CRM – acronym for Customer Relationship Management – helps to centralize key information about your customers. For example, who they are, how to get in touch with them, and how they interact with your brand. The system even identifies the pipeline of new business. A tool accessible to the entire sales team, CRM tracks every detail of your relationship with customers. skymarketing strives to be Pakistan's biggest real estate developer ever, guaranteeing the highest international standards, prompt execution, and lifetime customer loyalty. For further detail visit tajarat.com.pk

Useful for both B2B and B2C companies , CRM allows you to maintain a central list of information about leads and customers. In addition to facilitating the interaction between customers and your sales team, keeping a history of their conversations. It also provides greater management control over its sales team , also contributing to a more structured process. No wonder that, according to Capterra , CRM is adopted by 65% of companies in its first 5 years. CRM, however, can be defined in two ways. What is a CRM? CRM can be defined as a set of strategies to strengthen the relationship with customers, seeking loyalty. It is also a platform where the data of these customers (and potential customers) are stored. Enabling the administration and development of strategies through CRM Unlike CRM as a strategy, however, the platform – despite promoting customer loyalty – is not just about that. With it, the SDR can have the first contact with the lead and the closer can work with him to close the deal. Thus, the two definitions end up walking together. CRM in numbers According to a survey by Capterra, 47% of companies adept at CRM claim that the tool was essential in retaining customers. For 74% of companies using CRM, the solution improves access to customer data . This is what a study by Software Advice points out. In addition, the accessibility of data provided by CRM reduces sales cycles by 8 to 14% . According to a survey by Capterra. Finally, an Aberdeen Group study found that 81% of companies with effective sales consistently use CRM. What is CRM for? There are several types of CRM system, aimed at more specific goals, depending on the wishes and needs of the contractors. Check out the main ones: Operational CRM operational software is the most common variety. And it couldn't be different, since operational is a very broad term. There are many differences between CRMs in this category, which are generally systems that focus on optimizing customer interactions with sales, marketing and service automation. Your goal is to generate leads and then convert them into customers and contacts. Sales CRMs are generally designed to sell things. But some of them have a greater focus on the sales cycle and have more developed functionality specifically aimed at increasing sales. A sales CRM handles the sales process from start to finish, spanning the customer journey , sales processes and sales teams. It allows you to create the sales funnel , track leads and bring better visibility into sales opportunities. This type of CRM simplifies your workflow and lets you manage customer - facing voice, chat , social media and email touchpoints on a single platform. Having an all-in-one sales CRM is great for efficiently managing all sales. This includes leads, contacts and opportunities as well as accounts, quotes and proposals. Lead and contact management functionality collects information from email, social media and voice calls. Its objective is to ally them to build rich profiles of people who are within the company's ideal customer profile . A sales CRM lets you see where a customer is in the sales cycle and nurture leads by directing them to relevant, personalized information. Opportunity management capabilities help identify sales as they develop so they are impacted at the right time. Account management tracks customers: their activities, pending deals, payment status and associated contacts. Quote management allows you to quickly create quotes and track the ones that are in play, which is invaluable for forecasting sales . Sales force automation streamlines workflow, sorting information across channels, generating new data and tasks. In addition to notifying you about order tracking, processing and tracking. This helps to considerably reduce manual entry tasks. Finally, individual salesperson performance tracking tools are very useful for evaluating and encouraging the team . Marketing The marketing has unique challenges and plays a unique role of "front line" in your business. In that sense, a marketing- focused CRM setup helps a lot. Any good marketing CRM is built on the principle of better business through communication and centralization of tasks and data. In that spirit, a marketing- specific CRM is useful for talking to sales. After all, with this, the system allows the execution of more efficient campaigns, gaining more leads and closing more deals. In addition to allowing the creation and automation of marketing campaigns across all channels. This type of CRM also provides statistics on email status (open/unopened, click through rate and A/B) to find the best strategy for landing pages . A marketing CRM can also segment leads into different categories. To do this, consider the time they spent on your site , which links they clicked, and what kind of personal information they shared in a form. This targeting allows you to create different campaigns for different demographic groups, keeping your brand in sight until the lead is ready to become active. The features of CRMs in this category also allow you to schedule a sequence of emails to be sent within a certain time interval. Service Customer service is more important than ever. In this sense, a CRM service integrates customer service and support (CSS) functionalities and adapts them to marketing and sales to meet all aspects of the customer experience . The simplified access to contact data and collaborative team tools provided by this type of CRM helps answer and resolve customer queries with greater speed and intelligence. In addition to covering all customer touch points – social, chat , email , phone and website . A service CRM system gives service and support staff immediate access to customer information across all relevant channels ( touchpoints ). The customer data stored in the system, including history, allows all service representatives to have full visibility of the people they are interacting with. This offers faster resolutions and reduces customer frustration, lowering the churn rate and increasing conversions. With Service CRM, when a customer contacts, a 'ticket' is created. It records the customer's name, details and type of problem. Also flagging the relevant department according to the problem, ensuring that it speaks to the right person. Social – for social media management Today's customer journey is complex. People have an incredible number of choices to make and increasingly pull the trigger based on word of mouth from their social circles. As a result, social channels have become a key platform for advertising, customer engagement and communication with the general public. As the role of social media in business has evolved, competition has intensified. In this context, keeping up with changes in online behavior is another major challenge. This means that social media management is now a very important business investment. Hence the rise of social CRM, which aggregates and analyzes posts from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more. So, while traditional CRM focuses on communication channels such as phone, email and text, social expands the scope to include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. That is, social media platforms equipped with messaging modules where customers and businesses can chat directly with each other. For customer service and support, a social CRM allows for a faster and more efficient method to respond to any customer feedback . Be it positive or negative. In addition, posts from multiple social channels are aggregated in one place, better equipping anyone who wants to stay up-to-date on what's happening with customers, prospects and the general public in real time.

