By now, businesses of various sizes, industries and product lines have implemented a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application to enhance their sales productivity. In fact, according to SuperOffice, 91% of businesses with over 11 employees now use CRM, compared to 50% of those with 10 employees or less. If you don’t already have a CRM, now is the time to implement a system and to start using the helpful features of one to boost your sales and sell smarter. However, implementing a CRM isn’t enough - you must commit to your CRM and use its features to their fullest potential in order to reap the benefits...
In an article from techadvisory.org, they explain a few ways to make the most out of your CRM. We highlight them below.
1. Always Update Customer Information
The first is simple and requires buy-in from every user including the CEO, sales managers, admins and reps. “Always update customer information.” This is important because a CRM is only as good as the data you enter into it. Users must ensure they track every critical piece of information related to a prospect or deal that is important to understand the opportunity at hand. This includes the phone calls they make and the emails they send. To increase data accuracy, you need a CRM that automatically capture activities though, it is still on the user to make sure all their records are up to date and accurate.
2. Automate Your Processes
While keeping clean data in your CRM can be difficult and time-consuming, there are ways to simplify these tasks. With workflow automation in your CRM, you can automatically update records, removing some manual work necessary to keep data clean. Automation can help in many other aspects of your sales processes as well. From improving customer retention through automated emails or boosted process efficiency through automatically scheduling activities automation shifts your CRM use into hyper-speed.
3. Learn From Analytics
Another important feature of your CRM is Analytics. Now that your activity data is automatically captured and your records are accurate, you need a way to report on your data to have a better understanding on how your business is performing. Analytics are key in visualizing your data to make it easier to understand. The reports in your CRM will help you understand where you are having success; perhaps a recent email campaign saw a 25% email open rate and you grew five new opportunities from it. You’ll want to recreate that success! The reports will also help you identify areas that are not working particularly well for your business; maybe a certain lead source is not converting at a rate comparable to your other sources. You should revisit that source and determine what changes need to be made to increase the conversion rate. Learning from your data is imperative to the growth of your business, and analytics in a CRM will ultimately help guide your growth.
4. Integrate CRM With Other Business Software
While a CRM is a wonderful application that help boost sales productivity, you may still use other tools to maintain your business. It is vital that your CRM integrates with third party applications, so you never miss a beat with your sales processes. An essential integration is a phone integration to automatically place calls and capture call data. Additionally, check to see if your CRM integrates with Zapier. Zapier is an easy way to integrate your CRM with thousands of applications.
5. Get Some CRM Support
Like any technology or software that you use, may be a learning curve. It is important that you have strong communication with your CRM provider. Whether it is assistance with CRM customization, implementation of new users, or training administrators, it’s better to have the advice and guidance of a CRM expert by your side.
All in all, implementing a CRM for your business is a great decision. Using the CRM to its fullest potential is even better, and will set you up for sales success.
AMPED is a CRM application that is designed to meet the needs of any business. Its powerful features help you keep clean data and automate processes to get the most out of the application. With strong phone integrations such as Twilio and MAXvoice, you can become more efficient with your daily calls and reach more people. Additionally, AMPED connects with Zapier so you can integrate can improve your sales workflows. Lastly, AMPED gives you the analytics and data visualization you need to determine the success of your sales efforts.
Along with the bountiful sales-boosting features, AMPED also provides dedicated support and Professional Services packages to help guide you through the implementation process.
If you are looking to implement a CRM that makes it easy to use to its fullest potential, you can try AMPED for free today!