What is CRM?
Customer relationship management system, popularly known as CRM, its acronym, as the name suggests it is a system for managing relationships with the customers and prospects. CRM helps to manage customer data, customer communication and supports sales and marketing processes.
What is a Sales CRM?
A sales CRM is a category of CRM which is designed to help the organizations to manage the entire sales processes including the customer data management, customer interaction tracking, lead management and conversion.
The sales software enables to process the raw leads, distributes it to the right agents automatically, facilitates monitoring the agent’s performance and provides for real-time geo-tracking of field sales teams. Also, equips the agent with all the requisite tools at a click away to nurture the leads and close sales in quick time.
In the nutshell, Sales CRM is yours go-to sales management system.
What does a sales CRM do?
A CRM essentially helps you to find new customers and retain keeping them satisfied and happy about your services. It also helps you to understand the customer better by forging valued relations and opens the doors for cross-selling and up-selling to gain more business from the existing customers as well.
A CRM system provides for a single customer database where all the customers, prospects data can be scored, interactions with the customers tracked and the same can be shared with different teams.
What are the salient features of Sales CRM?
Contact Management Center
CRM works as a contact center where all the customer information can be stored, including the customer details, previous interaction and service history. The same information easily retrievable when required also for updating.
Multichannel Communication
A CRM provides for multichannel communication with the customers, where an agent can reach out to the customer or prospect over SMS, Email, Voice depending on the requirement to engage further. All the customer interaction can be tracked and future engagements can be scheduled if needed be.
Lead Management
CRM provides for comprehensive lead management solutions throughout the sales stages. A CRM provides for all the required tools to process leads, assign to the right teams automatically and the eventual conversion.
Lead Score and Customer Score for prioritizing
A CRM provides for different scoring methods to identify the quality leads easily. Lead scores can be auto-generated based on the criteria to identify the quality leads. Scores can be based on user behaviour or interaction or the source, etc. Also based on the customer intent, scores given to customers as well. Both the scores ease the processing the leads and identifying the ones which are on the verge of completion of a sale.
Nurture leads with drip marketing
CRM also provides for automated lead nurturing. Campaigns can be initiated on the basis of user behaviour or response. Email, SMS responses can be automated according to the user response to the campaigns. With the CRM, entire lead management gets automated.
Customizable report and analytics in the dashboard
Comprehensive reports can be generated to track the agents and field sales teams’ performance on the basis of parameters of choice. Even detailed analytics regarding the various sales processes can be automatically generated too.
Who needs a CRM?
Whether you are a startup, MSE or MNC, if you are intended to streamline the customer relationships and better organize your leads and sales teams, you need a CRM.
You need a sales CRM if you have any of the following:
1. You have more leads
Whether you’re B2B or B2C, if you have too many leads to manage or remember, you need a CRM. Every lead is a prospective customer, often a lasting one. So, you can’t afford to ignore or lose a lead. Keeping a track of all the leads, active or dormant, is important because today’s dormant lead can be an active lead tomorrow. A CRM organizes your contacts, leads and makes it easy to set updates to follow up and track the history of interaction.
2. You have a sales team
If you have a sales team of field sales executives or call center employees, you can optimally utilize them to get the best results with a CRM. You will have to monitor the team, their interaction with the customers and individual sales closures to gauge their performance. A sales CRM gives you detailed reports and analytics about all of these. It also allows you to listen to the agent’s interaction and reassign the leads to different agents and team.
3. If you have a lengthy sales cycle
If your sales cycle often runs for months, it would be difficult to remember or keep a track of interactions. It becomes tedious if you keep on maintaining sheets for this. Whereas sales CRM provides for entire customer details and the interaction history at one place and makes it easy to access. With the CRM, you will not only leave a lead unattended but more likely to close every lead.
4. You want to sales forecasting
In any business growth, planning and strategy play a key role. Sales forecasting allows making informed decisions about future sales. A sales CRM with complete recorded data about the sales cycle, values, probability, etc. enable you to come up with accurate sales forecasting.