Analytical CRMs in this category enhance marketing campaigns by providing powerful analytics and collaborative tools for the team. Analytics tools can find meaningful patterns for actionable insights . Allowing, for example, to display targeted and effective ads using marketing automation . They also help turn a potential buyer into a customer by predicting buying habits and determining the likelihood that a person will buy something again. This can be invaluable for future remarketing decisions and financial forecasting. Its marketing automation functionality reduces sales force work, helps retain customers and increases sales. With data support, business operations are guided by best practices, providing greater assertiveness. The website and CRM integration provided by this category allows you to develop a more accurate picture of the behavior of potential buyers and customers. Systems of this type automatically update data and metrics, ensuring a complete and reliable picture of your business. Its analytics tools provide new insights into the user interface, helping to improve the customer experience .

What should a CRM have? A CRM system can only have the basic features, the most common (that is, which are in most systems, but which are not “mandatory”) and additional functionality (also called strategic). We'll look at each of these features below. Basic Features For a system to truly be considered a CRM, it needs to offer some basic features. Are they: Basic features that every CRM must have Common but not required features These are the features that appear on most CRM systems on the market, but not all of them. Generally, the presence of these features indicates more robust systems rather than a basic plan. Common but not required features in CRMs Additional CRM Features Additional features are those not common in CRM systems and may define certain software offerings that are above others within the same category or highlight them as more effective for a unique niche. Additional features that indicate more sophisticated CRM's Why is CRM important? As your business grows, you gain more potential customers. With this growth, it becomes increasingly difficult to access information related to these potential buyers and customers in different tools. When using a CRM , however, the data is centralized in a single system, making access easier. With it, your sales team has access to the complete and accurate record of a customer or potential buyer with a few clicks. Do you want to maintain a more assertive communication with your customers? The CRM is also useful in this regard. That's because it gives sales reps access to all the information they need to create their sales routes . For managers, the solution is ideal because it allows them to track activities and interactions between customers and the sales force. Thus, they can find the bottlenecks in this relationship and implement improvements. In addition, as your business evolves, your team also grows, needing to connect with more colleagues to exchange information. And, if you don't have a system where this communication is facilitated, you may end up losing sales opportunities. Not to mention the failures that can happen, such as duplicate bookings and even critical failures in enriching leads in the sales funnel . Another problem that can be solved with CRM is the standardization of the sales process. That's because, without the system, each salesperson can work differently. Which ends up making communication with potential buyers and customers inconsistent. Or even make potential customers have to repeat the same information every time they contact you. This generates irritation and detracts from the customer experience, which we know is fundamental to good sales. Furthermore, CRM is indispensable for supporting complex workflows, especially in B2B sales and fast-growing sales teams. After all, CRM systems keep your team focused on tasks without getting out of sync. What saves time in bureaucratic activities that do not add value. As is the case of research to search, in different databases, for essential information to close a deal. How do I calculate performance on my CRM? Do you want to assess your business performance within your sales CRM? There are several metrics for this, which can even be used together. closing fee One of the metrics most used by companies to assess the effectiveness of their CRM is the close rate . Basically, it assumes the contrast between closed deals and active opportunities in the tool. So, if you closed 40 trades, but you have 200 opportunities, your closing rate is 20% . This calculation by itself does not provide solid data. After all, the average value of the deal is an important element to be considered in the closing rate. That is: how much is the transaction worth. And it's very different to sell 50 popsicles and the same volume, except in ice cream jars, isn't it? It is worth remembering that, when implementing a CRM, it is important to contrast the closing rate of the semester prior to implementation. Ideally, in this case, the rate should increase. If it is decreasing, the productivity of your sales team must be reviewed. As well as the quality of the opportunities obtained. Upsell rate at time of sale The upsell rate involves the ability to influence the customer to buy more products/services and/or spend more than originally planned. That is, it occurs when your salesperson induced the customer to get a more expensive product or a premium service. Or convinced the consumer to subscribe to an annual package instead of a monthly one, for example. Let's say your sales team was able to convince 2 customers out of 10 to increase spending. The upsell rate in this case is 20%. CRM software allows salespeople to identify profiles of customers who are likely to spend more. Therefore, as well as the closing rate, a contrast must be made between the post-implementation of the system and the six months prior to using the tool.

