5 unconventional ways to use CRM

If you think CRM software can only be used to improve sales, think again. Most businesses fail to unleash the full potential of this tool. With a little innovative thinking, you will find much more ways to use CRM to your advantage. CRM software lets you collect, organise, and analyse your customer data. Here are five unconventional ways to use this valuable information.

Predict future purchases

A thorough analysis of your customers’ purchase history may help you predict how many of them are going to buy your products in the next season. You can gain insight into your customers’ buying pattern and predict their possible purchases. The analysis would also help you identify any potential risk of losing customers well in advance. That way, you can prepare for any increase or decrease in your future sales.

Monitor your brand reputation

Building brand reputation is possible in the short-term, but it is even harder to maintain a strong reputation over time as it requires consistent effort. If it keeps fluctuating, you should keep an eye on the variable graph at all times. However, knowing how your customers perceive your brand is not easy. Simplified CRM software such as QuickDesk lets you track customer interactions and monitor customer feedback on social media. This helps you to get a clear picture of your brand reputation on an ongoing basis. With feedback such as comments from existing and potential customers across different platforms, you can improve your audience engagement strategies and drive better results.

Identify customers with the most potential

When you run email campaigns or social media campaigns, you may receive a lot of replies from potential customers. While there may be many people who express interest, not all of them would eventually become customers and make a purchase. If you can identify those who are most likely to buy from your company, you can send them a promotional offer to close the deal sooner. However, how would you identify such customers? Your CRM software can help you do this. By collecting data using your CRM software, you can identify which of your potential customers are more likely to make a purchase. Building a brand loyalty helps the business in the long run.

Collaborate and grow

One common reason many projects fail is the lack of collaboration. If your organisation stores data in different databases, you could be hampering the growth of your company. You should ensure that different departments in your company are linked to each other and all of them have access to your customer data on a centralised platform. For instance, you can allow all departments to access your CRM data so that they have access to the necessary information that can help them make informed decisions quickly.

Build partnerships

CRM software allows you to identify potential opportunities to form business development partnerships. Some CRM systems come with features like pipeline reporting and spreadsheet exports. You can use those features to monitor transactions with your customers, vendors, and contractors, and then identify which of these relationships have the potential to become long-term partnerships.

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4 Common Mobile CRM Mistakes You should Avoid

Mobile CRM helps your sales team access customer data anytime and anywhere. With greater insights from data, they can make better-informed decisions and close more sales deals. However, if you want to unleash the true potential of mobile CRM, simply loading the software on your salespeople’s mobile devices would not suffice. You need to ensure that they are proficient and are actively using the system to improve their performance. While more companies in Singapore are adopting mobile CRM software, many make some common mistakes in implementing it. Here are four common mistakes to avoid.

1. Not providing the necessary training to salespeople

There is no point investing hundreds of dollars on mobile CRM if your sales team does not know how to use it. You should provide adequate training to your sales representatives to reap the results from your efforts. Mobile CRM tends to be less complicated than desktop CRM, however, your salespeople would still need training. This will guide them in using the special features, knowing how to import or export customer data and track metrics, among other functions. Besides conducting training sessions, you should distribute user manuals and other helpful guidebooks or documents to support your sales team in learning how to use mobile CRM.

2. Not using mobile metrics

Simplified mobile CRM applications such as QuickDesk allow you to measure the success of your CRM campaign using different metrics. As mobile analytics is capable of making accurate predictions, it can play a key role in guiding important business decisions. Using mobile metrics allows you to track customer retention rates, conversion rates, sales cycle periods and other important metrics that would help you make timely and well-informed decisions.

3. Not choosing a simplified product

When choosing CRM software for use on mobile devices, you should consider whether it is user-friendly. Some products are equipped with unnecessary and complex features, which will lead to your salespeople taking weeks to learn how to use the software. Some of them may fail to adopt it despite giving them adequate training. You need to choose a product that is easy to use and has only the necessary features that you require. It is always a good idea to choose an application that is feature-rich but not feature-heavy. For instance, Quickdesk is available on mobile and provides all the required features to help your sales team drive sales productivity, including importing and exporting contacts, setting goals and tracking activity, real-time calling, and recorded history and automated activity tracker.

