Sales Archives - BaseCloud CRM

10 Non-Negotiable CRM Features that Help the Sales Process

Quentin Grundlingh — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 14:39:44 +0000

There are many excellent CRM systems with numerous features available on the market today. That means you may face the tough choice of choosing the perfect CRM system to manage your sales pipeline and business operations.

Since the options are varied and endless, we\’ve made you a simple checklist for some non-negotiable features your CRM system should have to help you make your decision.

Your CRM Features Checklist

Lead management and tracking
Contact and communication features
Task management
Email marketing automation
Sales pipeline visualisation
Marketing capabilities
File storage
Dashboards & reporting
Billing, invoicing and quoting
Integrations with other platforms/software

1. Lead Management and Tracking

Lead management and tracking ensure that your sales team never drops the ball and that you never miss a beat in finding risk factors and issues in your sales pipeline.

Lead Tracking

You get an overview of how a customer found your company by tracking the source of your leads, be it paid advertising, social media, organic traffic, referrals, and more.

Lead identification is valuable information, as this pinpoints your strongest and weakest marketing strategies. From here, you can measure your ROI on each marketing channel and identify which leads convert best into paying clients.

You can also quickly identify issues within a marketing channel if, for example, there\’s a dramatic drop in leads in a specific marketing channel. This knowledge allows you to identify and fix the problem quickly.

Lead Management

Having insight into the sales pipeline and being aware of every point of contact with a potential client eliminates human error in a big way.

Instead of tracking your calls and follow-ups on an Excel spreadsheet, you could have the latest contact information quickly accessible online. No more \’forgetting to follow up\’ with your leads, as you\’ll have insight into all communication and be able to set reminders after every contact to follow up in due time.

2. Contact and Communication Features

One of the most useful CRM features is a detailed client profile that provides all relevant information from a lead source. Your pipeline management tool should let you attach files, add activity reminders and link invoices and quotes to customer profiles.

Gathering all information about a prospect or client on one page gives you a quick and insightful overview of their profile.

It also makes salespeople\’s life much easier because they can find data about all previous correspondences, meetings, bills, and quotes on a single page.

3. Task Management

Managing, completing, and remembering tasks become effortless with the right CRM software.

Task management is a helpful CRM feature that gives you a quick overview of what you need to do and lets you set deadlines.

Linking assignments for yourself and your team to relevant client profiles allows you to find all related tasks and actions under the client profile. Whenever you email or meet a client, you have all their specific details at your fingertips.

4. Email Integration and Automation

Since so much of a CRM system is about having everything in the same place, software integration is a critical feature when choosing a CRM system.

Emails are the first and most prominent feature to integrate with your CRM system, and they are also a great place to start if you want to automate repetitive tasks for better time management.

Email Integration

The benefits of the email integration feature go beyond simple messaging.

Your email correspondences are linked to client profiles so you can instantly see when a customer has been contacted and by whom.

Some pipeline management tools include email client integration, e.g. Outlook and Gmail. Synchronising emails between your CRM and email service leads to highly integrated customer communication.

Email Automation

There are numerous points of contact with each client in every business. Depending on the size of the company, you can contact hundreds to thousands of clients via email daily.

Automating this communication saves valuable time and frees your employees to focus on their specialities.

Email tracking can also be beneficial for email marketing. It allows you to track contact points with each client, such as seeing whether they open or read specific marketing emails.

Many CRMs include integration with MailChimp, Active Campaign, and other email marketing tools.

5. Sales Pipeline Visualisation

Managing your leads and customers in a pipeline view gives a quick overview of the entire sales funnel. Clients are categorised in various sales stages for detailed filtering, differentiated by colour and tags.

The pipeline is also beneficial for effective lead management – you change customers from one sales stage to another. For example, you can change a client from lead to onboarding and later to maintenance.

6. Sales and Marketing Forecasting

Detailed reporting and analytics can give your sales performance a significant boost. By monitoring monthly results and comparing various sales metrics, you\’ll be able to make calculated decisions on how to increase your sales.

