User's blog

Category: CRM

  • Experts’ Predictions for CRM in 2019

    Feb. 18, 2019 — Predictions… Who doesn’t love them? Recently, a group of CRM experts took a look into the CRM crystal ball (which we do hope exists) and made their predictions of what we can expect from CRM this year. Feeling curious? Then keep reading and take a glance at the future. You might be surprised!

    Image by Oleg Magni via Pexels

    AI and Automation

    According to Guy Yalif, CEO of Intellimize, more marketers will use artificial intelligence-based tools in order “to optimize conversion rates to yield better results than the current winner-take-all approaches that treat all prospects the same.” Yalif also mentioned that this year marketing leaders who don’t have much time on their hands will “use machine learning” for the automation of repetitive work that their teams do. Now that’s some help everyone could use!

    Customer Service

    Abinash Tripathy, founder and chief strategy officer at Helpshift, made a statement that, even at this time, seems somewhat bold:

    “2019 will be the death of the phone as a primary customer service channel, as digital customer service gains ground.”

    What’s the reason for this, you may ask? According to Tripathy, the transition from voice-based customer service to digital is moving faster, which will cause messaging-based services like AI and bot-based automation to flourish.

    Another prediction is the reorientation of customer service from reactive to proactive. “In 2019, we’ll see more companies resolving problems almost at the point of origin, often doing so without the customer even having to report it, which will lead to more uptime and, most important, happy customers”, said Bill Patterson, executive vice president and general manager of Salesforce Service Cloud. This sounds great, since we love happiness!

    Meanwhile, Devang Sachdev, director of product marketing at Twilio Flex, stated that customer service agents “will be able to focus on having more intelligent, authentic conversations with customers” instead of performing repetitive actions. According to Sachdev, businesses will use messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Apple iMessage as “new channels” to immerse customers into “conversations with richer experiences.”

    Data Entry

    Maximization of time spent in selling will be happening in 2019 thanks to automated data capture, according to Robin Grochol, vice president of product management at Salesforce Sales Cloud. This definitely sounds like a great opportunity, since sales reps spend an average of “64 percent of their time on non-selling tasks, like data entry.”

    Another CRM forecast for data is regarding Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Patrick Stokes, senior vice president of product management at Salesforce Customer 360, mentions that thanks to GDPR and the “very real possibility” of regulations like those in the United States and other countries, companies will “have to finally take control of their customer data” to ensure that it will be surfaced across teams in an appropriate way.

    Customer Experience and Brand Personalization

    These two topics have been around for a while now. From case studies to real-time social media interactions, brands have become more humanized, and predictions seem to support that trend.

    “Companies that prioritize experiences, both offline and online, will continue to differentiate through exceptional CX [customer experience]”, said Janelle Estes, chief insights officer at UserTesting.

    Estes affirmed that companies will invest in people, technologies, and processes to deliver “hyper-personalized experiences” in order to meet the constantly evolving expectations from customers, which are associated with the feeling of being known by a brand.

    As you can see, the future is promising for CRM, and we’re very jolly about that!

    Want to read more predictions? Read the full article here.

  • Minimize these 3 Hidden CRM Costs while Planning your Next Budget

    Salesbox tells us that:

    Often, it’s not so much to do with forgetting hidden costs – there’s enough information out there on what to include in a software budget – but not drilling down into them enough. Things like overtime, add up and whilst you’re spending significant amounts of time implementing a new system, customizing it and training users, productivity can take a hit.

    Checkout these 3 hidden CRM costs and find out how you can minimize them:

    Customization & Integration

    Don’t forget to consider indirect costs. As well as the obvious expense of hiring an expert to coordinate all this, or paying your vendor for customization services (if it’s not included in the subscription fee), you’ll need to factor in loss of productivity throughout the process and potential staff overtime.

    Minimize this by making a good range of integration options a key requirement for your CRM. Having a CRM specifically designed to click with other software your business uses will save you significant amounts of time and money.