4. Ignoring security challenges

It is extremely important to choose a secured CRM system as security risks are higher on mobile platforms. To that end, you should take some important steps. For instance, you should always keep your files encrypted and use a strong password to protect your device from hacking attempts. If necessary, seek advice from experts on how to ensure 100 percent security while using mobile CRM.

If you can avoid the above mistakes, mobile CRM can benefit your business more than you could imagine.

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How to use CRM to improve your brand reputation

Your brand identity is how your customers perceive your company. Their perception depends on various factors, including your service quality, product range, after-sales support, and how you respond to customer queries. If you can consistently deliver good quality on all fronts, customers will eventually start praising your brand. They will value the overall customer experience more than the product or service you are selling. However, earning such a strong brand loyalty and reputation is not easy. It requires consistent effort. Your CRM software can help you strengthen your brand. You can use your CRM to collect and analyse customer data and create, distribute, market your brand message.

Here are some ways to use CRM to boost your brand.

Monitor customer interactions

Simplified CRM software like QuickDesk allows you to keep an eye on real-time customer interactions. You can keep track of the latest interactions between your salesperson and customers easily and even respond to customer queries immediately. When you resolve individual customer queries quickly, customers will be impressed and your reputation will grow.

Respond to customer feedback

With CRM, you can manage customer feedback effectively. CRM systems let you record, analyse and respond to customer feedback in an organised way. For instance, you can analyse customers’ feedback and identify their concerns. Once you spot the pain points of your customers, you can take quick actions to resolve them. In this age of internet and social media, one bad review can harm your brand reputation. On the other hand, a couple of good reviews can boost your brand reputation immensely and build credibility for your brand. CRM allows you to monitor customer reviews and identifies common patterns so that you can respond to them in a timely manner.

Track common factors

CRM helps you gather information and about your customers, such as demographic factors, age, and buying preferences. By identifying patterns in the information, you can categorise your customers and send customised messages to each group. The more targeted and personalised your messages, the more effective they are. For instance, you can announce special discounts or offers on the eve of a local festival for customers that are likely to participate in that festival.

Refresh your brand reputation

At times, you may need to refresh your brand message by improving your marketing strategy to make it more relevant for your target customers. CRM lets you listen to your customers on social media platforms and understand their current perception of your brand. If you find too many negative comments, perhaps it is time to refresh and rebuild your brand image. Your CRM software will help you understand which aspects of your current business are not working. Do you need to change the way you do business now? Do your customers expect more from you? What do you need to change? Once you find the answers to these questions, they will guide you in refreshing your brand reputation.

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How to improve your CRM System

If you are spending a large amount on your CRM software but are still not getting the desired results, you need to review the issues that could be affecting your results. It could be that your sales staff is reluctant to use CRM. Or perhaps, you are not using the latest CRM features. Another possibility is that you are not tapping the full potential of mobile CRM. In fact, there could be many reasons as to why your company is failing to make the most of CRM. Here are some useful tips on how to improve your CRM system.

Integrate CRM across internal departments

One common mistake most companies make is that they integrate CRM only with the sales department. Besides sales, other departments should have access to your CRM system as well. In fact, anyone who deals with customer data should be linked to your CRM system. That way, you will ensure that every department is kept updated on the latest customer data. For instance, your front office executives should have the latest information about potential and existing customers, including the stage that they are at in the buying cycle and whether they are following your newsletter. Without the latest information on how a potential customer is interacting with your sales team or the current stage of the sales cycle that they are at, your front office employees may fail to engage them, missing out on an opportunity to turn the prospect into a customer.

Train your employees

Simply investing in a costly CRM tool is not enough. You need to make sure your employees know how to use it. To that end, you should organise CRM training sessions regularly. Train your salespeople, new hires, managers and other staff in using the CRM software. One method would be to identify your tech-savvy employees and provide CRM training to them first. After they have mastered the necessary skills, they can help to teach other employees in their team. For best results, opt for simplified CRM software like QuickDesk that is easy to use and saves time on training.

Use the latest features

If you want to improve your CRM system, consider using the latest CRM features. Many companies, despite having an advanced CRM tool, fail to make the most of all its special features. Invest in seamless, intuitive technology. For instance, QuickDesk comes with advanced features, such as Real Time Calling and Auto Dialing, Automated Activity Tracker, and Do Not Call (DNC) filtering. You can also create invoices, set reminders for leads, and keep track of your leads. Some CRM software even allows you to schedule appointments with clients from Google calendar or send invites.

