The Importance of a CRM for a Sales Team
As any sales professional knows, trying to keep track of customers, sales, and your pipeline can be a real chore. While spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets can be useful, it is often like using a spoon to try to cut a steak: definitely not the best tool for the job. This creates massive inefficiencies in companies and organizations to the tune of time wasted on updating tracking sheets, missed opportunities, and employee turnover. Instead of beating your heads against a wall, join the twenty first century, and use a sales CRM!
Customer Relationship Management Software
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. A CRM is essentially software, either web-based or on your computer, that is specifically designed to track conversations with potential and existing customers. The benefits of using a CRM are manifold: it provides a better customer experience, your sales team becomes more productive, you’ll have more information on your customers, and collaboration will increase between your team members.
CRMs worth their salt come with various features that give you additional insight into your customers. For example, wouldn’t it be helpful to know if they’ve read your emails, what pages of your website they’ve looked at, and when their birthday is? CRMs can easily provide that information and more, allowing you to customize your approach to your customers and better serve their needs.
CRMs also have useful features such as call tracking and reporting, auto dialing, email sequences, and more. Tools such as these allow your employees to save time by batching work and it saves them the trouble of repeating the same work multiple times.
Finally, a crucial aspect of a CRM is its ability to facilitate collaboration between your salespeople. Imagine being able to see when the last contact with a client was, who did it, and what was discussed, without needing to confer with your coworkers. This kind of information conveys to your customers that your company is on the ball and provides high quality services.
When you are juggling multiple prospects at a time, it’s easy to forget when your last touch with a potential customer was. CRMs usually come equipped with reminders and task lists so that these opportunities don’t slip through the cracks. Studies have shown that it takes anywhere from 5-7 touches with a customer before they buy a high ticket item. Having the ability to automate, or even just remind, your team of these follow ups could be the difference between a sale and a missed opportunity.
CRM Terminology
CRMs often use terms and phrases that you may not be familiar with. For example, a “lead” is a potential customer. A “warm lead” is a lead that is actively interested in your service. A “close” means to land the customer and do business with them. A “cold lead” is a customer that has not been contacted for a while or is not very interested. A “contact” is an individual person who your team is communicating with, and is often associated with contact information such as an email address, phone number, etc.
As you can see, there are so many reasons why your team should be using a CRM. Try one out and let us know which is your favorite!