Customer Relationship Management Tools for Sales Success

Modern CRMs aid companies in maintaining connections by providing a software system that manages interactions with both current and potential customers.

Streamlining and automating processes
Unifying systems across multiple sales reps
Tracking all prospects and sales activities
Allowing sales managers to monitor performance with robust reporting.

Software-based CRMs require users to download and install a local copy of the software. This entails either installing periodic updates or buying new licenses to use the product for a specified period or both.

Today, the majority of CRMs are Software as a Service (SaaS) that operate in the cloud. Users must log into a cloud-based platform that receives continuous real-time updates.

CRM systems typically have integrations with third-party services and assist in the automation of various business workflows such as sales, marketing, customer loyalty programs, billing, contract management, and call management.

Who Uses CRM Systems?

CRMs are utilized throughout a company as a unified system for managing business operations, with various departments employing the CRM according to their unique needs. To provide a glimpse, here are a few examples of how a CRM can be utilized.

Sales Team: Sales reps use a CRM to track and streamline their workflow, including tracking customer or potential customer interactions, creating tasks for themselves, delegating tasks to others, and qualifying leads.
Sales Management: Sales managers monitor sales team (and individual sales rep) performance, implement workflow management, and create sales force automation processes.
Account Management: Once a lead signs their contract, the account manager can use a CRM to streamline onboarding, facilitate training, and enhance customer experience using templates and automation.
Billing & Finance Department: The billing and finance department uses a CRM to determine commissions, review contracts, and reconcile sales projections with actual revenue.
Marketing Department: The marketing department may use a CRM to identify sales trends and marketing collateral needs. They may also use historical reporting to plan and budget for lead-generation activities.

What Can CRM Software Do?

From now on, we will use the terms “CRM software” and “CRM” interchangeably to refer to a tool used for managing the customer-business relationship.

A CRM can provide several benefits for you.

Maintain a database of your customers and their contact information.
Keep track of every interaction you have with each customer.
Make it easier to email, call, and text your customers.
Automate marketing campaigns, communication, follow-ups, and other parts of your sales cycle.
Manage employees’ tasks and projects.
Log customer support calls and solutions.
Create detailed real-time reports about your sales process.
Integrate with the other software you use to run your business.

Also, there’s additional information. However, it should not be assumed that CRMs are large, difficult-to-handle software with expensive prices that necessitate enterprise-level technical support and expertise to operate.

The best CRM tools are both easy to learn and simple. Additionally, the emergence of cloud-based CRMs allows for affordable access from any internet-connected device such as a computer, tablet, or mobile device.

An Example of CRM Software in Action

Here’s an example of how your company can utilize CRM software at every stage of a client’s journey.

A customer visits your website and submits their email address and phone number in exchange for a downloadable white paper. They’re automatically added to your contact database, and assigned to a particular sales group or individual sales rep based on company size, industry, or buyer persona.
Your CRM automatically sends a series of emails (also called a “drip campaign”) to nurture the lead.
Your sales rep uses the CRM software to place a call, but the lead doesn’t answer.
A few days later, the CRM automatically sends a reminder to your sales rep to follow up with another sales call.
As sales activities occur via phone, text message, and email, the CRM automatically creates a contact log.
After receiving enough information, the prospect is interested in reviewing a contract. Your CRM generates that contract noting all agreed-upon details and sends it to the lead for digital signing
The prospect signs the contract and the CRM automatically updates their record, triggering a variety of business processes for accounting.
An account manager is automatically assigned.
The CRM software sends out a personalized welcome email from the account manager including a link to schedule a welcome call, automatically displaying up-to-date available times from the account manager’s calendar.
The customer submits a request for technical support a few months later, and support agents have access to full customer information, including the exact product the customer uses and the features they access the most.
Future requests for support recall these details and auto-fill support tickets, so your support agents deal with the requests faster
Automated check-in emails are sent from the account manager’s email address to ensure customers use the software to its fullest extent, improving customer satisfaction and retention.
After a specified amount of time, the account manager is assigned a task to start setting the stage for potential upselling.
If the customer doesn’t repurchase or resubscribe, the account manager is automatically assigned a task to follow up, and a re-engagement series of emails is triggered.
This entire process is documented and included in automated reports to the sales team manager, who receives daily, weekly, and monthly reports.