    Requirements in this area will vary from business to business, but integration with your email provider and whatever calendar your team uses is an absolute must. This makes things significantly easier and will increase user engagement with the new system right off the bat.

    User Training

    Plan for training new users by training a number of ‘superusers’ during CRM implementation. You can then train new hires in-house without having to pay for instructor-led training (if it’s not included in the subscription fee).

    E-learning modules are also a good option – check with potential vendors whether they are offered, and whether they can be included in license price. If each user has perpetual access to these without the need for any extra cost this can be a great way of shaving pennies off your training budget.

    Support

    Depending on your needs, a basic package can be a valuable support tool. Equally, you don’t want to find out, three months into ownership of a new CRM, that the personalized, 24-7 support you thought was included doesn’t exist, and that to get the level of support you want you’ll need to shell out an unexpected amount of cash.

    Avoid surprise support costs by asking potential vendors to outline their support offerings in detail. Getting the right level of support for your business is absolutely essential. Support and maintenance is a bad area to cut costs for the sake of it, but by making sure you’re fully informed of what you’re getting for your money, you can budget accordingly.

    View the full article at SalesBox.

  • Stop Sacrificing CRM Usability for Your Sales Process!

    The usability of a CRM tends to be the first sacrifice made when attempting to account for every sales action and task in a sales cycle. Though it may seem like a necessary sacrifice at first, you will likely come to find that the data within your CRM suffers as a result.

    More specifically, you may discover that sales reps will only enter information in your CRM at the end of a sales cycle in order to circumvent the pesky data entry experience. Not only will your forecast be inaccurate, but you will also lose the opportunity to gain valuable insights into the success of your sales process as a whole.

    Fortunately, if configured thoughtfully, you do not need to sacrifice the usability of your CRM to handle the complexity of your sales cycle (or cycles!). Below are three important things to consider during your configuration process.

    1. Quality, Then Quantity

    You’ve probably heard that a CRM should not have more than “insert number here” custom fields. But while quantity is important, quality should be your first concern. Focusing on quality will not only ensure that your fields are meaningful, but typically results in a manageable amount of fields as a result.

    For example, you may ask yourself, how do we currently segment our customers? By size? By location? A field for the answer is likely necessary in your CRM as you should be able to easily filter your prospects within your CRM by these qualifications.

    Another useful question: how would you describe your best customer or prospect, and what information do you know about them? Fields pertaining to your answer should likely be leveraged within your CRM as well.

    2. Big Buckets

    When it comes to the milestones within your sales process, quantity becomes more important. Though your sales process may be multifaceted, try separating it into fewer, larger buckets.

    For example, if there are many steps your reps – or even non-sales employees – must take in order to register a new customer, you probably don’t need a stage for each step. Instead, try a general “Customer Registration” stage with custom fields to capture each of the important steps on the way to this larger registration milestone.

    Now, with a clearer distinction between stages, and firm exit criteria between them, your sales reps will always know where they stand in their process, no matter how convoluted it may be.

    3. Goals

    Without a guiding north star, all the thought put into the configuration of your CRM could be rendered useless. Especially with a complicated sales process, your sales reps need a clear goal to refer to when things get cloudy.

    This goal should be obvious within your CRM, whether it’s on the dashboard or in reports. Some of our customers leverage the Sales Goal report, casting it live on their sales floor. No more mass data entry at the end of a deal cycle; instead, your representatives will know their goal and be motivated to enter in forecast data to see how they are tracking toward it.

    Configuring a CRM to handle the complexity of your sales cycle without sacrificing usability may seem like a daunting task. The tips above should help in the process; however, your CRM can only be as “user-friendly” as the CRM software you use.

    Moreover, your reports and forecasts are only as accurate as the data within them. Your CRM will only contain accurate data if it is easy to use. With thoughtful configuration of a user-friendly CRM, you will not only increase the accuracy of your forecast but likely your sales in general.

    By Rose Serafini via Business 2 Community.

This site is registered on wpml.org as a development site. Switch to a production site key to remove this banner.