Why SMBs Can Ditch Salesforce to Adopt ConvergeHub

Salesforce is expensive and complex. But , at the same time complex as well. However, ConvergeHub has emerged as a true Salesforce alternative for all the right reasons.

The first name that often crosses our mind while talking about CRM is Salesforce. It’s a CRM giant and for all the right reasons. It comes with all the feature that makes it a clear winner in any cases. However, Salesforce comes with a hefty price tag along with a complex interface. And, that’s where ConvergeHub emerges as a compelling Salesforce alternative.

What’s ConvergeHub? What Makes it a Great Salesforce Alternative?

ConvergeHub is an all-in-one CRM Software designed fr the SMBs. This robust platform is crafted to track , organize and manage data from all four departments – marketing, sales, support and billing/accounts. Let’s go in-depth into the data and explore why ConvergeHub might be the perfect fit for your growing business.

Pricing point: A Clear Winner

Investing in a CRM software is a substantial investment. Quite obviously, SMBs will compare the prices before investing in it. Many SMBs cannot afford such extensive investment during the initial phase of their establishment. But their requirements are no less than of a big enterprise. In fact, things are more scattered in every department and as they plan to scale up, they desperately need a systematic approach. They need a CRM that comes with all the functionalities, but not that pricey. Salesforce does not match with this criteria. On the contrary, ConvergeHub offers quite an affordable option. Their plans start at $9 per user per month, significantly lower than Salesforce’s base price of $75 per user per month. This translates to substantial savings, especially for larger teams.

Here’s a table on the feature-specific comparison.

Features	Salesforce	ConvergeHub
Starting Price	$75/user/month	$9/user/month
Automation Capabilities	Requires additional licenses	Included in all plans
Service Features	Requires additional licenses	Included in all plans
Contract length	Yearly	Quarterly or Yearly

Ease of use: Streamlined Interface

There’s a lot of powerful features in Salesforce, to be honest. But then, it comes at the cost of complex interface. Extensive training ad comprehensive hand holding is required to use the product at its full potential. Often the SMBs do not have this high-level of technical expertise

for such extensive hand holding process. Without it, SMBs often find it difficult to navigate its various modules effectively. On the other hand, ConvergeHub is widely preferred by the users for its ease of use. ConvergeHub boasts a user-friendly interface that requires minimal training. Its intuitive design allows users to get started quickly, maximizing their productivity and minimizing on boarding costs.

Focus on SMB Needs: Tailored Features for Growth

As mentioned earlier, Salesforce is the CRM giant and obviously made for the companies with complex business structure. This enterprise CRM platform talks about core functionalities like sales pipeline management, lead generation, and customer support. ConvergeHub also supports the same with features essentially designed to streamline the SMB workflows.

Here’s a look at the key features of the ConvergeHub hat SMBs might found useful.

Sales Pipeline Management: ConvergeHub provides visual pipelines to track deals, forecast sales, and identify potential roadblocks.
Lead Generation: Built-in lead capture forms and email marketing tools help convert website visitors into qualified leads.
Customer Support: Manage customer tickets, track resolution times, and provide exceptional customer service experiences.

Simplified Marketing Automation

Salesforce requires integration with third-party marketing automation tools like Mailchimp, which further adds to the complexity and cost of the product. It means to run the marketing automation feature of Salesforce, additional support and licenses from other product is needed. On the contrary, ConvergeHub comes with in-built marketing automation features within its core platform. So, when a user is implementing ConvergeHub, he can already access the built-in features in the platform that helps them target email campaigns, track campaign performance, and nurture leads with automated workflows.

Data to Support the Claims: ConvergeHub’s Strengths

And, if you are still not convinced with the advantages mentioned above, here’s a look at the data fro credible sources where users have chsen ConvergeHub at the better alternative. Several review platforms like G2 Crowd rates ConvergeHub higher than Salesforce for ease of use and ease of doing business. So is Software Reviews and Capterra. Capterra has also further highlighted the ConvergeHub’s affordability and positive customer reviews.

Here’s a glimpse into the data:

G2 Crowd

Ease of Use: ConvergeHub (8.8) vs. Salesforce (8.3)

Ease of Doing Business: ConvergeHub (9.2) vs. Salesforce (8.8)

Capterra

Average User Rating: ConvergeHub (4.7 out of 5 stars) vs. Salesforce (4.3 out of 5 stars)

Beyond the Data: Additional Benefits of ConvergeHub

While cost, ease of use, and built-in marketing automation are clear advantages, ConvergeHub offers other benefits:

Scalability: ConvergeHub scales efficiently as your business grows, eliminating the need to migrate CRMs later.

Security: ConvergeHub prioritizes data security with robust security measures in place.

Customer Support: ConvergeHub offers responsive customer support, ensuring you get the help you need when you need it.

Ready to make a Switch? Here’s a look at the smooth transition

If you are already convinced that ConvergeHub is a better Salesforce alternative and planning to switch, there are experts to help you with it. In fact the transitioning itself is absolutely smooth and quite straightforward process. ConvergeHub offers data migration services to ensure a seamless transition of your customer data and sales pipeline.

Final Thoughts: Does ConvergeHub supports your needs?

We understand how SMBs often struggle with finances. If you are one of them and stuck with the thought that Salesforce is the best, you won’t be able to make the transition. Instead, you can choose to get rid of he enormous costs and complexity associated with Salesforce, ConvergeHub is a compelling alternative. Its user-friendly interface, built-in marketing automation, and focus on core CRM functionalities make it ideal for growing businesses. With its affordable pricing and commitment to customer support, ConvergeHub empowers SMBs to streamline their operations, nurture leads, and close more deals.

And finally there’s nothing called best CRM in the market. Each product has a set of beneficial features. So, the best CRM for your business is the one that addresses your specific needs and budget. Consider your requirements, evaluate both platforms, and make an informed choice.

ConvergeHub Capabilities: Artificial Intelligence vs. Intelligent Automation

Ever get confused by the terms “AI” and “IA”? They are connected but there’s a fine line of difference. Identifying these differences is important because that will help you leverage these technologies to their full potential. This article cuts through the confusion by highlighting the differences between Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Automation and even a bonus term: intelligence augmentation.

Let’s find out how AI and IA stack up against each other, plus explore how ConvergeHub leverages these technologies to streamline business operations.

What is Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is a technology that makes computers technically mimic human intelligence. AI uses special algorithms to tackle tasks that usually require human smarts – such as learning new things, solving problems, and making decisions.

Imagine a computer that gets better at a skill just by feeding it information. That’s the power of AI, achieved through a technique called “deep learning.” For instance, AI can analyze massive amounts of customer data, uncovering patterns and trends much faster and more precisely than a human ever could.

Here’s a glimpse into the exciting world of AI:

Chatbots and Virtual Assistants: That’s one of the biggest functional advantages of AI. Conversational AI uses natural language, making it possible to interact with computers through chatbots and virtual assistants like Alexa or Siri.
Generative AI: Need a creative spark? Generative AI can create content, whether it is text, music, or images, by learning from existing information. It helps you compose a personalized email message, posts, and all kinds of marketing and sales communication based on the data provided to it
Machine Learning: One of the important subsets of AI is Machine Learning. Computer vision uses algorithms to analyze visual information, enabling features like facial recognition and object detection. Machine learning allows computers to learn from data, like a student studying. This lets them make decisions or predictions without any requirements of human programming.
Natural Language Processing or NLP: Imagine a computer that speaks your language! Natural language processing (NLP) lets computers understand, interpret, and even generate human language. This is used in speech recognition, translation tools, and text summarization.

AI is a vast field with many applications that are constantly evolving. It’s changing the way we live and work!

What is Intelligent Automation or IA?

Sales is all about building relationships and closing deals. But repetitive tasks can bog you down. This is where intelligent automation (IA) steps in as your secret weapon. Imagine AI working alongside you, automating the mundane and freeing you to focus on what truly matters: your customers.

Intelligent automation or IA combines the power of AI with automation tools to streamline your sales process. By taking over things like data entry and scheduling, IA lets you spend more time connecting with leads and nurturing relationships. This translates to two major wins:

Boost Your Sales Time: Imagine ditching tedious tasks and having more time to build rapport with potential customers. This can directly lead to increased sales and a happier you!
Efficiency Guaranteed: Streamlined processes mean less wasted time and resources. IA helps you work smarter, not harder, ultimately leading to higher profits.

Sales on Autopilot: How AI Supercharges Your Team

AI can be your ultimate sales sidekick by automating a variety of tasks:

Data Entry: Say goodbye to endless data entry! IA handles it for you, freeing you up for more strategic work.
Uncovering Sales Gems: Find new sales opportunities with automated lead generation tools. IA can identify potential customers who are a perfect fit for your business.
Data Made Easy: Get clear insights without spending hours on reports. IA can analyze vast amounts of data (big data) and generate reports automatically, giving you valuable information at a glance.
Stay on Top of Your Game: IA automates task management, keeping your team organized and focused on closing deals.
Effortless Scheduling: Schedule meetings and appointments with ease, letting IA handle the back-and-forth.

With smart and intellectual automation, you can ditch the busy work and focus on what matters most: building relationships and growing your sales. It’s time to unleash the power of automation and watch your sales team soar!

What’s the Difference?

