Whether you represent a large client or a small or medium-sized business, using customer relationship management (CRM) software for prospecting offers many benefits – not just in terms of sales, of course.
In this article, we look at the most important CRM tools and their benefits for business development.
Content
- Why should you use a CRM to accelerate your sales?
- Prospecting and customer relationship management software: the most important features
1 Why use CRM software to accelerate your sales?
- Better knowledge of the customer
One of the main interests of an open source CRM tool is that it allows sales teams to improve their knowledge of customers. The data collected by the different departments of your company on each customer or prospect is centralized in a single file that evolves over the interactions.
Your sales and marketing departments have access to the complete profile of each contact, with their contact information, socio-demographic profile, purchasing preferences, history with the company, maturity in terms of the customer life cycle, etc.
This customer data captured in the CRM software is the engine of the personalized and individualized customer relationship. They give sales teams a clear competitive advantage. The salesperson can support his or her approach to the customer with targeted arguments that match the profile of the potential customer.
To better manage your sales strategy, CRM management software allows you to divide your database into homogeneous groups based on predefined criteria and collected customer data. This management of contacts and potential customers allows you to streamline your acquisition efforts while applying a specific action plan to a target.
- Improved customer loyalty
A CRM tool is not only an important tool to increase your sales pipeline, but also a great lever to increase the satisfaction of your current customers. This is a huge advantage, because keeping a customer – or better yet, making them an ambassador for your brand – costs much less than acquiring new customers.
CRM software allows you to accurately track business and maintain customer relationships through value-added interactions. Your sales team can proactively advise and support the customer and make the right decisions at the right time in the buying cycle.
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Increase your productivity
By automating many administrative and routine tasks, a CRM solution saves time before entering the acquisition process: generating reports, tracking emails, assigning leads, quoting…
A CRM tool also strengthens your workflow by streamlining the entire sales process. Your sales reps are better able to prioritize leads, deliver the right message, and focus on prospects with high conversion potential. In short, your salespeople have more time and resources to focus on what they do best: selling.
2. Prospecting and CRM software: the most important features
To get the benefits mentioned in the previous section, you need to get a comprehensive CRM software that meets your objectives and can adapt to your acquisition strategy. Below are the main features of most CRM software available on the market that will help you increase your sales activities.
- Centralization of contactsThe most important feature of a CRM software is the ability to centralize all the data of a contact in a single file accessible to all users of the tool. It stores all the information and tracks the history from the first interaction, providing a consistent and comprehensive overview of each customer.
A CRM tool should at least distinguish between prospects and customers. Note that in B2B customer acquisition, it is also important to be able to capture companies and add related customers or service providers.
Management of commercial transactions
An open source CRM contains a full range of tools that facilitate the daily management of sales and marketing. For example, communication is facilitated by setting up alerts to reach customers at the right time and with the right message, while email templates speed up exchanges.
Your staff must manage a large number of documents during the contracting phase: sales proposals, quotes, purchase orders, contracts, etc. To save time and avoid human error, CRM software can automatically generate these documents from pre-entered information – some even include an electronic signature tool, which is ideal for closing sales faster while optimizing the recipient’s user experience.
Collaboration is also made easier since all documents are accessible to salespeople – at least those with the appropriate rights and permissions, a feature that a CRM can also manage.
Sales pipeline management
A CRM solution facilitates pipeline management and standardizes the sales cycle. To better identify sales opportunities, almost all CRM systems on the market offer a Kanban view to track the pipeline at a glance.
You can also model the customer buying journey by setting up automatic sales sequences. And with CRM software’s lead scoring feature, your sales staff can rank contacts based on their maturity level and determine which leads are most qualified for sales and which still need work.
- Performance monitoring
To effectively track sales performance and forecasts, CRM management software provides customizable dashboards that show progress toward specific goals and the impact of sales and marketing campaigns.
By analyzing data through CRM, your teams can accurately measure the effectiveness of each action and track sales progress. You can also identify potential weaknesses or capitalize on successes to make better decisions for your acquisition strategy.
Because it has a direct impact on the development of your business, the choice of a customer relationship management solution cannot be improvised. But with the multitude of CRM software offerings available on the market, it can be difficult to choose a CRM tool that is tailored to maximize your sales performance.
To make the right choice, you need to take stock of your expectations: the expected functionalities, but also the integration capabilities with third-party applications, the ease of use of the CRM, the collaborative aspect, the mobile use…. This way, you can better equip your sales force with a solution that matches your approach to customer acquisition and not the other way around.
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