Integrate with social media

It is also important to integrate your CRM with social networking platforms. It will help you in finding details about a prospect’s social media activities. For instance, if you have your prospect’s email address, you can easily find all their social media profiles and read their posts. This helps you gain knowledge of the likes, dislikes and buying behaviour of the prospect. Eventually, this will guide you in devising a more effective marketing strategy and increase sales.

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How CRM apps can improve your business

Most businesses in Singapore still operate CRM on their desktop computers. If you are doing the same, you are not maximising the power of your CRM software. To make the best use of your CRM, you need to use it on your mobile device. All you need is to download a CRM app on your Smartphone or tablet. That way, you can access, collect, and analyse customer data on the go from almost anywhere. Take a look at how you can use CRM apps to improve your business, from building brand loyalty or even increasing your stagnant sales.

Improves customer service

Today’s customers are busy. Customers expect quick and excellent service from your sales executives. With CRM apps, your salespeople can respond to the customer immediately, in real time. Moreover, they can access customer data instantly on their mobile device, using CRM apps. This means that they have instant access to relevant customer information that can help them provide a better customer experience.

Improves data accuracy

Maintaining CRM data accuracy is a challenge for many businesses. The main cause for data errors stems from not entering customer data in real time. If your sales team is not connected with the CRM round the clock, they will not be able to enter customer data into the system when they are working on the go. They will probably keep hand-written notes and later update the data into the system from office. This process is time-consuming and increases the likelihood of data errors. Thankfully, CRM apps help resolve this problem. With CRM, your salespeople can enter and update customer information in real time, which reduces the scope for inaccurate data entry.

Boosts productivity

Mobile CRM apps allow for more flexibility. Now your sales and marketing team can utilise the dead time minutes if they want. For instance, they can analyse customer data while waiting at the airport, during lunch breaks, meetings, and even while returning home from the office. There is no need to wait until you reach the office because you have easy access to data anytime. Advanced CRM apps like QuickDesk allow you to gather, organise, and update client information within seconds.    You can set goals, track activity, import or export contacts, and create invoices quickly and easily. All these help boost your productivity.

Improves collaboration

CRM software has been very effective in collecting and analysing customer data for better decision making. Now with the use of CRM apps, you can move a step further in that direction. Your managers can know what is going on the field. They can track activities of sales and marketing executives, assign new tasks, get reports – all in the real time. This helps improve collaboration among your team members.

If you want to make the most of mobile CRM, consider using the right CRM app. Simplified solutions like QuickDesk available on iTunes and Play store, allow you to get the best benefits of CRM.

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Top reasons businesses should adopt mobile CRM

Singapore has the highest internet penetration rate of 80 percent in South East Asia and it has the fastest mobile penetration rate of 152 percent throughout the world. It is no wonder that such a tech-savvy country is leading by examples when it comes to utilising mobile CRM. If your business is using conventional CRM software, it is time to go mobile. That way, you can get access to real-time customer data anytime and anywhere. Here are some major reasons why you should take the mobile CRM leap.

More productivity

Using mobile CRM is a chance for you to increase your productivity. Think about it. Your salespersons will get access to CRM around the clock and from any location as long as they are connected to the internet. Does that not help them to be more productive? Now, they can use the multimedia and search features of CRM software whenever and wherever they want. They can quickly check details about a customer in their mobile phones or tablets before interacting with the customer. Knowing more about a customer would help your sales team to sell more. That brings us to the next benefit of using mobile CRM.

More sales

According to a recent survey among sales managers, around 75 percent of the respondents said that they noticed an increase in sales after using mobile CRM. If not for anything else, you should use mobile CRM for getting more sales.

Access to real-time data

Some companies allow their employees to work from home. Also, most salespersons or marketing professionals today need to work away from the office at least for some hours almost daily. When someone is working away from office, they may not have the latest customer information. They would have access to the information only after returning to the office. With mobile CRM, you do not have this issue. You can integrate the mobile CRM with cloud and hence get instant access to real-time customer data.

Faster delivery

Another benefit of using this mobile tool is that it helps improve your turnaround time for delivery. For instance, let’s say a salesperson receives an order on the go, earlier he would have to reach office or make a call to inform the production or delivery department about the new order. Now they can just enter the information in mobile CRM software, and the messages go immediately to the delivery team. That way, you can save a lot of time and expedite the delivery process.

