CRM solutions are capable of much more than just managing contacts and serving as digital rolodex. By monitoring customers, from nurturing leads to closing the deal and preserving client loyalty, CRM software can also help you increase sales. Through automation of the sales force, you can also save tons of time and money. Before making a purchase, you should check for these 12 features if you’re looking for new CRM software or to upgrade your current CRM solution-
- Workflow automation
CRM software can automate your workflow and improve the quality of your life. In order to make you as well as your team more productive, it is important that you must look for software that let you create custom rules as well as includes sales force automation. You can program your CRM software to carry out a particular action automatically in response to triggers or events by using rules. Workflow automation tools can also save time and effort by automating time-consuming sales tasks like inventory management, order tracking, and order processing.
- Customization
The best CRM software can meet the specific demands of your company because no two businesses are alike. Other CRM solutions let you choose the features that you want to add to your package, and some also let you modify the most basic functionality, like the ability to design unique reports, pick the data that appears on your dashboard, and add contact fields. Additionally, you can install plugins, extensions, and other add-ons to your software to increase its functionality.
- Third-party integration
You can save a lot of time and money by connecting your CRM software with other programs you already use. The trick is selecting the one that is compatible with the software you use and simple to apply from among the many third-party software connectors that most CRM applications offer.
Here are three things you can do to simplify your life with the appropriate third-party integrations-
You can run the CRM directly from Gmail, Outlook, or another email client and avoid switching between apps by running.
To avoid human data entry, automatically sync your POS system and accounting software with sales and order information.
Use Dropbox and other well-known cloud backup storage providers to back up and sync your files.
- Customer service
By offering the best customer service, CRM software may assist you in attracting and retaining customers. To ensure that your sales representatives and customer support team are working at their best, look for the following abilities-
Gives you a complete understanding of clients-
Record any occurrences, internet visits, purchase histories, and other activities to serve as a record for future use and to keep all representatives informed.
Has different reference numbers for each account, client, and support issue.
Sends automated responses to consumer questions and messages so they don’t feel ignored.
- Employee tracking
An excellent way to monitor employee activity and performance is through CRM software. Choose software that allows users to maintain separate records of their goals, tasks, hours, sales figures, meetings, and other stuff. Moreover, the software should offer supervisors and upper management access to dashboards where they can see the activities that have been done, the objectives of specific employees, and other productivity indicators. This can help managers in identifying struggling employees and address areas for improvement, compose employee performance reports, develop incentives, and reward strong employees.
- Social media
Your marketing team can use CRM and can save time. They can use CRM that contains social media monitoring features as they won’t have to switch between platforms to carry out this important activity.
- Lead management
With the help of the lead management function, you can identify your leads as well as the steps that they have taken in the sales process. You can score your leads through the lead management process and, if required, filter them off to another member of your team to turn some leads into customers.
Dead leads can usually remain in a CRM for several weeks or months. An intelligent sales manager keeps track of leads and reassigns seemingly dead or quiet leads to various team members for re-engagement.
- Real-time data
Real-time data took over as the primary motivator for CRM systems in 2017. CRMs may extract real-time data from gadgets, programs, and even appliances.
- CRM analytics
Customer analytics commonly referred to as CRM analytics provides an understanding of customer information. This information is important since it can help in your decision-making related to the types of services and goods, marketing campaigns, as well as general communications you offer to your clients.
In a CRM, look for the following specific analytics-
Simple to read and understand customer segmentation
Clear profit and loss information so that you can calculate your ROI
Web analytics that shows how customers use and behave on websites
- Reporting
All of the CRMs we looked into provide reporting as a standard feature, which combines the results of your marketing and sales efforts. It’s best if you have access to more of these report types-
Leads received over a specific period of time
Number of sales produced over a specific period of time
Number of outgoing phone calls
The success rate of your emails
- Sales forecasting
Based on information from your present pipeline, a CRM with this function predicts your future sales. Depending on the sales projection, you can then change your marketing strategy. For example, you can cater your campaigns if you thought that your toy business would sell a lot of dolls during the Christmas season but through sales forecasting, it is found that the more popular item is building blocks. To reduce your company’s risks, sales forecasting can also predict changes in the market.
Keeping track of emails with a conventional inbox can become frustrating and confusing. The typical office worker receives 121 emails as of 2015. Every single sales email must be read and responded to in the desired manner.
A CRM’s email capability helps in the organization and productivity of your sales representatives. In order to arrange appointments and interact with prospects and customers appropriately, they can integrate their calendars.
Several email templates, like these, can be made using this feature-
Industry-specific summaries of the company’s basic information
After a phone conversation, follow up
After sending one email, follow up
Before making a purchase, make sure that the CRM software must have 12 characteristics.
