Month: August 2018

When people think of CRM software, they are likely to think that its uses begin and end with the sales team. While lead tracking, lead conversion, and customer service might be the primary intended use of many CRM systems, that is hardly the only way to utilize them. Even the simplest CRM system can do so much! Utilizing it to its fullest potential is the key to maximizing your ROI.

Bread & Butter – Sales & Leads

Tracking sales and leads is still the primary focus of CRM software. After all, without making sales, you can’t have a business, and wouldn’t be able to use all the bells and whistles that come along with a CRM system. A CRM system at its core will keep track of a customer from their inception as a lead, through the opportunity stage, into their transition to customer, and beyond. Historical data will be maintained so that you can make sure that your customers are being taken care of and that no sales opportunities are being missed.

Marketing & Partnerships

Through integrations or built-in functionality, a good CRM system (or administrator!) will allow you to run marketing campaigns and gauge their effectiveness. With the right setup, you’ll even be able to give your partners access to your system through third-party portals and give them an easy way to send you referral leads.

Keeping Your Customers Happy

Once a lead becomes a customer and the sales team has moved on to other leads, you’ll want to make sure that your customer stays a customer. CRM systems can be used to track customer service requests, and most will integrate with third-party software such as Zendesk. Through social media integrations, not only will you be able to get your message across to your customers, you’ll be able to keep track of what they might be saying about you online. And many CRM systems have self-service portals, allowing your customers to create their own tickets, monitor the status of open requests, and even purchase new products or services from you.

Analytics

Accessing all of this data would be useless without a means of converting it into something that is understandable and relevant. With a good CRM system, you’ll be able to review your data using analytics – charts, graphs, and detailed reports. You’ll be able to see if your marketing campaigns are working properly, if your last trip to an expensive industry conference had any results, and which of your customers are spending the most. You’ll know better where and when you should spend your time and money.

Financial Tracking

The ability to send invoices directly to customers is built right in to many CRM systems. You’ll be able to see if it’s time for them to be billed, how much they owe or have paid, and whether or not their subscription status is up to date. Integrate your CRM into your financial software and everything will update seamlessly in real time.

Business Processes

Finally, outside of direct customer management, you can use your CRM to keep track of your team. You can assign tasks and automate processes, facilitate team communication, allow collaborative document editing, and even track individual team member’s workloads. This will increase your organizational efficiency and allow your team to spend more time on making sales and making you money!

And more!

What are you using your CRM for? Drop us a line and let us know!

If you like what you’re reading here but don’t have a system in place, you need help! YTA Business Services can help get you set up with a system that will do all these things and more. Let’s talk!