On many occasions, talking to traditional vendors about why they should use one is like talking to a child about Business Intelligence. Surely, the disconnection is instantaneous or the stress of having to change the way you work does not allow you to see further . So why use a CRM? What benefits does it have? What is it for?
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Many will tell you that their experience is the basis of their success, but that it is not the experience but an accumulation of data collected over several years of work. Obviously, on many occasions patterns are repeated that allow us to intuit if that client will buy from us or not or if you should invest more or less time in that lead that is never decided. The problem is when that instinct fails us or the opposite of what we had in mind happens.
Which CRM to choose?
CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a customer management computer software aimed at sales professionals. The Spanish translation would be Client Relationship Manager. This application must allow the storage of information and its organization for a subsequent analysis of this data in an efficient way.
The acceptance of the use of a CRM will be influenced by who and in what circumstances we decide to use a CRM or Customer Relationship Management. It will also be conditioned to the way of working of each commercial . I remember that, in the beginning, my CRM was my calendar and a blank sheet with a list of prospects where I had marked the contacts I had to get that week. Which shows that even the most reticent are not so far from using it, even in a more analog system.
You have to keep in mind that there are hundreds of CRM systems that can help you in your work as a salesperson and that if you search Google you will surely see that they are all the best, curious, right? They may all be the best, it just depends for whom . What you should keep in mind are the main actors that are going to intervene in it, which are:
- The seller
- The client
- The company or organization
For example, with Dynamics 365 for Sales , sales teams have these three clearly differentiated profiles. The seller can be the Owner and at the same time the Consultant. This happens when the same person is in charge of controlling and selling that opportunity. If, on the contrary, as often happens, there is within the company the figure of a sales manager, director or sales manager… The Owner would be this person and the Consultant would be the commercial assigned for that lead.
No one likes it when you talk to different agents and between them there is no proper communication or coordination that allows you to maintain a smooth conversion from the beginning.
Regarding the company, in this CRM you can find it in Accounts and the client in Contact . Why is this important? As you may know, you are not selling to a company, rather you are dealing with a real person who works for or represents that company or corporate entity. For this reason, it is important to differentiate the data in the company’s CRM and the related data of the person with whom you are negotiating.
What types of data should you collect in a CRM?
Basic contact information
Among these data that will be necessary to be able to locate and contact your client (individual) we can find the following:
- Name. There is the possibility of finding fields for the last names or only the field of the first name with the last name. This is important if the CRM has integrated the sending of automated emails since normally we do not write to our clients using the last name as well, but using only the first name.
- phone. Likewise, we can find only one field or several to also include the mobile phone , for example.
- E-mail. The email address is essential if we want to communicate directly from the CRM and thus speed up the sending of emails . It is important that the Accounts of our leads, the CRM does not associate them with the emails because in that case if that same person with the same email has several companies, the CRM will not allow you to differentiate from one another. This occurs in some tools that were designed for email marketing and that also include CRM within their functions.
- Other data. It is interesting that the CRM allows you to add personalized fields with respect to the data with which we usually work . For example, the data that a technology agent can collect when making a budget will not be as important for a commercial in the industrial sector.
Enterprise data
It is important to know the most relevant company data to assess a lead or better understand which organization we are addressing.
This data can be the annual turnover, the number of employees or the location of the headquarters, for example, since it is important in commercial visits to know the distances in kilometers or minutes , and thus calculate the route or the number of meetings that you can do that day. Other data that I also understand may be interesting are:
- Web : Another piece of information that provides a lot of information and I personally like to see it is the web page. If you look at many of them, you will find a Who We Are tab or similar, where you can find their business philosophy and it will help you maintain a conversation in tune with their business values.
- Time : I think it is essential to measure our time since it is limited. As my boss told me when I started in this world: ” You cannot mortgage your time with the same client ” and in reality it is so. You have to measure the time you invest in each operation. Sometimes the phone calls with that person are prolonged without reaching any end, in others you do not control the conversation and it is dilated over time. On other occasions it is the waiting time for visits, video meetings that do not end on time due to technical problems or interruptions with calls or emails that you have to answer… Having this information will help us better manage our time.
- Record of calls/emails/meetings : In relation to time we must measure the number of activities or actions that we carry out with our leads. Getting a pattern of the actions necessary to convert a lead into a customer can help us define this contact as a potential customer or not.
- Sales cycle : This data is not usually found in CRMs specifically, but I think it is important to know what time is usual from the first contact to closing in order to make a sales forecast. Being able to anticipate your actions to possible events to improve a sales situation can make the difference between a PRO salesperson.
- Amount of the sale: This information is essential to be able to calculate the billing and commissions obtained.
- Lead Score : It is the value assigned to each lead according to different variables such as the ICP of the same
- Situation or phase of the sale : For greater efficiency, knowing at a glance the phase or situation in the sales funnel (pipeline) in which that negotiation or agreement is found is very interesting so as not to waste time or the motivation of the sales person. buying party because it will allow you to touch that lead at the right time and not resume unnecessary conversations.
What functionalities should a CRM have?
Clear data and thick chocolate. One of the main problems of working with data is not knowing how to interpret it . It is essential that the learning curve is not very complex since spending more time entering, organizing and analyzing data can make us lose more sales than we get. Among these functionalities we can find:
- On cloud : One of the main features that a current CRM must have is that it be online . In other words, you can access it from anywhere using a mobile device.
- Integrations. That the CRM itself allows you to integrate your email account and that from it you can send or receive emails as if you were doing it from it, will be a function that will save us a lot of time . Sometimes they allow us to integrate the calls we make and receive, in such a way that their record is recorded on the Time Scale , as in Dynamics 365 Sales.
- Automations. If you really want to be productive once you have certain automations in your CRM under control, you will see how you reach more customers. Having functionality like this in a CRM can get you to spend the time on actions necessary to close a sale and not on daily procedures that technology can do for you. You will be able to advance, in parallel, in jobs that would otherwise take up valuable time in your day-to-day life.
- Filters. Allowing filtering the list of contacts or prospects helps us to better organize in our day to day. This will help you focus on the goal you have set for yourself at that time.
- Views. Once filtered, it would be very helpful to save different Views of your leads or prospects. Each master has his booklet and in this case each one likes to have the information ordered in a certain way in their CRM.
- graphics . The possibility that the management system includes different graphs feeding on the data that we have in it. This will allow us to see in a more visual way the situation of the actions carried out with our contacts and to be able to concisely present the achievements achieved in the period of time marked.
How do you see these some advantages of using a CRM, without data it is more difficult to work professionally and it is rare that a salesperson can resist improving their sales thanks to greater efficiency.