A step towards mobile workforce

With more and more companies in Singapore shifting to a mobile workforce, mobile CRM could be a useful tool for most businesses. With simplified CRM software like QuickDesk available on iTunes and Play Store, the business now can allow more employees to work from home or on the go. This would also help business save money on office rents and related expenses. Also, employees who are working for your company from home may fall into the category of freelancers, which would help evade employment taxes to a large extent.

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ICV Singapore: Improving Your Business with ICV Grant

What is ICV (Innovation Capability Voucher)?

The Innovation and Capability Voucher helps Singapore businesses to improve and upgrade their operations and processes.

This can be in the form of hiring a consultant or purchasing a pre-existing integrated solution.

In both cases, the service or integrated solutions provider must be pre-qualified by SPRING Singapore and hence listed on their website, and after making their purchase, they can apply for the voucher and get their grant reimbursement back.

Step 1: Is My Company eligible for ICV?

In order for a company can be eligible for the ICV Grant, it needs to meet the following criteria:

• It must be registered and operating in Singapore
• Have at least 30% of its shares owned by Singaporeans or Permanent Residents
• Have group annual revenue of less than $100 million or less than 200 employees

Step 2: Understand what can be claimed for ICV

Each SME is entitled to a maximum of eight (8) vouchers, each worth $5000. These vouchers can be claimed in the form of (1) Consultancy Projects and (2) Integrated Solutions.

(1) Consultancy Projects (Up to 2 vouchers can be claimed per capability area)

1. Financial Management
2. Human Resources
3. Innovation
4. Productivity

When hiring a consultant under this scheme, they can be reassured of the quality of the service as SPRING Singapore pre-qualifies service vendors, and they can have an idea on the deliverables from the vendors as SPRING Singapore lists the project scopes on their website.

(2) Integrated Solutions (max 2 vouchers)

An SME can also make use of the ICV Voucher by purchasing a pre-existing “Integrated Solution” and implementing it in their company’s workflow. SPRING Singapore also has a list of Integrated Solutions as well as a list of provider companies on their site.

Step 3 Know Your Business, Your Goals, and Your Needs

In order to plan for the best use of these ICV Vouchers, it is important to consider the following questions:

• Out of the four key areas (Financial Management, Human Resources, Innovation and Productivity), which is placed at highest priority?
• What are your company’s strengths and weaknesses?
• What is your company’s source of income?
• How is its financial situation?
• What is this company’s plan for expansion?

Use these questions as a starting point to brainstorm and shortlist which service providers you want to engage. And look through the Project Scope and Deliverables on Spring Singapore’s website to determine if what they have is a fit for your company.

For instance, if your company’s main source of income is designing and manufacturing new technology and products, it should focus on the capability area of Innovation.

If your company is looking to expand and hire more people while still maintaining healthy cashflow, it should put its priority on the areas of Financial Management and Human Resources.

Step 4: Determine how and where to spend the ICV Vouchers

Do your research on vendors for Consultancy Projects and the Integrated Solutions.

Shop around before determining which is the best fit for your company. Service Providers for consultancy projects must agree to conduct the project for your company before you can apply for ICV. In some instances, the service provider or Integrated solutions provider can assist you in applying for the ICV Grant.

ICV applications will then be processed within 6 weeks and companies who have succeeded in their application will be notified by email.

These are the 4 simple steps in making the most out of the ICV Grant from Spring Singapore. Remember that no two companies are exactly alike and thus the types of services or solutions that would be the most effective for each situation will differ.

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5 CRM mistakes to avoid in upcoming 2017

Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps a business acquire and retain customers. Within the past few years, there has been a massive adoption of CRM in Singapore. However, companies still make mistakes when implementing CRM software. As a business owner, you should be aware of the best practices in CRM implementation, as well as common mistakes and how to avoid them.

Here are 5 CRM mistakes you need to avoid in 2017.

Unnecessary integration of CRM and ERP

If your business is growing fast, it would be a good idea to integrate your CRM software with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools. However, this tactic is not suitable for all businesses. For start-ups or businesses with a low sales volume, CRM-ERP integration may not be worth the time and money. Until you can maximize and increase your sales, it may not be necessary to integrate your CRM and ERP systems.

