Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of the most important technologies in businesses today. It enables organizations to maintain customer and company relations through constant interactions. The basis of a CRM process is to promote connectivity between customer and company, improve quality, and track potential customers while streamlining the entire process effectively.
The end goal of any organization is to make sales. And CRM software exists to boost sales. It also happens to be the center of our topic here - to know how to use CRM to increase sales. However, before we dive into it, here's an important question: Why do salespeople need CRM? The sales department existed way before CRM became a thing. So, why do they need it?
The Need for CRM
While sales is a human thing, for the most part, it does come with a set of challenges. The challenges for a salesman start from the need to sell more and sell faster. But in trying to sell more, sell faster, you may end up selling nothing. Want to know why?
The reason is that selling requires quality leads and proper follow-ups. More importantly, both require prioritization. When the focus remains on selling more and selling faster, you can lose eyesight of quality leads. You may even fail to prioritize which leads must get pursued first and which later. Thus, you can lose more sales to your competitor or others. CRM effectively fixes this problem.
With the help of CRM, you can effectively prioritize your leads. You can also filter the quality leads from the poor ones. And even time your follow-ups properly. As a result, you save more time chasing leads in tandem and losing them. But CRM, as mentioned above, can do more. It can increase sales and help you reach your goals quicker.
Ways to Use CRM to Increase Sales
Irrespective of the company, whether big or small, you can use CRM anywhere. You can check out various ways to use CRM to Increase Sales.
Keep Your Team Informed
Coordination is essential when contacting leads and making pitches. We must have all found ourselves on the receiving end of the same company. There we may have received many calls and so on. the situation may appear as if the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. You may even think it is an organization. Therefore, it is important not to work as a lone ranger. Instead, have your entire team working collectively.
Have The Outlook Email and CRM Integrated
Microsoft Outlook is a popular email messaging system, and we all know it. When actions in Outlook feed the CRM system quickly and seamlessly, sales productivity can skyrocket. The CRM system can display enhanced knowledge as you move through your Inbox messages. Hence, have the Outlook email and CRM integration for effective communication and work.
Track Your Sales Process
Every sales team must have a step-by-step process to carry out the task. And in case you do not know, you can add a CRM. A CRM system can enhance your process and make the task easier to accomplish. You can even use a CRM system for as simple a task as creating a checklist. Furthermore, you can evolve it into multiple stages and steps. Each stage can automate emails, create To-Do lists, or conservative management if required.
Empowers the Sale Manager
CRM software can monitor your sales team. Simultaneously, you can use it to keep your sales manager informed. As a result, the sales manager can keep track of the active deals. Furthermore, it can keep track of the deal stages. For example, whether the deal is closed or still undergoing the process. In other words, you can say that with CRM software, the sales manager can track the entire sales operations.
Identifies KPI (Key Performance Indicator)
Each member of your sales team must remain aware of their performance. Hence Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are critical to a sales team's performance. Sales KPI allows one to check if the targets have been met or how much of it is left. With KPI, you stack up specific steps required for improvement in your team members. And CRM software can easily keep track of the KPI.
A good CRM software will also measure Key Financial Indicators (KFI) and Key Behavioral Indicators (KBI). By collecting and measuring all three performance metrics - KPIs, KBIs and KFIs – you can make better, more informed decisions and improve your organization.
Share Important Sales Documents Easily
Organizations should always try to keep things simple for their sales team. You must be able to share sales materials and other documents without much fuss. You can store electronic files, documents, or links to Web content in the CRM Library. Besides, you can attach emails or mail merge them. Quote document versions can also get tracked. As a result, you can see performance improvement through more closed sales. Apart from it, it can enable you to save a lot of time while boosting the efficiency of the sales department.
Simplifies Reporting
CRM software makes many aspects of your sales team's lives easier. For example, tracking sales activity. Also, there are some mobile CRM apps to maintain the number of sales calls made in any given period of time. Tools like it can help your sales team collect critical information to close a deal.
Cohesive Collaboration
As we know, CRM systems can help the sales team with several things. It can help you keep track, share documents, and even provide critical information. However, it would be best to look at the bigger picture here. CRM enables the sales team to work cohesively on different levels. Furthermore, the shared knowledge can speed up the sales process and close big deals.
Creates Lead
An automated system enables your website to collect leads efficiently. The leads are then routed directly to the person in your sales department. The sales department team members can then connect with the leads and start the selling process to close the deal.
Maintains a List of Contacts
Small business owners and sales people have a lot on their plates. It includes your key contacts and prospects. When making that next important sales call or sending that next critical email, you need a list of important contacts. CRM software can maintain such a list through social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and other significant platforms.
Enterprise Resource Planning
A process or procedure governs all businesses. It is required to manage and respond to specific activities. It combines manual processes and management software such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). These methods provide some functionality but frequently lack key components that would make certain processes more automated and less manual. So, basically we can that sales people need CRM.
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