An effective sales person is a person who spends their time selling and closing sales. A customer management relationship (CRM) system is the piece of software that makes the process effective by allowing businesses to efficiently manage relationships with customers and prospects in one place, eliminating numerous manual tasks and allowing a sales person to maximise the amount of time they spend selling.
A modern CRM system is the lifeblood of any sales process and it’s employed in many different industries: there are CRMs for real estate, CRMs for gardeners and more general CRMs designed for any small business.
A CRM system is the central hub for your sales information. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or have a sales team, a CRM is a critical organisational component for any business who wants to maximise their customer relationships and thus maximise sales and profits. Here are some major benefits that investing in a CRM will bring to your business.
Instant access to relevant data
Having up to date, reliable and insightful information available on prospects, that’s accessible to your sales team, will massively increase your sell through as the potential customers’ needs will be better understood a delivered upon. A CRM gives you instant access to this information, allowing you or your sales team to identify warm leads, follow up on cold prospects, keep notes on difficult potential customers and much more.
Tracked conversations & emails
Most CRM systems also enable you to store and track your email conversions with prospects and keep them all in one place. You can also usually check if a prospect has opened or viewed an email and at what time which can be very useful to time follow-ups and set reminders so you make sure to reach potential customers at the right time. In short, a CRM effectively organises your email conversations with any prospect and enhances your communication with tracking features.
Knowing what stage your prospect is at
Another great benefit of implementing a CRM system is the ability to map out the stages of your sales process and track at which stage each customer is at. This allows you or your sales team to know where a customer is in the sales process and what is the appropriate course of action to take at any one time.
A friendly reminder to make you superhuman
An often overlooked or unused feature is the ability to trigger notifications when certain actions occur, such as a prospect not responding after 1 week from contact. These actions may trigger messages or email reminders and prompts a sales person to act. This allows to effectively manage the sales process and a large number of prospective customers at any one time without losing track of anyone and losing sales.
CRMs are the key to effectively nurturing leads
Lead nurturing is a critical step in the sales process, having a CRM system in place and properly configuring it will massively increase its efficiency and thus the conversion of sales prospects. It is one of the major benefits of using CRM, it allows you to track, build and record your relationships with customers and prospective customers. A CRM is effectively the backbone of any good sales process.