There are two subtle differences between AI and IA.

Focus: AI focuses on mimicking human intelligence, while IA focuses on enhancing human capabilities.
Capabilities: AI can perform tasks autonomously, while IA combines AI and automation to improve efficiency and decision-making.

Here’s an example of how AI can analyze data for insights, while IA automates tasks like lead qualification, freeing up salespeople’s time for more strategic activities.

Level of Intelligence: AI can exhibit a higher level of intelligence, like learning and adapting, while IA may focus on rule-based automation with some AI assistance.
Human Interaction: AI might be designed to work independently, while IA often collaboratively works alongside humans.

Feature	AI	IA
Focus	Mimic human intelligence	Enhance human performance
Capabilities	Perform tasks autonomously	Improve efficiency and decision-making
Level of Intelligence	High (learning, adapting)	Moderate (rule-based with AI assistance)
Human Interaction	Independent	Collaborative

Don’t Just Work Smarter, Work Augmented

Sometimes tech terms can sound interchangeable, but there’s a key difference between intelligence augmentation (IA) and its close cousin, intelligent automation (IA). IA takes a broader view. It’s about leveraging any technology to boost human potential, not just the power of AI. This could include everything from advanced calculators to specialized software.

The goal, however, remains similar: supercharge decision-making and streamline tasks.

Take ConvergeHub’s reports and dashboards, for example. They don’t make sales calls for you, but they use technology’s muscle to transform raw sales data into actionable insights. This empowers salespeople to make smarter choices and close more deals. Precisely, IA might not replace your brain entirely, but it surely enhances its performance.

Use Cases of AI and IA in Sales and Marketing

Personalized Prospecting: AI analyzes customer data and online behavior to identify ideal leads. IA automates outreach with personalized emails and social media messages, saving time for targeted prospecting.

Smart Lead Scoring: AI analyzes lead behavior and engagement levels, assigning a score that indicates their sales-readiness. IA prioritizes leads based on their score, allowing sales reps to focus on the hottest prospects.

Real-Time Sales Coaching: AI monitors sales calls, identifying areas for improvement and suggesting effective communication strategies. IA can even provide in-call prompts and feedback to help reps close deals more effectively.

Dynamic Content Generation: AI tailors sales presentations and proposals to each prospect’s specific needs and interests. IA automates the creation of personalized content, boosting engagement and conversion rates. From sales emails, demos, cost calling scripts, sales pitches, product brochures, and contract paper everything can be created through generative AI.

Predictive Analytics: AI analyzes historical sales data and identifies trends to predict future sales opportunities and potential roadblocks. IA uses these insights to recommend personalized pricing strategies and optimize sales pipelines.

Automated Objections Handling: AI identifies common sales objections during calls and provides real-time counterarguments and scripts. IA automates responses to basic objections, freeing up reps to focus on complex customer concerns.

Final Thoughts

According to a McKinsey report, companies that invest in AI are seeing a 3–15% revenue growth and a 10–20% boost in sales ROI. As artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent automation (IA) become more sophisticated, their benefits for business will only multiply. ConvergeHub leverages these cutting-edge technologies to streamline operations and boost sales for your business.

Sign up for a free 14-day trial to explore more.

CX Gaps that are Hidden in Plain Sight

Despite the growing emphasis on CX, many companies still struggle to meet customer expectations. There are CX gaps that remain unnoticed for years, they widen over time, resulting in long-term damage

Customer experience (CX) is no longer a buzzword; it’s the business mantra of a successful venture. Today, when customer loyalty is hard-won, “not-so-good” CX can destroy your positive image at any time. Being consistent in delivering a positive experience is thus survival imperative for businesses.

Despite the growing emphasis on CX, many companies still struggle to meet customer expectations. There are CX gaps that remain unnoticed for years, they widen over time, resulting in long-term damage. This article delves into the concept of the CX gap, explores the reasons behind it, and offers actionable strategies for businesses to bridge the widening gap while creating a truly customer-centric experience.

The CX Gap: A Disconnect Between Perception and Reality

Here’s a real-life scenario. Let’s say most of your offline footfalls result from the large-scale marketing you do online.

They envision a helpful and knowledgeable salesperson assisting them, a smooth checkout process, and a hassle-free return policy in case the product doesn’t meet their expectations. However, upon arrival, they’re greeted by an indifferent staff member, encounter a long queue at the checkout, and discover a restrictive return policy. This is a gap between expectation and reality. The customer’s anticipated experience and the one he gets while visiting the store are different from each other, resulting in a dodgy CX and zero customer loyalty.

Suh CX gaps often remain unnoticed and can manifest in various ways. From slow and infrequent responses to complex product information- everything falls under poor CX. It’s not always about providing excellent services, rather it’s more about delivering personalized services While a company might believe they’re providing exceptional service, customers may have a vastly different perspective. This disconnect can lead to frustration, disappointment, and ultimately, customer churn.

Causes of the CX Gap: Why Businesses Miss the Mark

CX gaps originate from the difference between expectation and reality. But, most of the time these blindspots are so elusive that they often go unnoticed. Here’s a look at the common culprits behind CX gaps and why businesses miss the mark.

Communication Silos: A business is structured with distinct departments – marketing, sales, operations, customer service and more. Unfortunately, they operate in isolation, which leads to communication silos. Being unaddressed it becomes a norm over time. It results in a fragmented customer journey which affects the credibility of the company. For instance, the marketing team might portray a product as user-friendly, while the customer service team struggles to address customer inquiries due to inadequate product knowledge. This inconsistency creates confusion and frustration for customers.
Customer Feedback Disconnect: Prioritizing customer feedback is crucial for every business. However, many businesses fail to maintain consistency in collecting customer feedback. They never solicit feedback through surveys, reviews, or social media interactions. This lack of customer insights makes it difficult for businesses to understand customer needs and expectations, leading to a mismatch between what they offer and what customers truly desire.
Employee Disengagement: Employees are the face of the brand, and their attitude and behavior significantly impact customer experience. Disengaged employees who lack proper training or motivation are less likely to go the extra mile for customers. This can result in impersonal interactions, slow response times, and a lack of empathy, ultimately creating a negative customer experience.
Stay Aligned with Technological Advancements: Technology is rapidly evolving, and customer expectations are keeping pace. Businesses that fail to adapt to these advancements risk falling behind. For instance, if a company doesn’t offer a user-friendly mobile app or an omnichannel customer support experience, it may create a gap between its offerings and what customers expect in today’s digital age.
Focusing on Sales Over Relationships: While sales are undoubtedly important, businesses that solely focus on closing deals often neglect to build long-term customer relationships. This transactional approach can leave customers feeling like a number rather than a valued patron.

Bridging the CX Gap: Strategies for Customer-Centric Success

Fortunately, the CX gap is not an insurmountable obstacle. With the right strategies it can be achieved Businesses can implement several strategies to bridge the divide and create a customer experience that fosters loyalty and drives business growth.

Obsess Over Customer Feedback: Make customer feedback the cornerstone of your CX strategy. Actively solicit feedback through surveys, reviews, social media interactions, and even informal conversations with customer service representatives. Analyze this feedback to identify areas for improvement and tailor your offerings to better meet customer needs.

Embrace a Customer-Centric Culture: “Lack of customer focus is a point of failure”, says Gartner. In the next five years, more than 30% of businesses are going to succumb due to this, yet, only 14% of the CMOs perceive “customer-centricity as the hallmark of their business”, reports CMO Council.

Personalization is Key: The customer relationship management (CRM) system helps build a relationship with customers by giving them personalized information about their needs, what they like and don’t like, and how to fulfill them. In addition to providing basic customer data, CRM systems can also be used as an advocacy tool. Customers will appreciate this high level of service if they know they will receive it consistently.

Omnichannel Customer Support: Customers today interact with brands across various channels – phone, email, social media, and live chat. Businesses must provide seamless and consistent support across all these touchpoints. Invest in omnichannel solutions that allow customers to easily switch between channels without having to repeat their inquiries.

Final Thoughts

Customer experience (CX) is the battleground for business success in today’s competitive landscape. A critical yet often overlooked threat is the CX gap – the disconnect between what businesses perceive they deliver and what customers experience. This gap can manifest in various ways, from communication silos to employee disengagement, ultimately leading to customer frustration and churn.

The good news is that the CX gap is bridgeable. By prioritizing customer feedback, fostering a customer-centric culture, personalizing interactions, and offering omnichannel support, businesses can close the gap and create a seamless, positive experience that fosters customer loyalty and drives long-term growth. Remember, happy customers are your biggest advocates – bridge the CX gap and unlock the true potential of your customer base.

AI Features in ConvergeHub Lets You Think Beyond CRM

Generative AI is one of those megatrends that are shaping up CRM in 2023. AI superpowers are propelling businesses for next-level outcomes by extending the capabilities of the marketers, sellers and the support agents alike.

In the CRM space, Generative AI has brought in countless possibilities within the easiest reach. It seamlessly assimilates and comprehends customer interactions, be it phone conversations, emails, or meeting transcripts. As a result, it’s way easier for the businesses now to derive insights about customers’ mindset and leverage the same for enhanced engagement.

What’s Generative AI in CRM?