Did you notice the high frequency of the word “automatically” in that list?

The mentioned type of automation has the ability to save a significant amount of time. It could potentially amount to hundreds of hours within a year, resulting in money saved solely through increased productivity.

Deep Dive: Top Benefits of CRM

Although adopting a CRM has various benefits such as enhancing customer service, boosting sales, improving customer retention, enhancing analytics, and providing transparency, it is essential to consider the specific features that significantly influence your company’s business operations.

We will now analyze some of the key advantages of using a CRM system.

The use of segmentation allows the data to be divided into smaller parts that can be easily managed.

Regardless of the size of your contact database, whether it contains 100 prospects or 100,000, it is essential to maintain their organization. In the past, contact management software merely served as a massive electronic address book, whereas contemporary tools offer a plethora of additional features. Now, entries go beyond basic details like names and job titles.

CRM contact entries include as well:

Sales pipeline stage
Communication preferences
Potential value of the sale
Customer engagement history (including call recordings, email transcripts, and notes from other team members)
Lead scoring (more on this in a moment)
Team member assignments
Social media accounts
Open tasks related to the lead

In addition, contact entries have the flexibility to store any desired information. You can customize your contact entries to align with your business requirements by utilizing custom fields, APIs, and other CRM customization options.

In what manner can you ensure that all of that information remains organized?

Modern CRM systems have a high level of organizational proficiency, enabling users to effortlessly locate any desired group of contacts using intricate searches, saved views, intelligent categorization, and comprehensive search functions.

Furthermore, a significant portion of these tasks can be automated, which we will discuss in detail later. It is important to mention that your CRM software has the capability to allocate lead scores to contacts by considering factors such as company size, industry, lead source, number of contacts, potential sale value, and various others.

By thinking step by step, you can rephrase the text as follows without changing the meaning: You can concentrate on selling to your top leads without the need to go through a heap of information to determine who those leads are.

The power within your CRM database enables you to observe and handle your funnel, or your flywheel, or any other metaphor you may currently employ.

By thinking in a logical sequence, you can observe it directly—funnel visualization provides a rapid overview of your pipeline.

By utilizing these functions, you can delve into your funnel in order to monitor and enhance the process, resulting in a more efficient conversion of leads to prospects to customers.

Communication tools are useful in helping sales reps reach leads in a quicker manner.

Marketing teams and salespeople devote significant time to interacting with customers. CRM software simplifies this process by enabling direct emailing, calling, and texting within the application, eliminating the need for constantly switching between contacts and email clients or physically dialing phone numbers.

Even though it may seem like a small thing, the time saved can quickly accumulate, particularly with the inclusion of features such as email templates, bulk messaging, and automated dialing.

With certain CRM clients, it is possible to send a large number of personalized emails easily. This can be useful for tasks such as cold-emailing potential sales leads or sending updates to your contact list, ultimately helping you to save a significant amount of time.

More advanced features, such as predictive dialing, reduce the amount of time your sales representatives spend waiting for phone calls to be answered. Furthermore, real-time email tracking allows you to tailor your communication schedule according to the content your potential customers engage with.

A CRM that is fully functional has the capacity to completely change the game.

A CRM system records every touchpoint when contacting leads, regardless of the method used. This eliminates the need to ask sales representatives repetitive questions when they transfer leads as all interactions can be easily accessed.

This statement holds true whether you choose to send an email or make a direct call using various platforms such as CRM, web-based email accounts, desktop applications, or mobile phones.

Once automation is incorporated, the true potential of CRM software becomes evident.