CRM features should include a reporting tool to show you new leads, conversions and monthly recurring revenue month over month. If the

To plan for the next quarter, you need to know the number of sales and future profits. Accurate reporting can help you forecast growth trends and plan for the future.

Based on your existing data, a CRM system allows you to forecast future results and income streams. Accurate reports will enable you to plan for future incoming revenue and allocate your budget accordingly.

7. File Storage

Adding files such as invoices and quotes to your customer profiles makes it easier to find these quickly. It\’s also an excellent place to store reports and contracts, so nothing gets lost.

The more sophisticated the file storage component, the better, as saving all client-related documents in one place eliminates the need for document management software.

8. Reporting and Client Dashboards

Client dashboards give you a 360 view of the customer and allow you to manage the client effortlessly.

Reporting adds an extra layer of understanding your company and can help you identify gaps in your sales pipeline, employee performance, marketing wins and losses, and so much more.

Anyone worth their salt in sales and marketing will tell you this much: \”what you can\’t measure, you can\’t improve.\” A reporting feature in your CRM system is non-negotiable because if you can\’t measure your processes, how can you know where to go next?

9. Billing, Invoicing, and Quoting

Financial automation saves time and lives, as it can help eliminate human error and streamline processes – saving you hours daily.

Billing and Invoicing

The invoicing feature helps you to compile and send invoices to clients in a few clicks. You can bill your customers for project hours or order products using predesigned PDF templates. As the CRM system already includes contact information, you can quickly forward the bill.

Not all CRM solutions have a built-in invoicing feature, but many software providers offer integrations with billing software. You\’ll get a quick overview of billing history right in the client view by linking all invoices with customers or attaching the documents to client profiles.

Quotes

To create quotes in a CRM system, you must insert your product database and create predesigned quote templates. Creating custom tags allows you to mark quotes as accepted, revised, cancelled, lost, etc.

All quotes are linked with client profiles or companies to make your life easier. The sales team will have a complete overview of filled orders and knows whether the customer was happy with the service.

10. Third-Party Integrations

Choosing the Right CRM Software for Your Business

While discovering the CRM features, you probably found some you have not heard about before. The best way to choose the best CRM software for your business is by listing all the features you need for successful sales and finding the best software according to your team\’s requirements.

BaseCloud CRM is the most advanced CRM system in South Africa. It provides all the essential functions of a world-class CRM system, with custom-made features from individual customers and a hands-on approach.

Don\’t take our word for it, though, have a chat with us today about our world-class software and see how we can help your business grow.

The post 10 Non-Negotiable CRM Features that Help the Sales Process appeared first on BaseCloud CRM.

What Are The Benefits Of Using CRM Software?

Quentin Grundlingh — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 10:48:50 +0000

CRM offers many benefits and advantages by collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data.

Some benefits and advantages of CRM systems:

Enhanced contact management

Every call, question, negotiation, and touchpoint from prospects and clients are recorded and accessible to the entire team with a centralised contact management system.

This boosts sales, marketing, and customer service teams in terms of tracking, pipe progression and client history.

Cross-team collaboration

Build on the expertise of individuals — a CRM system enables people from different parts of a business to work together.

A sales team can collaborate with a product team to produce bespoke quotes. At the same time, a marketing campaign that generates a lead can equip a salesperson to have a more informed, tailored conversation with the prospect.

Increased productivity

Cut out administrative tasks like follow-up emails and \”catch-up\” meetings with management.

With a CRM, follow-up emails can be auto-generated and tested for effectiveness, management can easily access the most recent details of a customer meeting, and customer service administrators can learn a customer\’s background without leaving the call.

Empowered sales management

Empower sales managers with data to analyse customer relationships, track sales-related activity, assess deal viability, mobilise extra help when needed, and provide teams with real-time updates.

Manage sales pipeline and all the individual milestones along the way, from lead generation through to closing.

Integrated sales forecasting

A single source of truth makes it much easier for sales managers to make accurate forecasts, thanks to their visibility of sales in the pipeline.

Sales teams can learn from the past and forecast the future through historical data. At the same time, predictive analytics uses big data insights to anticipate future customer behaviour.