Generative AI is the gen-next artificial intelligence technique. Basically, generative models are leveraged to use in the CRM software, in order to streamline workflow, enhance and automate customer interactions with the sole objective of increasing process efficiency. It helps create emails, responses and even product recommendations by identifying customer data patterns from previous conversations. The process fosters personalized customer relationships at every touchpoint (be it sales, marketing, billing or support), which further translates into improved customer satisfaction rate.

In this fast-evolving field, CRM with generative AI seeks to improve working methods and to reduce labor-intensive tasks, reports Gartner’s 2022 overview of AI for business.

AI in ConvergeHub Takes Customer Communication to the Next Level

The latest AI features in ConvergeHub are all set to reshape Customer Relationship Management. It not only transforms the way you do business but also enhances your CSAT rate to a great extent. The inclusion of Generative AI puts in place a whole new range of functionalities which operates across sales, customer service, marketing, billing and more -streamlining workflows across multiple levels.

AI-first Customer Interactions

The rising cost of human-led support is a frustrating reality in customer service. And, Generative AI is the answer.

Let’s talk about a real-life scenario.

What happens in most cases, the customer service team at the initial level often establishes a service level agreement (SLA) that looks manageable. But then there are times when support volumes skyrocket. It further translates into an endless stack of support tickets. For obvious reasons, agents become overwhelmed and the CSAT rates start falling.

On the other end, customers suffer long wait times and poor experiences. Conversations and feedback are lost in the mix. CSAT and net promoter score (NPS) take a serious dive. SLAs are missed, and senior leadership is wondering why.

Enter Generative AI.
GenAI is poised to alleviate administrative burdens by assisting in email composition, RFP responses, note and content creation, and more. This facilitates productivity surge and allows teams to dive more into creative and strategic endeavors.

AI functionalities in ConvergeHub helps analyze vast datasets to generate concise summaries, distilling key information for quick reference. With it , AI-driven CRM platforms take contextual notes during interactions, capturing relevant details to inform future communication. This not only ensures a comprehensive understanding of the customer’s history but also facilitates seamless collaboration among team members.

Personalization Done Right

AI algorithms have exceptional capabilities to personalize email content by dynamically adapting language, tone, and messaging based on individual customer profiles and preferences. This level of personalization extends to anticipating customer needs, suggesting relevant content, and optimizing communication strategies. As a result, businesses leveraging ConvergeHub experience a significant leap in productivity, creating tailored and engaging emails that foster stronger, more meaningful connections with clients.

How AI Assistant in ConvergeHub Streamline Workflows

Reduce Repetitive Tasks to Ensure Growth in Productivity level

Generative AI automates routine and time-consuming tasks, freeing up human resources to focus on more complex and strategic activities. This translates to increased efficiency in managing customer data, handling routine inquiries, and ensuring timely follow-ups. And, all these hardly require manual intervention at any level.

Generative AI In ConvergeHub helps in process automation within its CRM platform. This includes automating data entry, sending personalized follow-up emails, and updating customer records based on predefined rules. This not only reduces manual workload but also minimizes the risk of errors associated with repetitive tasks.

Being Virtual Assistants to Ensure 24/7 Customer Support

ConvergeHub’s AI-driven virtual assistants provide users with intelligent, voice-activated interfaces that can perform tasks, retrieve information, and even offer insights through natural language interactions. On many occasions, the AI assistant assists users to navigate the CRM platform efficiently. From scheduling appointments to providing analytics insights, ConvergeHub streamlines user interactions, taking it to the next level.

Leverage AI Functionalities to Take your Business to the Next level

Get Precise Customer Insights

Generative AI algorithms can sift through vast amounts of historical customer data to identify patterns and trends. By applying predictive analytics, businesses can gain valuable insights into customer behavior, enabling them to anticipate needs, identify potential issues, and make data-driven decisions that contribute to long-term customer satisfaction. Such kinds of data-driven approach helps in informed decision-making at every level of business- ve it sales, marketing or support- contributing to the company’s continued success.

Improved Lead Scoring and Customer Segmentation

As already mentioned, AI functionalities in ConvergeHub can seamlessly analyze diverse data points to determine the likelihood of lead conversion. Basically, it performs sentiment analysis from customers’ behavioral patterns. As a result, more granular customer segmentation is possible based on nuanced factors. It helps ConvergeHub users create a more tailored approach and target specific audience segments.

Powerful Business Intelligence

Through real-time alerts, AI functionalities in ConvergeHub can keep you well-informed about abrupt shifts in sales or support workloads, customer concerns, and sales performance. This proactive notification system enables customer-facing teams to promptly address challenges, allowing for swift issue resolution. Precisely, an AI assistant offers strategic refinement to capitalize on your strengths. You can actually stay ahead of the curve with ConvergeHub’s timely insights, enabling you to navigate dynamic business scenarios with agility and precision, ensuring optimal performance and sustained competitive advantages.

Overcoming Challenges and Ensuring Ethical Use of Generative AI

As businesses embrace the transformative potential of Generative AI in CRM, it is essential to address potential challenges and ensure ethical use. Issues such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and transparency must be carefully considered and addressed to build trust with customers and stakeholders.

Data Privacy and Security

The implementation of Generative AI in CRM necessitates the responsible handling of customer data. Businesses must prioritize robust data privacy measures, including encryption, access controls, and compliance with regulatory frameworks such as GDPR, to safeguard sensitive customer information.

Addressing Algorithmic Bias

Generative AI systems are only as unbiased as the data they are trained on. To avoid perpetuating existing biases, businesses must invest in diverse and representative datasets and implement ongoing monitoring and adjustment protocols to identify and rectify potential biases in algorithms.

Transparency and Explainability

Ensuring transparency in how Generative AI algorithms operate is crucial for building trust with customers and stakeholders. Businesses should prioritize explainability in their AI systems, providing users with insights into how decisions are made and fostering a sense of accountability.

Leverage AI Functionalities to Take your Business to the Next level

Get Precise Customer Insights

Improved Lead Scoring and Customer Segmentation

Powerful Business Intelligence

Overcoming Challenges and Ensuring Ethical Use of Generative AI

Data Privacy and Security

Addressing Algorithmic Bias

Transparency and Explainability

The Future Landscape- Closing the Never-Ending Customer Feedback Loop

As technology continues to advance, the role of Generative AI in CRM is poised to expand further. Future developments may include even more sophisticated natural language processing capabilities, improved sentiment analysis, and enhanced predictive modeling, all contributing to a more precise and personalized customer experience.

This is an AI-centric era when the paradigm of customer service undergoes a profound transformation. At the forefront of this evolution is the strategic utilization of generative AI, fundamentally reshaping the key metrics that define operational excellence.

Firstly, the infusion of AI optimizes the cost-effectiveness of customer service operations by elevating First-Contact Resolution (FCR) and streamlining Average Handle Time (AHT). These improvements not only enhance operational efficiency but also serve as tangible indicators of the viability of an AI-first strategy. Through a meticulous investment perspective, organizations bolster their customer service teams, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives and financial goals.

Meeting and exceeding Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Automated Resolution benchmarks become benchmarks of success, illustrating the prowess of an AI-powered customer service infrastructure. Automation, intelligently integrated, serves as a shield for human capital, freeing valuable resources to focus on nuanced, high-value interactions. This strategic deployment of technology aligns seamlessly with organizational objectives, safeguarding efficiency and quality in the customer service domain.

Wrapping Up

Generative AI, as the linchpin of this transformative approach, possesses the unparalleled ability to rapidly and accurately decipher diverse data sets. This includes intricate information extracted from customer service transcripts and feedback surveys, a capability critical for navigating the complexities of expansive data during periods of rapid growth. The swiftness and scalability of AI enable it to instantaneously generate comprehensive reports on customer insights, leaving no inquiry, conversation, complaint, or suggestion unattended.

Furthermore, the implementation of generative AI establishes a robust feedback loop. It ensures that every customer interaction contributes to a reservoir of actionable insights. This visibility into customer data empowers C-suite leaders to make informed decisions, fostering a more profound understanding of customer needs and expectations. Consequently, the organization becomes adept at closing the feedback loop, cultivating a continuous cycle of improvement and customer satisfaction.

Generative AI in the CRM premise has certainly reshaped operational dynamics but also positions organizations at the forefront of technological innovation. The strategic fusion of AI capabilities with the intricate facets of customer service operations serves as a catalyst for efficiency, excellence, and sustained growth in this AI-first business landscape.

Stay tuned to get more updates on ConvergeHub. Share your thoughts in the comments.

RingCentral’s Mass Call Feature Marks a Paradigm Shift in Customer Outreach

Mass call” feature by RingCentral allows ConvergeHub users to make a large number of calls quickly and efficiently. This can be beneficial for scenarios such as sales prospecting, customer outreach, or any situation where reaching out to a large number of contacts is required

Recent stats say, “more than 70% of customers expect conversational service every time they engage with a brand.” Customer engagement strategies are no longer the same. It demands innovative approaches that bridge efficiency and personalization at every step. In this transformative landscape, ConvergeHub and RingCentral integration facilitates mass call feature allowing a streamlined outreach at every level.

Mass Call by RingCentral-Explained

Gone are the days of complicated platforms and disjointed workflows. Mass calling features by RingCentral brings in an unparalleled communication infrastructure for the ConvergeHub users. All it takes is a single, deliberate click for initiating hundreds of targeted calls – each meticulously arranged within your ConvergeHub interface.

