The typical excuses of
They are no longer valid. They are past. And I say this convinced of it and because I have already tried disastrous CRM solutions for years. With systems such as pipedrive or SumaCRM , especially with the latter whose learning curve and cost are very low, the management of your clients and the relationship with them is simplified to the maximum.
Which means greater agility for you and your team and a better perceived experience for the user of their interactions with you.
Why you need a CRM program based on data.
Based on my own experience and some studies with the use of a CRM program you may experience:
- an increase in your sales of up to 30%
- and an improvement in the productivity of your sales team up to 50%
Even so, the main reason to use a CRM program is to ultimately improve the user experience and this is the main objective for which they are designed. To improve the management of relationships with your customers.
That said, there are also other reasons to consider using CRM software and now we are going to see what they are.
Reasons to use a CRM program
For me, the best reasons to use a CRM in your company are: increased sales, improved productivity and close customer service.
But it would not be fair to limit myself to just these three. In addition, a quality CRM provides up to 11 extra benefits:
Organization
Having all the commercial information centralized in a single place is essential to be able to aspire to carry out a correct management of the clients and the commercial team. A good CRM gives you vision and immediate management capacity. That is why it is necessary to demand that your CRM platform integrate contacts, emails, tasks, negotiations, calendars, etc… but that it allows you to access all the information as a whole from anywhere in the world, it will help you to be much more organized and make better decisions. .
2.- your memory is not perfect
Do you really trust your memory so much that you want to limit your business to what you can remember in your head? I’m sure not. Not even the most intelligent person with a photographic memory in the world is capable of remembering everything. A CRM program helps you refresh conversations with your customers
3.- Avoid the broken phone problem
If you are familiar with the broken phone problem , you know that it is something that happens in all organizations. It has happened to me, I have suffered and suffered. With a well-structured CRM, this problem goes to a better life.
Here is a video example of how to solve this problem with a CRM:
4.- Better communication with your team
It’s silly, but by having a centralized space open to all the members of your team and supervised by an administrator, the information flows and we no longer have the typical problems generated by the lack of information, so common in siled management.
5.- Access to a history of conversations
The CRM acts as a log file with the history of all the conversations and interactions that have taken place with a client, giving you a unique view of their evolution and status with your company today. This greatly facilitates account management. Since any sales or marketing person is able to know in a moment who they are talking to, what the customer’s concerns are and where your customer is in the comparison process.
6.- Mailboxes are decentralized
Until I found a CRM program that was right for me, I spent many years convincing myself that email was the best solution for keeping up with my customers. Thanks to outlook I could filter, search and read the emails associated with a client. This is very good when your inbox is not very large and you do not receive a large number of emails. But as time goes by, email ceases to be a practical solution. Especially when there are more people in your team and it is impossible to copy everyone involved and there are several of you who talk to a client. How many times have I had to ask them to resend a proposal or ask if an invoice or estimate had been sent. Countless times. With a CRM this does not happen because everything is located and centralized in one place.
7.- You need metrics
I always say it, obtaining data is complex and more so if they are from your clients. A CRM system is an excellent source of data about your customers and about the way your sales team works. Use your CRM to answer your questions about:
- How many projects are we going to close this month?
- what is the turnover of each commercial,
- What product or service are we selling more,
- what is my conversion or retention rate,
- what is the average time to close a deal
- who is the most successful salesperson
- etc…
It’s a great way to take objective measurements, accurately project sales, and capitalize on your daily business data.
8.- Greater possibility of attracting clients
A CRM program allows you to better manage information and keep an eye out for those contacts who may be ready to make a purchase if presented with the right incentives. Watch the video example on how to follow up with SumaCRM.
Second video: follow up with offer
It’s a silly example.
But I have been in this situation many times and have lost sales by not making these decisions immediately in most of these situations.
9.- Greater possibility of retaining customers
By having a centralized place for each customer with each interaction, you will get to know their purchase motivations, problems and needs better. In such a way that when you have interesting news, not necessarily about your company but about a topic of their interest, you can go first to tell them or offer them a special promotion to increase their purchases or improve their relationship with you.
10.- Improve customer service
Having a database with all the interactions and incidents of your customers not only allows you to better respond to customers and answer their questions when they call you. You can also take the initiative with segmented email marketing campaigns . Imagine for a moment that several of your clients have a similar problem and you go from your company to organize a seminar to talk about it. Sending a personalized invitation to each of your interested contacts could be tedious. With a CRM program this would be a piece of cake.
11.- Total control of commercial management
Avoid losing your data, project sales more accurately, track tasks and negotiations, automate alerts, identify opportunities among your clients and know which accounts each member of your team is working on, gives you a complete view of what is happening in your organization day by day, week by week and month by month.
That brings you a CRM program. Not only a platform from which to manage relationships with your clients but also to evaluate the performance of your commercial teams.
In conclusion: a CRM program helps you to be a better boss
Do you really want to continue running your business by memory or what you have in your head? In my experience, the use of a quality CRM program can bring you clear benefits. This time I have listed up to 11 but I am sure there could be many more.
Even so, the really important thing about integrating a CRM program into your company is that it makes your job easier by:
- give you total control of commercial management, increasing confidence in your team
- providing you with data and metrics on which to make decisions
- improve the productivity of your entire sales team
The excel sheet and email is fine if you work with 50 contacts but very few businesses stay afloat with so few clients.
Managing clients with a CRM allows you to be calmer, generate more opportunities and follow the processes correctly.