Using price as the determining factor for choosing a CRM software

There is nothing wrong in doing a price comparison when choosing a CRM solution for your business. However, the price is not the only factor to consider. By picking the option with the lowest price, you may compromise on features and end up choosing a tool that does not have all the features that your business requires.

Try opting for simplified CRM software such as QuickDesk that comes with a wide variety of features including DNC filtering, customized emails, lead and task management. It is important to do adequate research, think about all your current and future requirements and find a solution that meets them.

Ignoring social media

One major mistake that companies make is failing to integrate social media with their CRM software. By the end of 2017, there would be around 2.67 billion social media users globally. Within the many customer interactions on social media channels, there is a goldmine of valuable information and insights that you can use to make more informed decisions. If you do not use your CRM software to collect information about existing and potential customers from Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels, you will miss out on a prime chance to gather business intelligence, which will reduce your ability to make good business decisions. While many companies are still using emails and phone calls as their primary modes of communication, this trend is likely to change within the next few years.

Importing incorrect, outdated data

It is important to import complete and updated company data into your CRM system. If you are planning to deploy a new CRM system, you should ensure that the data being imported into the new system is 100 percent accurate and up-to-date. Without the right information, your CRM software will not be effective. It can even be misleading if you use the incorrect information from your CRM system to make decisions.

Not checking for scalability

As your business grows, so does your need to obtain more insightful customer data. When you are buying a CRM solution, you should check that the software not only fulfills your current needs, but is also able to meet your future requirements. Simply put, you need a scalable solution that can be upgraded with more features that you may need in future.

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How to Use CRM to improve your marketing strategy

While CRM is basically a sales tool, it can also be used to strengthen your marketing strategy. If you want to increase sales your already stagnant sales, you first need to improve your marketing. With the CRM software, you can monitor your customers’ behaviour through different stages of the sales cycle. This helps you design a customer-focused strategy for your next marketing campaign.

Here are four ways you can use CRM to improve your marketing strategy.

 

Identifying gaps in sales cycle

CRM helps you measure the impact of each marketing activity in your sales cycle. You can find out when a lead turned into a prospect and how long it took for the sales team to convince the prospect to finally make a purchase. This information helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your existing marketing campaigns, especially the gaps in your sales cycle. Once you identify the gaps in the sales process where most of your leads or prospects lose interest, you can take the necessary steps to keep your prospects more engaged at those stages of your sales cycle.

 

Sending personalized messages

It is important to divide your customer base into segments and obtain customer data for each segment. As your business grows, it becomes much more difficult to maintain a structured database of each customer segment. Advanced CRM solutions like QuickDesk help you organize and segment your database according to the information that has been entered by your sales team. Without proper segmentation of your customer data, you may end up sending a generic message to all customer groups. With CRM, you can collect and segregate customer data into different segments. This helps you send personalized messages to your prospects, which improves your marketing effectiveness.

For instance, you can use CRM to find out whether top-level management professionals respond more frequently to e-books or newsletters. For each customer segment, you can also find out which of your marketing activities are the most effective and use these insights to plan your next marketing campaign.

 

Tracking ROI of your marketing campaigns

When you have a limited budget for marketing, you need to make sure that the amount spent on each of your marketing campaigns is well utilized to produce results. It is difficult to measure results without a system in place to track your ROI. With CRM software, you can monitor the results for each of your marketing campaigns and check whether they are generating enough returns. If not, you should revise your marketing strategy accordingly to boost the effectiveness of your campaigns.

 

Allocating budget for marketing campaigns

Without tracking and reviewing results, you may end up allocating too many resources to campaigns that do not generate adequate returns. Allocating budget for your marketing campaigns is not an easy task. You need to have a clear picture of which marketing activities creating maximum results and which are underperforming. By using CRM software, you can gain a clearer view on the performance of your campaigns, and can then make an informed decision about how to allocate your resources to various campaigns.

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Enterprise Sales Meetup (B2B Sales Techniques) – Key Takeaway Points

Last Wednesday, the Enterprise Sales Meetup brought together three panelists from the enterprise sales industry to share on their B2B Sales techniques. The theme of the night was on “Selling to the C-Suite” and here are the key learning points from the speakers:

1. Be Authentic, Build Trust and Support

Rosalina Chai

Rosalina shared the importance of being authentic, as “the messenger may sometimes be as important as the message“. This is because the key decision makers are not only looking at the quality of the product, but of the salesperson themselves.