Mass Calling elevates speed, precision and personalization when it comes to customer outreach. Simply by using filters and automation from ConvergeHub you can now craft and deliver personalized messages to defined customer segments. Built-in call logging and insightful analytics provide real-time feedback, allowing you to fine-tune your approach and witness your campaign’s performance unfold like a captivating concerto. Whether you are conducting a sales pitch targeting qualified leads or a support ensemble to answer inquiries, mass calling feature certainly delivers the next level customer experience.

Mass Calling enables a unified, orchestrated customer outreach approach that facilitates a transformative change to your communication strategy.

Key Benefits of Enabling Mass Call Feature

1. Seamless Communication: Users can make calls, send SMS, and initiate video conferences directly from ConvergeHub’s interface using RingCentral, ensuring seamless communication within the CRM platform.

2. Efficient Collaboration: Real-time collaboration is made easy with integrated messaging and video conferencing, allowing teams to work together, share information, and make decisions faster.

3. Enhanced Customer Interactions: Access customer data and communication history in one place, enabling personalized interactions and improving customer satisfaction.

4. Increased Productivity: Automation of tasks, coupled with streamlined communication, leads to improved efficiency and productivity, allowing businesses to focus on what matters most – growth and customer relationships.

5. Wider Customer Outreach: ConvergeHub users can leverage mass calling features of RingCentral and reach out to a large number of contacts directly from ConvergeHub. This is particularly useful for marketing campaigns, announcements, or any scenario where you need to communicate with a broad audience.

6. Automated Dialing: Integration with RingCentral may enable features like automated dialing, helping you optimize the calling process and reduce manual effort. This is beneficial for tasks such as lead generation or follow-up calls. The ability to automatically dial a list of phone numbers without manual intervention.

7. Click-to-Call and Click-to-Message: With the RingCentral widget integrated into ConvergeHub, you can initiate calls or send messages directly from the CRM platform. This streamlined process eliminates the need to switch between different applications, saving time and improving efficiency.

8. Call Queues: A feature that organizes and manages incoming and outgoing calls, distributing them among available agents or users.

9. Call Logging and Analytics: Detailed logs and analytics related to calls, including call duration, outcomes, and other relevant metrics.

10. Voicemail Drops: The ability to leave pre-recorded voicemails when a call goes to voicemail, saving time for the caller.

From the CEO’s Desk

“The integration of ConvergeHub with RingCentral is aligned perfectly with our commitment to providing businesses with powerful tools for customer relationship management. By combining ConvergeHub’s CRM capabilities with RingCentral’s advanced communication solutions, we are empowering businesses to build stronger relationships with their customers, enhance collaboration among teams, and drive growth. This integration represents a significant step forward in our mission to simplify business processes and improve overall efficiency,” said Shampa Bagchi, CEO of ConvergeHub.

Final Thoughts

“Mass call” feature by RingCentral allows ConvergeHub users to make a large number of calls quickly and efficiently. This can be beneficial for scenarios such as sales prospecting, customer outreach, or any situation where reaching out to a large number of contacts is required. Key features associated with mass calling might include:

Keep in mind that the specific features available may vary depending on the subscription plan or edition of RingCentral that a user has. It’s always a good idea to reach out to the RingCentral support team or consult the documentation for the most accurate and up-to-date information on the platform’s capabilities.

7 Things Sales Reps Get Wrong When Leveraging AI for Sales Outreach

80% of sales professionals feel artificial intelligence (AI) could help them become more efficient in their jobs, especially sales outreach. However, despite the possibility of advantages and scalability which AI may add to sales outreach, many are still unfamiliar with this technology, and that leads to mistakes.

80% of sales professionals feel artificial intelligence (AI) could help them become more efficient in their jobs, especially sales outreach. “However, despite the possibility of advantages and scalability which AI may add to sales outreach, many are still unfamiliar with this technology, and that leads to mistakes. According to industry veterans, most of the sales reps go wrong with the ideal usage of AI for sales outreach. And, sadly, they are unaware of the strategies to fix it.”

Here’s a roundup of the top 7 things where most of the sales reps go wrong.

1. Perceiving AI as a simply “copy and paste” tool

While AI serves as a quick solution, it is absolutely not a copy-paste tool. Seasoned AI expert, Mike Kaput, who is also the Chief Content Officer at Marketing AI Institute, warns against simple copy-paste use. AI-generated content, in spite of being perceived as original, they are not. They are more generic rather than being personalized. That’s where 80% of the customers are lost because they are not getting personalized support. Hardly a few sales reps are able to identify that human intervention is vital. Kaput’s team uses AI for support, not replacement, saving 75% of content production time by automating tasks like summarization, ideation, research, and outlining. Humans then focus on creating unique, AI-resistant content.

2. Using AI to expand outreach but not focusing on quality

AI is not a content-creation machine. Jake Dunlap, presenter of the Jake Dunlap Show, said: “When you decide to implement AI, your goal shouldn’t be to send 17 more emails per day.” “If you use these tools properly, they should prevent you from sending any more emails each day. Instead, they will improve your quality by 20–30%.

Kaput’s team also recommends that AI is here to automate mundane tasks, freeing up enough time for crafting personalized messaging. In fact, AI assistants rest for understanding your audience by acting as ‘virtual buyers,’ allowing you to ask about pain points and emotions related to your outreach topic. This approach makes outreach more human, empathetic, and ultimately more effective.

3. Saying No to Human Intervention

Often sales professionals underestimate the value of human intervention in AI-powered sales outreach. But , AI is not empowered with superhuman capabilities. By the phrase that AI streamlines processes means it makes the job of humans easier, but in no way can replace human intuition and expertise. The latter remains indispensable in every possible manner.

AI can assist in automating tasks, but it should not replace the human touch. Instead, sales reps should actively participate in the crafting of personalized messaging, highlighting the value proposition of the brand. Reps must be aware of the unique insights and needs of their customers. AI integration requires a harmonious collaboration between technology and human expertise.

4. Overlooking Data Privacy and Compliance

In their eagerness to employ AI for sales outreach, sales people may unknowingly overlook data protection and compliance rules.Compliance and data privacy are crucial in the business world today. Errors in the handling of customer data may have far-reaching legal and reputational effects. Sales people are in charge of making sure that AI tools used for outreach abide with tight data protection regulations. Establishing robust security measures, acquiring customer consent, and frequently evaluating data management practices are necessary for maintaining credibility and confidence.

5. Ignoring AI Training and Optimization

Because they think that once they are in place, AI models will always perform at their best, sales teams frequently overlook the need to continuously train and develop these models. But the reality is much different. AI cannot simply “set it and forget it” in terms of technology. To maximize AI’s effectiveness, sales professionals must make continuing training and enhancement investments. This entails taking into account user feedback, monitoring performance, and upgrading algorithms. Since AI is adaptable and able to learn over time, it can significantly enhance its performance in sales outreach, which raises the usefulness of AI as a tool for achieving sales objectives.

6. Focusing Solely on Outreach, Neglecting Customer Engagement

It’s possible for sales representatives to become unduly obsessed with using AI for early outreach and to overlook the crucial stage of continued customer connection. While AI can help in the initial connection process, its actual potential is revealed in the development of long-term client relationships. Sales representatives should use AI to acquire customer preferences and insights, enabling personalized and fast follow-ups. Sales representatives may encourage loyalty and encourage repeat business by actively engaging clients with pertinent material and solutions, eventually maximizing the return on investment of their AI-powered sales efforts.

Focusing Solely on Outreach, Neglecting Customer Engagement

What’s the Right Way? Leveraging the Power of AI in Sales

Progressive sales leaders with a dynamic approach to business growth are embracing AI and ML to boost their organizations’ efficiency. With the concept of productive ongoing strategic change, revenue operations and enablement teams have also started resorting to the advanced models built for the structured data. CRM software ConvergeHub powered by AI assists growth-driven sales team identify patterns and suggest new sales methods, improvements in forecasts, or even modifications to sales incentives.

A recent innovation in generative AI promises to deliver value directly to the seller by helping him/her break through the noise and engage customers in a relevant manner.

Lately, a survey found that only 13% of buyers agree with the statement “The seller’s message is addressing a relevant challenge my organization is facing.” But, the same result shows a 25% increase when Generative AI drops in and the sales become more personalized and to-the-point.

Before Generative AI many there’s often a lack in the understanding of the buyer’s role, business, and market.There is evidence where this lack of understanding has impacted the buyer engagement ratio. In many cases, the buyers are turned off by irrelevant engagement attempts, however with generative AI in the scene things have changed drastically.

AI Makes Data-driven Decisions More Mainstream

The role of data towards your business success cannot be undermined at this point of time. Rather, it is instrumental towards winning outcomes in sales execution. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence that it has made data even more relevant and utilized it for day-to-day planning. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence at every stage translates into in-depth A/B testing that goes a long way to bring in higher conversion rates as we adapt our approaches based on real-time feedback.

Advanced enterprise sales CRM tools such as ConvergeHub comes with a comprehensive suite powered by AI technology. Users can leverage predictive analytics and sentiment analysis capabilities to achieve more personalized and clear-cut outcomes that are achievable..

