Having up-to-date data during customer interactions and not afterward, indeed make a lot of difference while closing sales.

Effective integration of ERP with CRM not only streamlines information but it also helps in keeping everyone in your business on the same page.

Managers can also keep track of all critical operational issues in real time, integrating these systems that help them to make more informed business decisions on the go.

Faster access to vital information

A fully integrated CRM with ERP provides employees with access to information with a push of a button in real time. Data like inventory levels, customer financials, shipments, order history, payments, pricing, returns and more are instantaneously synchronized across different platforms, which makes employees more efficient in serving the customers.

In other words, CRM and ERP help in cutting down of loss in business which mostly happened in the past due to negative experiences of the customers, when customer service representatives had to trawl through different systems or inquire with other employees for a customer’s requested order status update.

Eliminate mind-numbing data entry and duplication

Although both CRM and ERP hold the same data (account and contact information), it is used for different purposes.

While CRM focuses on sales, support, and prospecting, ERP, on the other hand, centers on keeping track of warehouse inventory, shipping, billing address and more. The ERP/CRM integration terminates the tedious necessity of duplicating data entry, whereby eliminating human errors during the duplication process.

Moreover, any change, addition, removal of new entries, custom fields, or database is also instantly altered in an integrated CRM/ERP system, which lessens the time needed for editing of the data.

In addition, while quoting for a customer or a prospect in CRM, sales reps can quote the most accurate prices and discount pricings using the integrated ERP solution to retrieve real time inventory and updated pricing information.

Reduced IT and training overheads

In a report published by Association for Talent Development, it showed that businesses spend an annual average of around $1,208 and approximately 31.5 working hours on training their employees, which is a substantial amount and time lost on the part of the company.

So, when CRM is integrated into an ERP, the training session also goes down, as instead of individual systems the training can be implemented on a combined platform.

Moreover learning ERP and CRM as silo software at the same time can be a challenging task for any employee, which can result in poor adoption rates.

Now that you have learned about the core advantages of integrating these two most important systems required for running your business, we would also like to hear your comments on this article below.

Why mobile CRM is Crucial for Your SMB

We all are aware how indispensable CRM strategies are in today’s business world. From reduced marketing expenditures to superior customer retention rates- the benefits of CRM are never-ending. With the speedy rise in telecommunication and mobile technology, mobile CRM is a perfect tool for those who are on-the-go, since mobile CRM provides essential access to sophisticated data and customized information on the field. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 24% of employees did their work from home in 2015, which shows a formidable rise of more than 20% since 2003. According to the same source, BLS predicts that more than 106 million Americans will telecommute within 2020.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 24% of employees did their work from home in 2015, which shows a formidable rise of more than 20% since 2003. According to the same source, BLS predicts that more than 106 million Americans will telecommute within 2020.

The great news from these stats is that ConvergeHub CRM offers both Android and iOS app for SMBs. However, if you are still indecisive and sitting on the fence about downloading our CRM app from iTunes or Android stores, here are four solid reasons why you should not wait for anymore.

More Work Completed

Constant and seamless access to customer information means that time away from the office does not necessarily mean you have to be “away from the office.”

Being able to be connected to CRM software from remote locations allow your team to be far more productive than ever before.

In a recent study done by Nuclear Research (an information technology research firm specializing in investigative research) is of the opinion that mobile access to a CRM increases team productivity in SMBs by more than 14.6% with a further 4 in 10 mobile users of mobile CRM reporting improvement in productivity by more than 22%.

So how are teams using ConvergeHub on the go?

Using our app, users can update information and notes in between meetings or on the road, and assign tasks to their colleagues straight from their device. Moreover, if needed, users can also tag their bosses to make them remain in the loop on all events of the day.

Close More Deals

At the end of the day with all businesses, a more productive sales team signifies a healthier sales pipeline.

In a research conducted by Forrester, it has been found that more than 70% sales reps employed with companies those who have invested in CRM technology have successfully accomplished their sales targets, as opposed to just 21% of sales reps working in non-mobile Customer Relationship Management enabled companies.

With tools to respond fast along with customer data always at your fingertips, mobile CRM helps employees close more deals with fewer interactions and less time.

This allows sales reps to spend more time prospecting or find new avenues for exploring untouched sales opportunities.

Find Real-Time Information

In the present times, many companies allow their employees to work on the go or complete tasks while they are away from the office.

This could have meant in the past, that any information about a deal is not updated until the sales reps get back and log his or her activities on the CRM platform.

Mobile CRM prevents this from happening. With the help of cloud technology, any interaction an employee has with the prospect or customer can be now documented immediately in the mobile CRM. Hence, users of mobile CRM do not have to wait for information to be uploaded on site.

For an example, if a sales rep is out of the office, every other rep working in the organization will readily have access to the customer’s updated data as the rep who is out can log these changes while on the go.

Users can also refer to their contact activity feeds in the ConvergeHub app, before heading for a meeting, which helps in refreshing their memory on previous interactions with the customer making them fully prepared for strategizing a rewarding meeting plan.

Faster Data Collection

Before the age of mobile CRM technology, orders taken on the road had either to be called-in or put on hold until the orders could be entered at the office.

Now with the advent of mobile CRM, you can place orders remotely right into the system as soon as the customer agrees to the deal.

This, in turn, helps the production and shipping departments to get immediately started so that the customers can receive their products or services just in time.

Hence, we see as CRM has made its way to mobile, so businesses that hope to grow most must make a move with it.

Therefore, not to ignore important business trends, download the ConvergeHub mobile CRM app before you scale up any more lost opportunities and get your team on the path to success now.

Tag: cloud crm

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