You now know why you need a CRM for your business. But, there might still be some questions in your head about what could be the benefits of CRM and how it can impact your business and sales process. The myth that a customer relationship management system is only to for your customers is busted. A CRM brings many more uses and benefits to the table.
Benefits of CRM:
CRMs are no longer just for large organizations with a huge database of customers. They are being adopted and used widely by large, medium and small organizations. Most of these tools are built so that they can fit the requirement of almost every type of business. The fast adoption by businesses of all sizes is evident in this research report by Gartner:
Now, let’s take a look at some of the tangible benefits that you’ll see when you use a CRM:
#1. Streamline your sales process
Before CRMs came into the picture, most business’ sales process was managed by themselves on Excel sheets, email and a variety of other static tools.
While it’s fine to use it for a small number of leads, as the volume grows, it becomes harder to manage your leads and customers. A static tool like 
Excel will not be able to track your leads. This means that you will not know how they move down your sales funnel or how they interact with your business.
But with a CRM, you can track your lead’s journey down the sales funnel from the point of entry to the point of conversion and even after.
A CRM helps you to make sure that there are no leaks in your sales funnel. All the leads that come into your system from any kind of lead source are accounted for.
#2. Manage your leads more efficiently
Most CRMs come with a lead management tool as well, which helps you to keep a check on your lead volume no matter how much it may be. As said before, instead of struggling to remember where and how your leads are coming in, a CRM gives you the option to easily manage and control these leads.
Instead of sifting through thousands of leads manually to find that one lead you need to contact, a CRM helps you to find the quality leads in your system easily.
You can also figure out what interaction each lead is having with your company as well as which lead stage they belong to. Some CRMs even allow you to predict the closure of a particular lead.
#3. Prioritize who you call
When you have thousands of leads in your system, you might lose track of who to call first. This is because you don’t have enough data about these leads to know which one is of higher value. As a result, sales people spend their precious time calling every lead that comes their way. But leads that actually can provide business are sometimes missed out. Chances are that they have already bought your competitor’s products or have lost interest in making a purchase.
A CRM helps you prioritize your leads so that this does not happen. This could be through setting them a lead score or by grouping them in a list or by tracking their activities. This way you can group your leads into buckets and interact with them accordingly.
You can then communicate with each stage accordingly. Follow up with hot leads immediately to close the sale. Offer warm leads incentives such as discounts or coupons to buy from you. You can nurture cold leads through emails or other promotional content over a period of time to make them sales ready.
#4. Make your customer interactions more personalized
No matter how good a sales person you are, it would be difficult to gauge what exactly your leads want. They might be reluctant in sharing their buying intent with you most of the time. Unless you are a magician, you would not be able to read their minds. A CRM, however, will help you to become exactly that!
Most CRMs come with a sales tracking or lead tracking feature. This will help you to know which pages on your website are being visited and how much time is being spent on it. If you sell products online, then you can find out which category is being visited the most. You can also track what conversations they have with your team.
This way, you will be able to gauge the amount of interest that the lead has in buying from you as well as which product/service interests them the most. This is a sure shot way to cinch awesome deals.
#5. Save more time by automating routine tasks
The bane of a salesperson is the little tasks that take up most of their time. Imagine the amount of leads that come in on a daily basis. Now, if you have to manually check them and update their status and owner, then half yoru productive day is gone. CRM systems of today come with features that allow you to set rules and tasks and other features to help you to automate these routine tasks and concentrate on what you do best: selling!
The nuances such as filling out order forms, reminder emails and more are taken care of without you having to do much work.
#6. Make your teams more transparent
For any organization or team to work efficiently and without any internal conflicts, it is necessary for the system to be transparent. Working together, sales teams may get demoralized if they think they are being treated unfairly or if they feel other are being favored more. CRMs help solve this problem as well. You can use them to communicate internally as well.
One of the major points of dispute would be the assignment of leads. By automating the entire process, your team would be rest assured that the process has been impartial. This is important in keeping up their morale.
This way they will also know clearly who has achieved the most sales and why their work is being appreciated. By avoiding such clashes, you would have a happier team more ready to work with each other. This translates to more sales and more business.
#7. Get detailed analytics on your sales process
If you are unable to account for your actions, what is the point of all your efforts? An Excel sheet gives you access to only limited data and insights. But, a CRM comes with powerful analytics features to get deep insights into the effects of your sales activities.
You can find out the best lead sources, the geography, and demography that most of you leads or customers belong to. You can also find out the results of the email campaigns and drip campaigns that you run. Additionally, they also help you find out which customers are giving you the maximum revenue. You can also gauge the performance of individual sales people. These data can help the management make powerful business decisions, and help sales teams set more realistic targets.
Did you know that there are two different types of CRMs? No? Well then read more about it in the next chapter.
Go to Chapter four