Innovating Email Campaigns with Smart Email Assist

With the strategic use of generative AU models you can actually bid goodbye to the tedious trial-and-error methods of communicating with your clients. From crafting subject lines and content for your emails, Generative AI helps eliminate the guesswork thoroughly from your sales outreach efforts.

No doubt, Artificial Intelligence or AI is no less than a game-change in Sales.This level of precision and personalization can only help to drive better customer engagement and sales. AI can also be used to track customer behavior and predict their needs. This can help to create personalized marketing campaigns that are tailored to their interests.

The Final Takeaway

The integration of AI into sales outreach holds immense promise, but success hinges on avoiding these seven critical missteps. Precisely, the future of sales lies at the intersection of human expertise and AI-driven efficiency, where the art of selling meets the science of technology. And here are the key takeaways:

Embrace AI as a Strategic Ally: Rather than viewing AI as a shortcut, recognize it as a strategic tool to enhance sales efforts.
Prioritize Quality over Quantity: Focus on delivering high-quality interactions and personalized solutions rather than aiming for sheer volume.
Maintain Human Involvement: While leveraging AI, ensure that there is a human touch in customer interactions to build trust and rapport.
Adapt to Changing Customer Behaviors: Stay agile and adjust strategies to align with evolving customer preferences and behaviors.
Adhere to Data Privacy and Compliance Standards: Ensure that all AI-powered processes and data handling comply with privacy and regulatory guidelines.
Invest in AI Training and Optimization: Continuously train and optimize AI tools to improve their effectiveness and relevance in sales activities.
Embrace AI’s Role in Customer Engagement: Recognize AI as a valuable asset in enhancing customer engagement and providing personalized experiences.

Adhering to these principles, sales professionals can fully harness the potential of AI in sales outreach, creating a future where the art of selling seamlessly merges with the science of technology for greater success.

Elevate Data Protection: Deploy a GDPR-Compliant CRM for Your CPA Firm

The rapid digital transformation, data has become the lifeblood of any business. For the CPA firms, who need to deal with sensitive financial information, maintaining data security is quite challenging. The biggest responsibility is safeguarding their clients’ data. With the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), CPA firms can re-evaluate their data management practices from the core. In this context, a GDPR-compliant CRM Software plays a pivotal role, ensuring compliance with GDPR regulations and fortifying the protection of valuable data on a day-to-day basis.

The Significance of GDPR in the Accounting Industry

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enforced in 2018, marked a paradigm shift in data protection laws. Its primary objective is to empower individuals with control over their personal data while imposing stringent regulations on businesses that handle this information. For accountants, this means handling financial data with utmost care and ensuring GDPR compliance to avoid severe penalties and data loss.

CRM Software has long been a staple in accounting tasks. An all-in-one CRM Software helps Accounts professionals in managing client relationships, tracking interactions, and streamlining communication alongside keeping client data 100% safe. With the arrival of GDPR, the role of CRM software has evolved dramatically. Here’s how the GDPR-compliant platform of ConvergeHub can assist CPA firms to maintain data protection on a day-to-day basis while automating key accounting tasks across multiple touchpoints.

1. Data Encryption and Security Measures

GDPR mandates the implementation of robust security measures to protect personal data. ConvergeHub is featured with advanced encryption techniques, ensuring that sensitive information is stored securely and transmitted safely.

Over the time, financial sectors including CPA firms have managed accounting tasks with piles of paper. When the Cloud technology steps in, manual data is being transported there. This runs the risk of data breach. However, a GDPR-compliant system will encrypt data and protect it from unauthorized access.

2. Consent Management

Under GDPR, individuals must provide explicit consent for their data to be processed. ConvergeHub, being equipped with GDPR compliance features allow accountants to manage consent effectively. They can record and track consent status, ensuring that client data is processed only with the necessary permissions, thereby mitigating the risk of non-compliance.

3. Data Minimization and Storage Limitation

One of the core principles of GDPR is data minimization, which means collecting only required data for the intended purpose. CRM tools enable accountants to define and limit the scope of data collected, ensuring that irrelevant or excessive information is not stored. Additionally, these tools facilitate storage limitation, enabling automatic deletion of data once it has served its purpose, aligning with GDPR requirements.

4. Right to Access and Data Portability

GDPR grants individuals the right to access their personal data and request its portability to another service provider. CRM tools simplify the process of fulfilling these requests. Accountants can easily retrieve and provide clients with their data, demonstrating compliance with GDPR regulations. This transparency fosters trust between accountants and their clients.

5. Accountability and Documentation

Accountability is a fundamental aspect of GDPR, requiring businesses to demonstrate compliance with the regulation. GDPR-compliant CRM tools assist accountants in maintaining detailed records of data processing activities. This documentation serves as evidence of compliance, ensuring that accountants can prove their adherence to GDPR standards if required.

6. Automated Data Auditing and Monitoring

Regular data audits and monitoring are crucial for identifying and addressing potential risks promptly. GDPR-compliant CRM tools offer automated auditing features, allowing accountants to track data access, modifications, and user activities. By promptly identifying any irregularities, accountants can take immediate action, thereby enhancing data security and compliance.

Leverage the ConvergeHub Advantage

CRM software like ConvergeHub that comply with GDPR have become essential assets for accountants. The platform is equipped with the necessary tools that allows accountancy firms to effectively handle the intricacies of GDPR, ensuring the security of sensitive financial information in their daily operations. With the digital landscape constantly evolving, accountants armed with strong CRM solutions not only secure their clients’ data but also cultivate trust, accountability, and professionalism within the accounting domain. Embracing GDPR-compliant CRM tools enables accountants to meet legal requirements while upholding the integrity of their profession, safeguarding data integrity one step at a time.

Using ConvergeHub Sales Module to Fast Track Conversions

Using powerful Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software with a functional sales module is crucial for agile businesses aiming for speed and efficiency.

The proverbial saying “The early bird catches the worm”, holds as much significance in the realm of business as it does in our daily lives. The word of business us fast-paced. Speed and Agility aren’t merely advantageous traits; they have become indispensable skills that every business must possess. Achieving efficiency and agility is no longer a choice but a necessity, and businesses are turning to Sales Acceleration software to stay ahead in this competitive landscape.

Traditionally, businesses relied on their Unique Selling Proposition (USP), products, or sales strategies. However, as the world evolves and markets expand, companies are embracing advanced technology to gain a competitive edge. Harnessing the power of cutting-edge technology has become a strategic imperative for modern businesses.

In this article, we will explore the concept of sales acceleration software and its pivotal role in enhancing business performance. We will delve into how integrating this technology can revolutionize your business operations. Additionally, we will provide insights into some of the top-notch sales acceleration software available in the market today.

1. Understanding Sales Acceleration: What Sets It Apart from Conventional Sales?

2. Key Features of Sales Acceleration Tools: Enhancing Efficiency and Productivity

3. Leading Sales Acceleration Tools: A Comparative Analysis for Informed Decision-making

Understanding Sales Acceleration

Traditionally,cold calls and meeting prospects face-to-face used to be the go-to strategies. While these tactics still hold some relevance, the rise of eCommerce, digital advertising, social media, and instant communication has pushed them into the background. Businesses that fail to adapt to this digital era are finding themselves left behind or struggling to keep up.

Imagine strolling through a bustling Saturday morning market, surrounded by vendors all eager to catch your eye and make a sale. These vendors understand the importance of acting swiftly; they know they have only a brief moment to capture your attention before the next competitor seizes the opportunity. So, how do they win your business?

The key lies in conveying the right message at the right time. Businesses must find a way to stand out amidst the noise, ensuring that their offerings are presented to prospects precisely when they are most receptive. While intuition plays a role, relying solely on it isn’t enough. That’s where technology steps in to assist: enter sales acceleration software.

Sales acceleration software isn’t here to replace your sales team; it’s here to empower them. It provides a competitive edge, enabling your team to operate swiftly and efficiently. These tools come with a range of features, including automated sales outreach, advanced analytics, and scoring systems.

By utilizing this software, businesses can target their audiences more precisely than ever before. They can engage effectively with these audiences, leading to swift and efficient deal closures at the opportune moment. These tools aren’t about shouting the loudest to grab attention; they’re about building meaningful connections with potential customers instead.

ConvergeHub Sales Module: Making Sales a Breeze

ConvergeHub’s Sales module comes with a diverse range of features and tools tailored to enhance your sales process. Here’s a breakdown of key functionalities that helps you understand how it helps increase sales.

1. Automated Outreach: Save valuable time by automating outreach efforts. Instead of spending hours on manual phone calls and emails, the software takes charge. It ensures your messages are sent at optimal times and engages with leads on your behalf. With minimal effort, you can connect with more prospects, creating a win-win situation.

2. Lead Scoring: Not all leads are equal. Lead scoring enables you to prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert. The system automatically assigns scores based on specific behaviors or characteristics displayed by the lead. This way, you can allocate your resources and focus on leads most likely to generate revenue.

3. Analytics: A robust analytics suite provides valuable insights into your business performance. You can gain a deep understanding of key metrics related to sales performance, effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and customer preferences. Armed with this knowledge, you can significantly improve your conversion rates.

