The world of business keeps evolving with new technology and software. These technological advancements help the organization to grow, increase sales, build better customer relations and achieve their desired success. One such software is the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. A CRM software offers a wide range of services and features which enables businesses to grow, maintain, and improve their existing and new customer relationship. This software also helps in converting leads into sales.
With a CRM software, businesses can perform various sales, marketing, and customer-facing functions from one single platform. Today, there are several CRM software available, such as Zoho CRM, Salesforce, Insightly, HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, etc., and you can choose the one that matches your business needs the best. However, it is not enough to simply invest and install a CRM software. You should also know how to best use the CRM software so that you can gain the maximum benefits out of it.
In this post, take a look at the top eight tips which can help you to get the most out of your CRM software and ensure that you are benefitting from the software. But before we get into the tips, let’s find out whether you are using your CRM software the right way or not.
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Signs That You Are Not Using Your CRM Software the Right Way
The below signs indicate that your CRM software is not being utilized to its maximum capabilities.
- Your common and daily tasks are not yet automated.
- You are not able to successfully assign tasks to the right employee.
- Though you have a good grasp on your leads, you are unable to prioritize the best out of them.
- The delivery is not consistent and very slow.
- You are unable to understand how your business is doing even after using the CRM software.
- You are still working with inadequate and inconsistent reports.
- You are unable to create enhanced customer portfolios.
Tips to Gain Maximum Benefit Out of Your CRM Software
The below tips will help you, your employees, and your overall business to explore and experience the full potential of your CRM software.
1. Automate! Automate! Automate!
One of the most beneficial feature offered by a majority of the CRM software is the task automation feature. Understanding and using this feature to its maximum potential will definitely reap benefits for your business. Different CRM software offer different automation capabilities; however, most of them allow automation of call scheduling, automated emails for new, existing, and returning customers, automated lead rotation, automated reminders, automate marketing communications, and much more!
By automating a majority of your manual data entry, your employees can spend their time productively on other major tasks, such as the sales of your products and services. By automating regular responses, you can avoid spending time on writing the same message again and again. Automating the necessary workflows can also minimize the scope of errors.
2. Take Advantage of your CRM’s Analytics
A CRM software works as the best analyzing tool to understand your customer’s behavior and trends. Your CRM software is not used only to maintain your customer relationships, but also to collect, store, and analyze all the relevant customer data and use the analysis to turn your potential leads into sales. It is imperative that you learn from all the data you are gathering as it is crucial to the growth and success of your business.
When it comes to analyzing customer data, CRM software offer a plethora of benefits through which you can easily come up with the relevant actions. For example, if you notice that your products and services have high sales during a particular time, you can push the sales during the same time in the following years as well. By having all the relevant customer information at your fingertips, such as client’s name, preferences, location, requirements, etc., your sales team is one step closer to finalizing the deal.
3. Integrate and Sync your CRM Software
One of the key features to look for in any CRM software is its ability to be integrated and synced with third-party apps, platforms, and software. By utilizing this feature, you can make your CRM software even more useful and advantageous. By integrating with the right software, you can further eliminate manual data entries, minimize scope of errors, have all the necessary information within easy reach, have access to more thorough and insightful reports, etc.
For example, when you integrate your CRM software with an accounting software, it will combine your customer data with the financial data, or when you integrate it with VoIP system, your employees can access all the relevant information of a customer from multiple databases on one single screen. You can also benefit by connecting your CRM software to your social media profiles, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
4. Update Data Regularly
Your data is probably the most important input in your CRM software. Hence, if you are looking to gain maximum benefit out of your CRM software, then you need to ensure that your data is updated regularly. Whether you have a single person responsible for entering the data or multiple employees, you need to set expectations about how the data needs to be entered, frequency, etc. Any change in your customer’s data, such as address, contact information, etc., should be updated on time so that the sales, marketing, and other relevant teams have up-to-date information and take action accordingly.
Having the right and up-to-date information is key to maintaining a healthy customer relationship as well as closing a deal which is the bottom line. By using your CRM software to stay on top of things, you can build better relationships with your customers.
5. Train the Team
Though most of the CRM software are fairly easy-to-use and understand, it is highly advisable that you provide complete training to all the employees so that they can use the CRM software effectively and efficiently. By providing them training on all the features and functions, you can save their time spent on learning about the software on their own. When you train your workforce, you can rest assured that you will receive the intended ROI.
Also, training of your CRM software is an on-going process as these software are constantly upgraded with new features and functions. So, ensure that sufficient and on-time training is provided to all the employees.
6. CRM Software Update
If you are looking at utilizing your CRM software to its maximum potential, then you must ensure that you always update the software as and when necessary. When we talk about software update, it does not entail only new functions and features. It also comprises enhanced safety and security of your customer data. It goes without saying that keeping your customer data confidential and safe should be your top priority and this can be achieved by ensuring timely updates to your CRM software.
Any data compromise will have a huge adverse effect on your business and brand reputation. So, ensure that you update your CRM software and take advantage of its new features, functions, and security options.
7. Tag your Data
One of the simplest ways to ensure that you are using your CRM software to its maximum potential is to use its tagging feature. This will enable you to use relevant data to personalize and create effective marketing campaigns. By assigning meaningful labels on the basis of various categories, you can easily collate your customer’s data on the CRM software and make it accessible to all the teams.
Some of the common categories for tagging and grouping include, age, gender, location, job/role, income/revenue, interests, preferred social media platforms, etc. This categorized information is absolutely crucial to your marketing team and help them in designing the perfect campaigns, newsletters, emails, etc., for your customers. Ensure that you thoroughly explore the tagging and grouping feature in your CRM software and use it to its complete advantage.
8. Keep the Team Motivated
Not many businesses realize this, but your CRM software is a great tool to motivate your team members, keep them engaged, and drive them towards excellence and growth. CRM software include features like activity tracing, project management, sales pipeline, follow-up automation, task completion, goal achieved, etc., all of which help in motivating the team members and ensuring that they are moving in the right direction.
You can also use your CRM software to track and evaluate your employee’s performance, and also reward them accordingly. Using the CRM software, you can also identify the strengths and weaknesses of an employee, which in turn, will enable you to provide them the required guidance. Using the software to reward and recognize the employee’s hard work will definitely go a long way in boosting their morale and confidence.
Conclusion
Today, CRM software has become the backbone of all types of businesses – small, medium, large enterprises, agencies, freelancers, etc. Hence, it is vital that you understand your CRM software, its various features, and functions, benefits, etc. When you utilize your CRM software to its full potential, it can do wonders for your business, employees, and customers.
So, if you are thinking of investing in CRM software or you already have one in place, use these tips and see the positive difference they make in the growth and success of your business.