Automation functions help salespeople reduce 80% of their non-selling tasks.

In a study conducted in 2017, it was discovered that sales representatives dedicate just 34% of their time to selling. This proportion is remarkably low. Just think about it, what if your developers only devoted a third of their time to actual development?

What activities were the representatives engaged in during the remaining duration? They allocated 17% of their time to data entry, 12% to scheduling meetings, 21% to composing emails, and a variety of other duties like internal meetings and check-ins.

To assist your salespeople in focusing on their strengths, it is recommended to automate 80% of their tasks, enabling them to dedicate more time to selling.

Marketing automation is one of the most effective for increasing productivity and efficiency.

There are several ways that individuals utilize the marketing automation features integrated into customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Sending a welcome series of emails to new leads (also called a “drip campaign”)
Automatically qualifying leads
Lead nurturing campaigns
Following up with lapsed customers
Behavioral and abandoned-cart emails
Segmenting leads based on their responses to marketing
Scheduling sales calls and meetings

And that is only considering the marketing aspect.

Your CRM has the capability to dial calls for salespeople, keep your contact database updated with the most current information, produce and send tailored content, and send notifications automatically to the appropriate individuals.

When fully utilized, your CRM can be compared to the employment of a complete team of administrative assistants who handle all the tedious tasks.

When a CRM is integrated with customer support applications, SaaS tools, accounting software, and other technology-driven processes, it can create a sense that your business operates automatically, which is advantageous.

Although it is not possible to completely eliminate the time spent by salespeople on administrative tasks, a significant reduction can be made.

Project and task management can enhance the efficiency of automation, making it a significant advancement in marketing and sales.

Productivity can be enhanced through effective task management.

Sales representatives have a multitude of tasks to manage, and an effective CRM system can provide assistance. Each representative has access to personalized dashboards where they can view various details such as:

Where each lead is at along the customer journey
Contacts to follow up with
New messages from prospects
Potential leads and prospecting information
Sales forecasting data and pipeline management reports
Tasks assigned to them automatically or by other team members
Information on their own performance and customer satisfaction
Dashboard views of other activities

Sales reps can do their jobs more efficiently with the help of all these pieces of information. The more time they have available for doing their tasks, the less time they will spend on figuring out what needs to be done.

By automating those tasks, more time can be saved as they are carried out automatically.

Why use two separate apps when your CRM can fully replace your current task management system? You won’t miss out on any features as task organization, scheduling, sharing, and time tracking are all available to help representatives stay focused and increase productivity.

Applying a systematic approach, restate the given text without altering its meaning or omitting any information: Utilizing effective team management strategies can assist your company in accomplishing tasks more efficiently.

Up to this point, our discussion has mainly focused on how CRM software benefits sales and marketing teams at the operational level. However, the utility of CRMs extends far beyond that scope. Now, let’s explore the various ways in which this software serves managers.

Managers have the ability to assign tasks and track progress of sales representatives, as well as view statistics on various metrics such as the sales rep with the highest effectiveness in phone calls, most frequent emailers, and overall highest sales.

In addition to workload planning, Gantt charting, Kanban boards, and other methods of project and task visualization, certain CRMs also provide information quality reports which reveal metrics such as the number of leads classified as unqualified or having incorrect contact information.

CRM reporting provides the necessary documentation to take action in monitoring sales reps’ performance, rewarding top performers, and coaching or replacing chronic underperformers – which are all duties of a sales manager.

By establishing formulas to compare revenue and cost, they will be able to assess overall profitability as well as potential profits from potential customers in the pipeline.

Customizable dashboards and automated reports are used to present all of this information. Once these reports are implemented, managers receive automatic updates according to a predetermined schedule. Additionally, managers have the ability to access this information at any time upon request.

Rather than individually following up with sales representatives, managers now receive a concise overview of the complete sales operation. This allows them to address minor issues before they escalate into major problems and allocate more time towards assisting rather than merely monitoring.