4. Integrations: Seamless integration with your existing tech stack is crucial. Ensure the software is compatible with your chosen CRM system. A CRM connection allows you to track each customer’s journey through your sales process, enhancing your overall customer relationship management.

5. Templates: Essential for both new and experienced sales professionals, playbooks and templates are invaluable resources. Sales acceleration software often includes pre-loaded templates for emails and call scripts. These resources serve as your sales guides, clearly outlining the ideal customer journey and improving your communication strategies.

6. Notifications: Timely action is essential in sales. Choose a system that provides real-time notifications. These notifications alert you precisely when to take action, such as when a proposal is read or an email is opened. With this information at your fingertips, you can plan your follow-ups effectively and capitalize on every opportunity.

These are some of the powerful features of ConvergeHub Sales Module. It helps streamlining sales process, engage with prospects more efficiently, and ultimately boost your business’s revenue and success.

Key Takeaway

To outshine your competitors, swift action and the right tools are essential. Choosing the correct sales acceleration software is like investing in a valuable asset that can elevate and refine your sales process. By combining speed and strategy effectively, you can leave your competitors trailing behind.

While automation and data play crucial roles, don’t overlook the importance of your human sales team. Their personal touch is invaluable.

ConvergeHub has the potential to transform your business significantly by constantly adapting itself as per the market and business needs. Make sure it seamlessly integrates with your existing software and tools.

When it comes to maximizing the efficiency and speed of your email outreach, you need a tool that can facilitate this seamlessly. Instantly offers precisely that, allowing you to enhance your email outreach starting today.

Power of Email Marketing Campaign via CRM

There are times when the personalities of some people do not mesh. Just like any other areas in our lives, this is even true in sales, in spite of the fact that people often stereotype sales reps of having a personality like social champions, nevertheless, if you work in sales and is seeking business growth it is important and critical that you must be able to deal with prospects and customers who have certain obtrusive personalities that might even clash with your own. Now as a salesperson you need not always have to be the best friend with a prospective customer to work together and find them a solution with your brand’s offerings.

The Covid-19 pandemic has compelled many businesses to solely rely on digital marketing to promote their products and services. The lockdown severely affected Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) and has resulted in revenue losses. To revive from such a situation, small businesses need to creatively leverage digital marketing tools and identify new ways to acquire customers.

Some of the ways companies are marketing their products and services digitally are:

Email marketing
Social media marketing
Search engine marketing
Online ads
Influencer marketing

In this blog, we will discuss email marketing. It is a popularly used marketing strategy by companies to convert leads into customers. Despite various social media channels and other marketing platforms, email marketing remains the most popular and used process to communicate with customers. There are multiple ways to leverage email as a strategy to attract and retain customers. Here are several common practices of email marketing campaigns.

Email Marketing Campaign Best Practices

Studies done by various companies suggest that email is the best way to communicate with your customer and directly impact your business ROI. Any email marketing strategy depends on the stage of the customer’s journey and the defined objective of an enterprise. Here are some common practices of email marketing campaigns:

Campaign Objective	Stage of Customer Journey	Usage Stat%
Welcoming Customers	Onboarding	92%
Informing About Upcoming Features	Existing Customers	89%
Promoting Offers, Sales & Events	Existing and Left Customers	72%
Requesting for Feedback	Relatively Old Customers	78%
Remarketing – Upsell or Cross-sell	Existing Customers	87%

As you see, understanding the customer’s journey and sending out the right set of emails at the right time is very important to make the email marketing campaign successful.

We know, analyzing the journey of thousands of customers manually is not possible. Therefore, SMBs mostly rely on CRM platforms. If we can combine CRM and email marketing, it will scale the process and minimize the risk of sending irrelevant emails to your valuable customers. Just segment the customers based on the stage of their journey and set up the email marketing campaign from the CRM itself.

Successful Email Marketing Campaign Sample

When a prospect decides to become your customer you need to be ready with an effective onboarding process. Welcoming Customer is a mandatory template for any company and it is one of the most crucial emails sent out to your ‘just turned’ customer. The email should be promising, simple, and easy to understand. Remember this email is going out to people who are new to your business. One of the best samples for this can be:

Welcome Customer Template Sample:

Hi [name],
Thanks for signing up for [product name]!
As a special thank you, we’re giving you 15% off when you sign up for a paid plan.
Simply use the coupon below at the checkout.
[Discount Code]

Informing About Upcoming Features Sample

This is an important template to communicate with your customers about the upcoming features of your product. It is also the best way to cross-sell or upsell your services or products to your customers.

Hey [name],

The big day has finally come! We just finished [the product, e.g. the most awaited product for your customers].

We’d like to reward all our loyal supporters by allowing you to pre-order the features, before anyone else.

[add an element of scarcity, e.g. Only the first 100 lucky customers will get the feature for free!]

[Add CTA, e.g. Pre-Order now]

Promoting Offers, Sales & Events Sample

Promotions and discounts are proven strategies, especially in the B2C market, to attract and retain customers. We often get offers on clothes, books, accessories, phones, and laptops, etc. To make a sale or discount successful you need to reach out to your customers informing them about the discount and encourage them to buy. What can be better than reaching out to your customers via email marketing?

Dear [name],

We are excited to announce that, due to our remarkable growth over the last [enter number] of years, we are expanding!

In fact, we are opening a new store in [enter location and specifics].

We invite you to celebrate with us during the big opening day on [enter date]. There will be many exciting surprises, including irresistible discounts.

[Add specific CTA depending on your specific offer, in this example -] If you want to make use of your opening day discount, please click on the button below so we can send you the discount code.

See you there.

Team [name of your brand]

Requesting for Feedback Sample

Feedback helps companies understand their customers’ needs, satisfaction level, and their issues better. Therefore it is necessary to ask for your customers’ feedback. It can be easily done with the help of email marketing.

Dear [Name],
We really appreciate your choosing the [name of the product]

Since we want to make it better for your business we would like to ask, whether you like [product name]? How can we make it better?

It should take less than 2 minutes, and your feedback will help us make [product name] better!

Thank you,

Team [Company name]

Email marketing is an effective and powerful tool to communicate with your customers. However, it is rather tedious to collect all the customers’ information, based on their journey level and then send them the mail. That’s where the effectiveness of CRM software integrated with an email marketing tool can help.

CRM with Email Integration

There are many email marketing software available in the market. But a CRM that also offers email marketing can help reach out to your customers easily. You can select the leads from the CRM dashboard and send out the email to chosen customers. ConvergeHub is a CRM that offers complete customer lifecycle management. It is more than a CRM that offers billing, marketing, sales, and services in a unified platform. It facilitates the analysis of customers’ stages (customer’s journey position) and helps you to select a suitable email marketing campaign.

Customer relationship management software brings all the leads together, it is meant to help you deal with your customers better and easier. With the combination of email marketing, it will be easy for you to manage everything on just one platform. You can easily cut off the long hours of importing data to email marketing platforms. Just set up the campaign and you have everything within the CRM.

Concluding with Expert’s Note

Email marketing campaigns come with a risk of being identified as spam, high unsubscription rate, and bounces; resulting in a bad reputation for the company. But mail spam can be avoided with the following practice:

Check if you are a blacklisted sender
Stay updated with the spam filter technology
Keep your email copy simple and catchy
Avoid videos or gifs
Avoid embedded forms
Use a sender name that’s recognizable
DON’T USE BOLD – IT MAKES YOU SHOUT AT YOUR AUDIENCE
Add an unsubscribe button

Email marketing is the key to communicating with your customers easily. Just one click and you reach out to many at once. CRM and email marketing are a great combination only if small and medium businesses can make the most of it.

Also Read – 9 Powerful Marketing Strategies To Grow Your Business Faster

5 Lead Tracking Best Practices To Manage Your Sales Pipeline

Even if your business does not have written documentation of the details of how you move your leads through pipeline or funnel, you must be still following a series of steps for lead tracking the prospective customers that guide you from point A to point B in your sales process. Now in order to identify the weakest point of your present sales process, it is as simple as identifying the best and the worst things about your lead’s movement in the sales pipeline. This is because, even if you get tons of apparently profitable leads from a free lead generation tool, or by sharing free resources, but eventually lose half of them, it could be a sign that you need a better lead tracking solution and the best lead tracking practices that will help grow your business.

Now in order to identify the weakest point of your present sales process, it is as simple as identifying the best and the worst things about your lead’s movement in the sales pipeline.

Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. - DemandGen Report Click To Tweet

This is because, even if you get tons of apparently profitable leads from a free lead generation tool, or by sharing free resources, but eventually lose half of them, it could be a sign that you need a better lead tracking solution and the best lead tracking practices that will help grow your business.

Hence irrespective of whether your businesses goals are to provide better service to your customers, or build better social media engagements, or just find more time on your hand, understanding your organization is the primary step to tracking sales leads which can be as easy as using a CRM software or setting up spreadsheets for finding sales growth.

BEST PRACTICES FOR IMPROVING SALES LEADS TRACKING SKILLS

1. Create an Email Sending Sequence

A big part of managing leads involves nurturing the leads. Therefore even before you send your first email to your prospective customers ensure that you have an entire sales cadence ready that you can send out sequentially over the course of weeks or months.

This is because as one of the leading vendors of Salesforce Alternative CRM tools, we have observed that just one email and thereafter one follow-up are never enough to understand the effectiveness of your lead nurturing campaigns.

