CRM is short for ‘customer relationship management’ and it’s a special system that deals with customer information. The data is important for two main reasons: marketing department use and strategic planning. There’s usually a problem with CRM systems; they can’t be improved because they usually focus on the information that is of the utmost importance for the company, not for the customer. Most often, the representatives of these systems will tell you that they record each and every piece of information about one or more of your clients, but that’s not always true. CRM systems have major flaws that often lead to serious problems.
CRM Cloud Infrastructure
Up-and-coming CRM customers depend on reliable, recognized infrastructure aimed at running all their CRM apps. In order for CRM to perform efficiently, it must present three characteristics:
- High performance- information access in maximum 300 ms
- High reliability- uptime that goes beyond 99.9%
- High security- several industry certifications like SAS 70 Type II and ISO27001
An efficient CRM infrastructure relies on multitenancy: a plethora of clients sharing technology and all using the latest releases, such as Google or Amazon.com. With multitenancy you will no longer have to be anxious about infrastructure and application upgrades because all these will happen automatically. As a matter of fact, multitenancy allows companies to focus only on managing CRM.
How to boost sales with CRM?
Expert sales leadership consultant Lisa Earl McLeod claims that most CRM systems do nothing but promote sales mediocrity because they center salespeople on data that is important to their firms and not to their clients. She mentions that a company’s biggest mistake is to inform sales representatives to focus only on the client. However, their CRM system puts a greater emphasis on the pipeline management and internal metrics. The result is a second-rate sales behavior.
Providing that your sales team asks all the right questions and they’re also equipped with a proficient CRM system, which will allow them to record all the essential data, you can easily convert your CRM system into a powerhouse for vital business intelligence.
Analyze your CRM system
Take a look at your CRM system and try to establish whether the information it provides about your clients’ goals is present and accurate. If you notice that the information provided is less customer focused than company focused, you should definitely do something to solve the problem.
A good CRM system should develop plenty of useful reports and analyses. Don’t forget that your main goal is that of driving more sales, and that can be achieved only if you ask your salespeople to collect as much information as possible about their customers.
Once you gather all the information into your CRM system, you will gain a huge competitive advantage. However, you need to establish your position first and see whether you are determined to make things work. Only after you’ve established that you’ll be ready to improve your selling strategy.
Computer screens are stronger than sales managers
Believe it or not, your CRM is stronger than a manager who’s trying to close a sale by phone. This may sound weird because it means that technology is more important for employees than their boss. Whether we like it or not, it’s reality. Salespeople spend most of their time working on their computers, so they barely even see their managers. Bear in mind that your CRM system influences the way your salespeople act during the sales process. That’s why you should try to offer them a system that delivers both useful reports and analytics.
As you can see, CRM systems play a major role in your company’s success rate because it has the power to directly affect sales. If your main goal is to make your company work, you’ll definitely be pleased to know that a CRM system can be of great assistance when used properly. As long as the data is managed properly and a company’s main priorities are its customers, a CRM system should greatly help boost sales.
Most problems that are connected to data accuracy lead back to the CRM system. Can a sales representative enter the right data from the first attempt? And if that’s so, can the information be easy to extract and locate? There’s no doubt that an intuitive, flexible CRM solution can influence the sales process of a company. This means that sales representatives are well-aware of what kind of data must be entered. They can additionally manage their pipeline and do their best to increase sales.
Photo Credit: Flickr/Sean MacEntee