new net revenue New net revenue refers to spending by new consumers. However, the classification of “new customer” varies depending on your business. In the case of companies that work with monthly subscriptions, of course, consumers in their first month are new. In the case of sales of individual products, the first purchases by consumers represent new net income. Following our established model, it is worth contrasting the average of new net revenues with the semester before the CRM implementation. Ideally, there should be an increase in high-value deals. Since you should be able to close a larger volume of them. In addition, your new net income needs to be constantly growing. Average lead time in each phase of the pipeline As we have seen, the pipeline is divided into stages, through which the lead passes on its purchase journey. By analyzing the pipeline data, you can find out how much time on average the lead spends at each step. And, in contrast to periods prior to CRM implementation, it is possible to analyze the effectiveness of the tool. sales cycle speed One more metric we suggest for you to assess CRM efficiency is sales cycle speed. CRM is extremely effective in helping you sell more in less time, reducing your sales cycle. Okay, but how do I know my average sales cycle time? Let's say, in general, your leads take about 3 months to close. So this is exactly the average time of your sales cycle. Remember, however, that this is an average number . Which means that this is a general overview, it does not apply to absolutely every case. Also, when calculating the average sales cycle time, consider how many decision makers are involved. After all, these two variables directly affect the speed of the sales cycle and are totally beyond the control of your sales team. In addition to the value of the product or service in question. Churn Index As it is a system that promises to increase loyalty, this is a relevant metric to assess in CRM. The churn indicates how many of your customers have canceled your services. To find out this index, just divide the number of consumers by the number of dropouts. For example, your company has 500 active customers in March, with ten customers canceling in the same month. Following the formula, the calculation becomes: 10 / 500 = 0.02. Transforming the percentage, (0.02 x 100), the churn rate is 2%. 4 tips for using a CRM efficiently There are 4 basic practices that can help you use CRM efficiently. Next, let's check each one out.

1. Understand the sales and leadership process For the CRM implementation to be successful, your sales team must have a well-structured sales process. It is therefore important to consider: Stages of the sales process : each effective stage of the negotiations must be clearly defined and linked to a traceable action. Some of the main steps are called/scheduled demonstration, follow-up email and proposal sent, and negotiation outcome (closing or withdrawal). Filling in custom fields : One of the biggest mistakes when filling in data in CRM is sticking to the basic fields (contact email, website and company location). These fields do not cover specific information – which is extremely important to the sales process. The ideal is to also fill in the custom fields, which bring valuable insights to the marketing and sales team. well defined divisions : for a CRM to be really effective, it's about defining rules that determine who owns each lead and each account. Otherwise, there will be conflict between vendors or even departments. Location : If you're targeting your leads based on ICP, location is one of the factors to consider. In this case, the CRM must also be configured accordingly. In fact, some systems have automatic lead routing functionality in territory rules. So if you consider location in your sales, don't forget to store this information in the system.

2. Effectively move data to CRM When moving data to CRM, you need to be careful not to end up making a mess. After all, the objective of the system is to bring practicality and organization, not the other way around. To do this, consider: Move only up-to-date data : It's not worth wasting time sending contacts or test fields that are too old, which are no longer even in use. Backup : whenever data is exported from one database to another, there is a possibility of loss of information. To avoid this problem, it is ideal to take an offline backup of this data before transmitting it to CRM. Move data by sections : moving all the data at once increases the workload when organizing it into its proper divisions. Therefore, prefer to move them in sections. In addition to being a more organized way to migrate information, it makes it easier to identify inconsistencies during the migration.

3. Map CRM to Sales Process Once all data has been properly moved to CRM, the information can now be manipulated. To facilitate this handling, some practices can be adopted: Lead Routing Automation: By automatically assigning high-quality leads to your sales rep, you save time searching for leads. Which, in turn, optimizes the sales process. Notifications : Some salespeople may end up missing out on high-value actions performed by a lead. Especially when they're focused on closing a different sale. Setting up email notifications helps sellers stay on their toes. Sales team follow-up : the data stored in the CRM provides precious information about the productivity of your sales team. With the system's reports, it is possible to measure the productivity of each salesperson and the team as a whole. This allows you to track progress against established goals. These reports provide managers with a clear view of team performance. From the activities registered by the sellers to the product demonstrations delivered. As well as opportunities gained and lost.

4. Monitor systems and data CRM can also provide strategic information that can be used to develop new approaches. Furthermore, it can point out possible improvements in the sales process. For this, it is important to monitor both the system and the data. Another good practice is the annual data cleaning, keeping only active and up-to-date leads and customers in the system. By following these tips, you will have an extremely effective CRM to boost your customer relationship and improve your sales.

Conclusion As we've seen, CRM is an excellent way to improve relationships, whether with active customers or potential customers. Besides being a great tool to improve the communication of the sales team. Including with other relevant departments such as marketing . Not to mention the safest way to store and organize information about customers and potential buyers . Also contributing to the monitoring of results and the control of tasks and activities. To do so, however, it is necessary that the platform is always monitored and evaluated through metrics. Which will indicate your effectiveness as well as the performance of your sales team. Furthermore, in its implementation and use, it is also essential to observe some good practices. Only then is it possible to enjoy all the benefits that the solution offers. Source: https://propertynews.pk/ Source: Businessworld.com.pk