Hence businesses must use an email tracking tool like a CRM platform that can allow organizations to track and measure email opening rates, click-through rates, replies, and bounce rates of the emails, which are all important metrics in determining the efforts of your email marketing campaigns.

Therefore it is only with a structured email sequence, you can find a controlled variable to judge upon individual lead responses, which is an info that you can track to find the interested prospects and also those leads that require a bit more convincing.

2. Schedule Follow-Ups

We all know that not all the leads that enter the sales funnel will be at once ready to buy your offerings. Therefore it always requires some extra work to be done before finding successful conversions.

Hence it is important that businesses must invest in lead tracking, lead generation, and lead automation software solutions since by actually neglecting to nurture and talk to your leads, you will be eventually wasting a good deal of money that your business has spent on acquiring them in the first place.

Now you might think that tracking 20 potential customers through your sales pipeline is an easy job, but that changes when that number of leads up to the 100s.

This is because losing track of where your leads are in your sales pipeline (which ones are reading what content or which ones have received your proposals) can be detrimental to your sales process.

Therefore you should schedule your follow-ups to understand exactly where your prospects are in the sales pipeline, and what the next step should be so that you do not start overselling even before enough resources have been shared with the prospective customer, or you might forget them altogether and make them fall through the crack.

3. Follow a Lead Cycle That Makes Sense

While it is always beneficial to nurture and build relationships with long-term leads, instead of exclusively going for the relatively short-term ones. Lead cycles can go on for months and might even take more resources than it is worth.

Hence stick to a lead cycle that essentially makes sense with the model of your business, so that you can increase your profits.

This is important since which B2C leads tend to have a shorter cycle, like if you are an e-commerce site, a fortnight of nurturing campaign is sufficient, whereas for B2B leads the nurturing process can last as long as several months and with some lasting up to a whole year.

Therefore imposing a lead cycle for your business, will help to ensure that your sales reps do not keep engaging with the same prospects over and over again. Moreover shortening your lead cycle will also help to keep your sales pipeline fresh with new leads flowing into the funnel and ensure that your sales reps are pursuing new leads every day and thereby connecting with new opportunities on a regular basis.

4. Track the Sales Pipeline

Now while the sales funnel focuses on the stage-by-stage conversion of the leads, the sales pipeline reflects only what is on your plate at this very minute.

Therefore if you are just keeping track of your sales funnel using a sales CRM tool, consider integrating the sales pipeline also into your process.

This is because when you successfully track the leads through the sales pipeline, it becomes much more easier to remain cognizant of what each lead requires from your company.

Hence think of your sales pipeline stages as steps and formulate what actions are needed to be taken at each stage, since when you can organize leads this way and track them according to their placement in the sales pipeline, you can create a standardized process on how your sales reps should approach the leads.

This also makes your lead nurturing process simpler, whereby you can perform mass actions and create relationships with your leads as a group that can reduce your efforts, but you must do it without forgetting about personalization.

5. Practice Lead Scoring

Finally, you must practice lead scoring, which is a process of segregating leads that belong to the highest priority down to leads that of the least priority in the funnel.

Businesses can score their leads using a business CRM tool based on their urgency, project size, availability of resources, and more.

Therefore instead of treating all leads as the same and one, this practice helps to focus more resources, personalization, and efforts on leads that are more beneficial for your business.

Lead scoring also makes it easier for businesses to understand when it is the right time to weed out unresponsive leads from your sales pipeline when you are sifting through hundreds of leads and thousands of data points that need to be monitored every day.

In other words, lead scoring helps your teams to make decisions at a glance without even worrying about making uninformed decisions in their lead tracking endeavors for finding sales growth.

Conclusion

Now as you must have understood by now, that ultimately all these lead tracking practices can only be performed by a single business growth tool which is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, which is a platform that is dedicated to lead management and lead nurturing and can easily perform any of these tasks simultaneously without fail.

Additionally, an all in one CRM can also help businesses to understand the best performing sales reps in their teams as well as the movement of their leads along the pipeline, generate reports and make you see trends in your sales processes that can amplify your efforts to stay on top of new and ongoing leads for finding rapid revenue growth.

How To Manage And Convert Leads Using A Sales Pipeline CRM Software Tool

Leads are the lifeblood of any business across the globe since without them your revenue will eventually dry up and consequentially you will have to shut off the lights of your company. But there is a problem – leads are not easy to come by as a Starbuck’s Latte. Hence in order to cope with it, businesses turn to sales pipeline CRM software solutions to aid companies to manage their leads as lead management is the first step in the customer journey once the leads have established contact with your brand. Now with competition becoming fiercer in most industries and customer’s demands for personalized experiences increasing every day, businesses cannot afford to overlook the need for lead management anymore, an opportunity that can only be found once companies adopt CRM tools like Salesforce or even any other Salesforce Alternative CRM solutions if they want to remain competitive in their marketplace. So in this article let us take a jaunt into the world of managing your leads which can be also called CRM lead database management which can help in building better customer relationships.

Patronage by loyal customers yields 65 percent of a typical business’ volume - American Management Association Click To Tweet

Now with competition becoming fiercer in most industries and customer’s demands for personalized experiences increasing every day, businesses cannot afford to overlook the need for lead management anymore, an opportunity that can only be found once companies adopt CRM tools like Salesforce or even any other Salesforce Alternative CRM solutions if they want to remain competitive in their marketplace.

So in this article let us take a jaunt into the world of managing your leads which can be also called CRM lead database management which can help in building better customer relationships.

Now lead management is a technique that focuses on bagging and retaining leads until they become happy and loyal customers with a subscription or purchase or any other business interactions on to the lead’s name.

In other words, lead management with a sales pipeline CRM software helps to guide the leads through a process of qualifying, scoring, and nurturing after which businesses can hand the leads off to their sales reps who are trained to turn them into paying customers.

Now that being said, let us show you some of the most important things that we have learned as one of the most promising vendors of the best small and medium business CRM software about managing sales leads over the last 15 years.

1. Define Qualified Lead

A major disconnect between the staff working in sales and the marketing department in any organization lies in finding a proper definition of a properly qualified lead.
Research suggests that more than even 75 percent of the leads that are passed on to sales departments never get actively worked by the sales reps in most organizations.

This can happen for a plethora of reasons.

We have found one major reason for this disconnect is not being able to define what a truly qualified lead is that can provide business to an organization
Hence for better sales effectiveness, the marketing and sales in an organization need to find a very precise meaning (or rules laid down for measuring engagement) when a suspected contact becomes a definite lead that can be thereafter sent to the sales department, partners, or other channels for nurturing them so that they can convert to a customer.

Now the parameters of this definition of an ideal sales-ready lead vary from company to company, but they generally include the following factors that include:

The horizon for purchase
Title of the lead
The budget of the lead
Geography of the lead
Size of company (in B2B businesses)
Size of the prospected opportunity, and more…

2. Nurture The Leads

Leads that have not fully passed the screen test of a “qualified lead” requires proactive nurturing by the marketers in an organization by using a sales pipeline CRM software.
We have found that most “leads” generated by marketing are doubtlessly not ready to buy based on their first interaction with a company.
Therefore it is best to nurture both suspects and prospects and you will be astonished at how much revenue can be made from nurturing lead in the CRM databases, even with the leads that have been already summarily written off by sales teams.

For this, campaigns need to be run allowing you to touch your prospective leads multiple times throughout the sales process using different sales cadences until they are ready to buy.

Special offers, new product announcements, and promotions are tools that should be set into action to reactive old and long-forgotten leads and even arouse interest in the new ones stored in the sales pipeline CRM software.

Hence nurturing leads is a distinctive sales and marketing skillset that needs to be greatly enhanced, measured, and rewarded appropriately for its successes by the company.

3. Distribute The Leads

According to studies, it is clear that the sales close rate increases phenomenally if you answer back within 12 to 24 hours after a lead initiates contact with your company.

This is because, by responding fast, you truly distinguish your organization and even yourself from other sales reps and your competitors.

For this, the “contact” should not just be an automated email responder, but also a personal phone call from a sales professional.

Obviously, the magnitude of the opportunity and the buying cycle command the persistence and intensity of the follow-up cycle with a lead.

Nevertheless, cloud based CRM systems that are integrated with AI and other cutting-edge business growth technology solutions are great technology in distributing leads quickly and efficiently using round-robin algorithms and more advanced techniques among the right members in the sales team.

4. Track Lead Source

In any business, you need to determine what works and what does not and the only way to know this type of information is to capture the source of the lead.

In an ideal world, this is done using a sales CRM system tool that gets automatically populated when a new contact or lead arrives into the system.

This is because if you are incapable of capturing the genesis or the source of the lead, you have no other way of figuring out what is working to make the lead find out your brand.

Most full-featured sales pipeline CRM software systems have inbuilt reporting systems that aids in understanding the Return on Investment (ROI) on the lead management activities.

Moreover, as CRM systems give you a multitude of ways for capturing and storing leads into the system, your marketing and sales team spends even less time entering and inputting data and more time acting on the stored information in its CRM database.

Additionally, with complete visibility to all leads, there is less chance of multiple people calling the same prospect, which can reduce the efficiency of your sales processes in the long run.