Reliable reporting

Get an at-a-glance view of its sales pipeline so it\’s simple to spot potential issues and nip them in the bud.

As well as making data digestible, reports improve team productivity by saving time that would once have been spent pulling data manually or laboriously creating pivot tables in spreadsheets.

Improved sales metrics

Nurture the right prospects quickly and efficiently by zeroing in on the leads that matter. CRM data and reporting systems provide insights into conversion effectiveness at various points in the sales funnel.

Once a business better understands its customers, upselling and cross-selling opportunities arise– opening up additional business opportunities from existing customers.

Increased customer satisfaction and retention

An easily accessible view of a customer’s interactions to date makes it easier to anticipate issues and deal with complaints.

This creates a more positive experience for customers who no longer have to endure the frustrations of being bounced around between departments and channels and having to re-explain their problems each time.

Better marketing ROI

Effective tracking helps businesses to understand what marketing activities and campaigns are practical for their client base.

Campaign tracking provides actionable insights into what type of marketing works for which customer, making it easier for marketers to maximise their budgets and deliver greater ROI.

Enhanced products and services

A sound CRM system will gather information from various sources across a business and beyond.

This gives unprecedented insight into how customers feel and what they are saying about an organisation — so businesses can improve what they offer, spot problems early, and identify gaps.

Why choose BaseCloud CRM?

Functions Includes:

Integration capabilities:

Email integration – Tracking and automatically logging emails.
Calendar integration – Tracking and automatically logging meetings in the CRM.
Integration with other software packages – Integrate your CRM with your accounting and other software.

2. Automatic lead tracking:

Automatically track calls
Automatically track emails
Automatically track forms

3. Automatic ROI calculation: Calculate the ROI for each of your marketing channels.

4. Insights about your current business inefficiencies: Easy-to-understand insights on the areas where your business can improve.

5. Dashboards & Reporting: Customisable dashboards and easy reporting.

6. Opportunity & Pipeline Management: Get insight into and track your entire sales process, from your team to your clients.

7. Task management: Create, manage and share tasks with your team.

8. Sales process customisation: Every business is different; you need a CRM system that understands be customised to fit your sales process.

9. Ease of use: Clean & uncomplicated design.

10. Value for money: Pricing suited to the South African market.

The post What Are The Benefits Of Using CRM Software? appeared first on BaseCloud CRM.

What is CRM Software? Customer Relationship Management Software Definition and Insight

Quentin Grundlingh — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 08:11:24 +0000

CRM, or Customer Relationship Management software, helps business owners track all communications and nurture relationships with clients and potential clients.

CRM software replaces the many spreadsheets, databases and apps that some businesses patch together to track client data. What is the result of an effective CRM system? Better organisation, efficiency, better time management, and impressed clients.

What does CRM software do?

CRM software records customer contact information such as email, telephone, website, social media profile, and more.

It can also automatically pull in other information, such as recent news about the company\’s activity, and store details, such as a client\’s personal preferences on communications. The CRM system organises this information to give you a complete record of individuals and companies, so you can better understand your relationship over time. CRM software improves customer relationship management by creating a 360° view of the customer, capturing their interactions with the business, and surfacing the information needed to have better customer conversations.

Why is having a CRM system important?

CRM enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.

Forging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM\’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customisable dashboard that can tell you a customer\’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more. If your business is going to last, you need a future strategy. For forward-thinking companies, CRM is the framework for that strategy.

How do different business functions benefit from having a CRM system?

While the importance of CRM has traditionally been as a sales and marketing tool, some of the most significant gains can come in other areas, such as customer service, HR, supply chain and partner management.

Here\’s how different business functions benefit from using CRM:

Sales teams can use CRM software to understand their sales pipeline better

Sales managers can access reliable information about the progress of individual team members in achieving their sales targets, for example, and see how well individual sales teams, products and campaigns are performing.

Sales reps benefit from reduced admin, a deeper understanding of their clients, and the opportunity to spend more time selling and less time inputting data.

Marketing teams can use CRM to make forecasting simpler and more accurate

They can get clear visibility over every opportunity or lead and map out the whole customer journey from enquiry to sale, giving them a better understanding of the sales pipeline or prospective work coming in.