If you have an excellent CRM, the process of managing, monitoring, and communicating with your team becomes effortless.

Integrate the apps you are currently using.

On average, companies utilize over 100 various software applications. You are likely to possess communication tools such as Slack, development tools including JIRA, support tools like Intercom, project management tools like Trello, email marketing tools like Mailchimp, Google Sheets for spreadsheet management, Buffer for social media, and similar applications.

Customer relationship management systems bring together all of those systems. For instance, if you are monitoring a customer’s custom development in JIRA, you can receive updates in your CRM system. This eliminates the need to search for a developer when a customer asks a sales representative about the progress of their development. This level of service enhances the customer experience and creates a positive outcome.

Instead of creating new workflows for marketing automation, you can utilize your existing automation setup in your email provider. Your project management software can be updated through tasks, and faster notifications can be sent out in Slack. All of these processes occur automatically.

By utilizing apps such as Zapier, it becomes possible to establish connections with a wide range of platforms. Moreover, if there is a technical expert within your team, having a CRM with a versatile API enables you to perform nearly all the tasks available within the app itself. Regardless of the tools employed, ensuring the integration of third-party applications is essential for a comprehensive CRM strategy.

In order to maintain a high level of effectiveness for the entire team, it is important to note that CRM tools are unable to manage tasks or deals that are not visible to them. Thus, if individuals choose to work on leads or deals outside of the CRM system, it diminishes the overall effectiveness of the team.

Top CRM Tools for B2B Sales and Marketing Teams

HubSpot

HubSpot is a CRM that operates in the cloud and is intended to assist with aligning sales and marketing teams, enhancing sales enablement, increasing return on investment (ROI), and optimizing inbound marketing strategies in order to generate a greater number of qualified leads.

The HubSpot CRM platform consists of a complete range of software designed to support the inbound approach, enabling your business and customers to thrive. It aids in streamlining the buyer’s journey by promoting teamwork among marketing, sales, and operations teams, thus minimizing obstacles.

What is the reason behind our liking for it?

Powerful and easy to use. Simple to use and learn for users of all skill levels. It will also reduce the need to use several applications, allowing you to save all of your records in one location that you can access from anywhere at any time.
Integrated funnel experience. Host websites, track contacts from the top of our funnel, all the way to the moment they fill out a form and end up on the sales team’s dashboards and task lists. Prioritize the hottest leads based on custom parameters.
Support and documentation. Their customer service and documentation is top-notch, so you can always find the answers you’re looking for, or get a response from a helpful customer support representative in a really reasonable amount of time.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a sales management tool that is highly rated and specifically designed for small sales teams. Its purpose is to assist in managing complex or time-consuming sales processes, enabling salespeople to concentrate on tasks that lead to successful deals.

Pipedrive’s clean visual interface offers powerful features including email integration, goal tracking, reporting, and forecasting. By utilizing Pipedrive’s visual sales pipeline, users are prompted to take action, stay organized, and maintain control over the intricate sales process.

What is the reason for our liking it?

Really intuitive user interface. It is easy to add clients and move them according to the commercial stage, and it provides excellent and stable communication between departments. It is also very visual, so it is easy to follow up.
Easily work collectively on projects. End communication lapses because of missed email chains or other issues. PipeDrive keeps all information for each deal centrally located for maximum efficiency and productivity.
Reporting, API, and integrations. Easily integrate it with Mailchimp, Slack, Gmail… It also provides a lot of strong reporting via insights and, for teams with additional technical capabilities, the API allows for added analysis and custom dashboards.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a platform that combines email marketing, automation, sales software, and CRM. Users can utilize its features to engage in robust automation, email marketing, and customer relationship management.

By automating marketing, sales, and support processes, it enables businesses to connect and engage with customers, thereby creating optimized customer experiences. It also provides users with detailed behavior tracking and marketing segmentation options.