5. Remember Quality Beats Quantity

When it comes to generating new sales, quality definitely supersedes quantity, since significant time can be wasted by organizations and businesses that invest momentous time and energy churning through poor quality leads.

Moreover, the more information you can capture about a prospective lead, the more energized your sales team will be about the lead.

Now this information can be captured in many different ways including things like the search string someone used to get to your website.

This information increases the “quality” of the lead and should be passed to the sales via a simple CRM system.

6. Measure Everything

Lastly, you need to determine what is exactly that you want to measure and the reasons why.

Measurements generally include cost per lead, lead source, cost of acquisition, size of the opportunity, geography, buying cycle, size of the company, and more.

Hence once you determine what you want to measure, you can put the necessary tools like a sales pipeline CRM software in place to capture the information since when you have the right information, you can determine the return on investment of your marketing and sales efforts and focus on the lead generation campaigns that will increase your sales pipeline.

Conclusion

Do not leave money on the table. Invest in CRM database management and take your business to the next level.

There are plenty of easy to use CRM tools to choose from, so take your time when making a decision, ask plenty of questions, and keep your overarching goal in mind, which is – building up a strong customer base.

5 Reasons To Choose A Cloud-Based Low-Cost CRM Software For Small Business And Startups

Although Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is really a buzzword in the present business space, and most look for low-cost CRM software for small business and startups since almost all know that they can significantly benefit from adopting a CRM for SMB tool – yet only a very few know which solution fits their business model effectively. Now it does not really matter if your company employs just 10 staff or has more than 100 employees- business CRM is a tool that can help you build closer connections with your prospective leads and customers, sell more, and provide professional customer service and thereby grow your business. Therefore, when it comes to buying an easy to use CRM, it must be affordable, it should not be complicated, should be accessible day and night, and should target your unique business needs.

Although Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is really a buzzword in the present business space, and most look for low-cost CRM software for small business and startups since almost all know that they can significantly benefit from adopting a CRM for SMB tool – yet only a very few know which solution fits their business model effectively.

64.2% of companies rate CRM tools as impactful or very impactful - LinkedIn Click To Tweet

Now it does not really matter if your company employs just 10 staff or has more than 100 employees- business CRM is a tool that can help you build closer connections with your prospective leads and customers, sell more, and provide professional customer service and thereby grow your business.

Therefore, when it comes to buying an easy to use CRM, it must be affordable, it should not be complicated, should be accessible day and night, and should target your unique business needs.

Now gone are those years when the term “CRM” bought to mind a picture of expensive and bulky software that needs an entire IT team and experts working solely on installation and maintenance of the software.

In fact, today’s modern all-in-one CRM systems are more user-friendly and technologically advance, but it even comes with a variety of business growth solutions that are designed to address the needs of all types of businesses, irrespective of whether they are big or small.

Therefore modern CRM solutions not only offer new possibilities, but they are easy to deploy and maintain, comes at a flexible cost.

This is because most CRM solutions nowadays have moved from their earth-bound domains all the way to the Cloud. And so if you are looking for a low-cost CRM software for small business and startups this is exactly in the Cloud where your business should look for a business CRM solution.

Hence if you are still not sure about cloud-based CRM solutions that are price-performance leaders in the CRM space, here are 5 solid reasons why CRM that are cloud-based is something that all businesses should consider seriously if they are looking forward to growing their business and find rapid sales growth:

Hassle-Free Installation

The long innate fear that CRM comes with a complex installation procedure is no more a valid reason for not adopting a CRM for your business.

In fact, present-day cloud-based CRM tools are “IT hassle-free” and you can be up and running in no time, and all you need for that is an Internet connection, after which you can sign in online and use it.

Hence for using a modern easy to use CRM you not only do not have to pay for hardware, software maintenance, and servers you also do not need a permanent IT staff for data migration or even installing upgrades.

With cloud-based CRM all this is done by the CRM vendors remotely.

Seamless Access

One of the greatest benefits of buying a CRM in the cloud is the round-the-clock accessibility of the software.

For example, imagine a situation whereby you need to make some game-changing and urgent sales call while you are on-the-go, or quickly find a contact’s phone no, or send a revised sales proposal, or an email when you are out of your workstation in the office, cloud CRM software can provide you access to the software from anywhere on any device be it a laptop, desktop, tablet or even a smartphone.

Again all you need for accessing the low-cost CRM software for small business is the Internet.

Hence using a cloud-based CRM you can always remain connected to the centralized CRM database as cloud CRM provides businesses the freedom and flexibility to what you need to do when you need to do it from anywhere.

Affordable Product

Another important benefit of using this cloud-based business growth technology solution is that this business-enhancing solution certainly will never break your bank.

This is because if you are using a cloud-based Salesforce Alternative CRM tool you do not have to allocate a big sum of money for making a one-off purchase, but you can pay in regular installment which is usually preferred by SMBs.

Typically cloud CRM solutions operate on the pay-as-you-go subscription model that needs minimal upfront investments and so reduces the risk of going bust while using the software.

High-Security Levels

Since the introduction of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) on May 25^th, 2018, as information security levels at Cloud services are times higher than those provided by local IT firms, vendors that offer cloud-based CRM tools take security issues seriously.

Additionally, providers of cloud CRM solutions even offer advanced automatized back-up policies and have robust data-recovery plans if any breach happens while working with their software.

Moreover, most low-cost CRM software for small business also offers data safety to their customers by using two-step authentication and robust passwords.

Enhanced Compatibility

Finally, as stand-alone business growth solutions have little chance of success in today’s IT world, so modern business environment requires information exchange between already available technology solutions which is paramount for all businesses.

Therefore, no one would invest in a software solution that cannot save your contacts, open your documents, or be able to integrate the email or accounting software that you are using for your business.

Hence compatibility with other products and services is the key to ensuring CRM’s effectiveness and longevity.

Now, CRM that uses cloud-based technology can be easily integrated with other software or applications, such as Gmail, QuickBooks CRM, Excel, Words, PowerPoint, Zapier, and many other tools.

In fact, it is this compatibility that makes cloud-based CRM an even more appropriate choice for your small business.

Conclusion

Now that you know what you need to look for in your low-cost CRM software for small business, the only thing that is left is to choose the CRM for small and medium business solutions’ vendor wisely.

Remember it has never been more important to improve workflow between your teams and provide full visibility of client communications between your employees than ever before.

What’s ConvergeHub? What Makes it a Great Salesforce Alternative?

Pricing point: A Clear Winner

Ease of use: Streamlined Interface

Focus on SMB Needs: Tailored Features for Growth

Simplified Marketing Automation

Data to Support the Claims: ConvergeHub’s Strengths

G2 Crowd

Capterra

Ready to make a Switch? Here’s a look at the smooth transition

Final Thoughts: Does ConvergeHub supports your needs?

What is Artificial Intelligence

What is Intelligent Automation or IA?

Sales on Autopilot: How AI Supercharges Your Team

What’s the Difference?

Don’t Just Work Smarter, Work Augmented

Use Cases of AI and IA in Sales and Marketing

Final Thoughts

The CX Gap: A Disconnect Between Perception and Reality

Causes of the CX Gap: Why Businesses Miss the Mark

Bridging the CX Gap: Strategies for Customer-Centric Success

Final Thoughts

What’s Generative AI in CRM?

AI in ConvergeHub Takes Customer Communication to the Next Level

AI-first Customer Interactions

Personalization Done Right

How AI Assistant in ConvergeHub Streamline Workflows

Leverage AI Functionalities to Take your Business to the Next level

Overcoming Challenges and Ensuring Ethical Use of Generative AI

Leverage AI Functionalities to Take your Business to the Next level

Overcoming Challenges and Ensuring Ethical Use of Generative AI

The Future Landscape- Closing the Never-Ending Customer Feedback Loop

Wrapping Up

Mass Call by RingCentral-Explained

Key Benefits of Enabling Mass Call Feature

From the CEO’s Desk

Final Thoughts

1. Perceiving AI as a simply “copy and paste” tool

2. Using AI to expand outreach but not focusing on quality

3. Saying No to Human Intervention

4. Overlooking Data Privacy and Compliance

5. Ignoring AI Training and Optimization

6. Focusing Solely on Outreach, Neglecting Customer Engagement

Focusing Solely on Outreach, Neglecting Customer Engagement

What’s the Right Way? Leveraging the Power of AI in Sales

AI Makes Data-driven Decisions More Mainstream

Innovating Email Campaigns with Smart Email Assist

The Final Takeaway

The Significance of GDPR in the Accounting Industry

1. Data Encryption and Security Measures

2. Consent Management

3. Data Minimization and Storage Limitation

4. Right to Access and Data Portability

5. Accountability and Documentation

6. Automated Data Auditing and Monitoring

Leverage the ConvergeHub Advantage

Understanding Sales Acceleration

ConvergeHub Sales Module: Making Sales a Breeze

Key Takeaway

Email Marketing Campaign Best Practices

Successful Email Marketing Campaign Sample

Welcome Customer Template Sample:

Informing About Upcoming Features Sample

Promoting Offers, Sales & Events Sample

Requesting for Feedback Sample

CRM with Email Integration

Concluding with Expert’s Note

Company

Resources

Solutions

Product

10X Hub