It\’s also possible to include information from customers\’ public social media activity – their likes and dislikes and their sentiments about specific brands and businesses.

Customer service teams can effectively track conversations across channels

A customer might raise an issue in one channel – say, Twitter or Facebook – but then switch to email, phone or live chat to resolve it privately.

Without a common platform for customer interactions, communications can be missed or lost in the flood of information – leading to an unsatisfactory response to a valued customer.

Supply-chain, procurement, and partner management teams can manage relationships better

They can track meetings with suppliers and partners, record requests, add helpful notes, schedule follow-ups and stay on top of expected next steps.

Reporting enables businesses to compare the efficiency of suppliers and so manage their entire supply chain more effectively.

The HR team can use CRM to accelerate recruitment and track employee performance

CRM can help the HR function by speeding up the onboarding process, automating the process of managing candidates, analysing resourcing needs and identifying skills gaps, and supporting the pursuit of staff retention targets.

Consider how convenient it would be to consolidate all the data streams from sales teams, customer service staff, marketers and social media—and translate them into actionable business information. A CRM platform lets you manage these data streams across channels without losing track and gives sales, service, marketing, and beyond an integrated view.

What are the different types of CRM systems?

Operational CRM systems

A sales plan lays out the business\’s objectives, strategies, and goals by selling goods or services.

It must include the required details on the target audience, current customers, revenue goals, market conditions, financial targets, the structuring of the team, pricing, and tactics used.

Analytical CRM systems allow companies to use data like:

customers\’ interaction history
preferences
contact information

To better understand their behaviour and modify business processes to drive desired outcomes.

Some examples of analytical CRM processes include data warehousing and data mining, where companies review data in aggregate to discover patterns and gain insight.

Collaborative CRM

Collaborative CRM systems can help your marketing, sales, and customer service teams cross-reference customer interaction data.

This helps provide a complete picture of each customer\’s wants and needs and how they prefer to interact with your organisation. Some examples of collaborative CRM processes include interaction management, which tracks customer communication across multiple channels, and channel management, which uses that data to help companies decide how to engage with their customers. Consider this CRM if your employees live remotely or your customers\’ interactions with your company are primarily digital.

What is the CRM cycle?

Reach:

The marketing team drives brand awareness through effective audience segmentation and delivery of compelling campaigns and content. Customer Acquisition: Getting prospects to take a \”next step\”, such as downloading a document on your website, signing up for a webinar, or filling out a form. Conversion: Conversion occurs whenever a lead becomes a customer by completing a purchase, whether through the sales team or via self-service, like an online ordering portal. Retention: Once you have customers, you must ensure they stick around. Provide top-notch customer service and support to ensure that customers return to you repeatedly. Loyalty: This means more than repeat purchases. Your most loyal customers will expand their stake in your company. For example, they may upgrade to a higher service tier or buy a product that complements their original purchase. If you have a CRM system in place, you can help drive these upsells with customised recommendations.

Why should I invest in a CRM system for my business?

If you can articulate a clear definition of what a CRM success story would be for your business, you\’re already on the right track. Some other signs it\’s time to consider a CRM for your business:

Your sales team needs help knowing which leads to prioritise.
You need real customer data.
You need visibility into your sales team activity.
You spend more time putting together reports than you do analysing them.
You don\’t know what\’s next for your business.

Depending on the size of your organisation, you should also ensure you have buy-in from executives, a dedicated project lead, and (of course) a budget.

Can I grow my business using CRM software?

Studies show that CRMs can improve your company\’s conversion rates by up to three hundred per cent. So you can grow your business with a CRM – provided you select the system best aligned to your business needs.

How do I choose CRM software?

Your CRM system should speak to your business\’s needs. The relevance to your business is the main priority.

Next, your CRM software provider should have a hands-on approach to assist you with challenges with the software and training to help you get the most out of the system you\’re paying for. Read more about choosing the right CRM software for your company here. Are you interested in benefitting from a CRM system for your business as soon as possible? Contact us today to learn more about BaseCloud CRM, the most advanced CRM software in South Africa.

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