She shares her own experience of being a C-level executive herself and explained that she would rather delegate the buying decision to the unit head (key decision maker for the specific issue).  She also mentions that C-level executives tend to be older in age, and thus instead of selling them on the specific details of the technology, it would be wiser to sell a vision of what the product or service can do for their company.

In addition, it is important to build trust and rapport with the people that you meet, so that they are willing to overlook small slip-ups and instead listen to you and learn more about your product.

2. Map out Customer Behaviour and the Buying Process

Aju Marjani

Aju spent 16 years doing enterprise sales, and he too emphasizes the importance of human relationships, placing it above systems, processes and products in terms of importance.

In the past, after gaining experience in selling a product, one can map out a buying cycle of a customer and track where the leads are at a current point in time, as well as whether they should continue following up with the lead.

However, in the digital era, information about different products and services are readily available, and potential customers’ behaviours have also changed. They may want to look into competitors’ products, or do more research on their own, and that adds to the complexity of the buying cycle.

3. Tailor Your B2B Sales Pitch

It is important to bear in mind 3 points in any B2B sales situation:

1. The problems or issues the company faces

   • Seek to understand the problem that they are facing
   • Note down their pain points and explain how your product can be the solution

2. The context of the organization

   • There are many stakeholders involved in deciding on and implementing a solution
   • Thus it is critical to have buy-in from these people as well

3. What sales content is communicated at each level

   • Be aware that reaching the C level is not critical to making a successful sale.
   • Connecting with the stakeholders and committee involved in the issue can be sufficient to close a sale

 

4. How does one win a C-level executive to your side?

Joaquin (Jack) Arambulo

It is important to seize an opportunity to connect with C-level executives when given the chance. They can help make your sales process smoother, and in addition, give you an advantage over competitors who have not made a connection to a board member.

Jack gave a few key B2B sales tips:

• Ask questions and listen instead of giving statements.
• Focus on the value that you can bring
• Sell the vision of the product or service

In conclusion, the key factors of conducting B2B sales is to understand that C-level executives are not the be all and end all of the enterprise sales process, and that it is important to connect with the other stakeholders in the company and help them solve their problems. Doing this can also lead to a successful sale.

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Top reasons to integrate CRM with marketing automation tools

Marketing automation is the latest marketing trend. It allows your business to automate important marketing tasks, including list management, web analytics, multi-channel promotion and email marketing.

While more businesses are using marketing automation, not all of them are integrating it with their customer relationship management (CRM) systems. In fact, some companies expect their CRM to do most of the marketing automation tasks. However, unlike marketing automation, CRM systems generally do not provide end-to-end automated services.

To get the best of both worlds, you should integrate your CRM and marketing automation systems. Here’s why:

They complement each other

To obtain more customers, you need to generate and nurture leads. Automating the process would help boost your efficiency, and this is possible with a successful integration of your CRM software and marketing automation. CRM helps gather customer data, while marketing automation extracts valuable business intelligence insights from this data.

Strengthen relationships with potential customers – even before they make a purchase

It takes weeks or months to turn a prospect into a customer. During that time, you need to keep in touch with your prospects and engage them with useful content. It is also important for sales people to enter useful information about their prospect into the CRM system. While CRM helps you identify your potential customers, marketing automation can help you strengthen the relationship with your prospects during the early stages of a buying process.

Identifies good leads

Not all leads eventually become customers. With integrated CRM and marketing automation tools, you can rank your leads in order of their potential.

Here’s how it works: marketing automation can analyse customer data collected by the CRM software and assign scores to every lead. You can then prioritise your sales leads by ranking them in order of importance. With this information, your sales team can convert the leads with the most potential first.

Send customised messages

When you integrate your CRM with marketing automation, it will help you run personalised marketing campaigns. Your customers are more likely to respond to a customised message than a generic one. With CRM, your marketing team can get the relevant information to create customised messages easily, without having to spend hours on the process.

Shorten the sales cycle

Time is money for any business. With marketing automation tools, you can analyse your CRM data and find ways to obtain new customers more efficiently. By shortening the sales cycle, your business can boost profit significantly.

Improves business decisions

By integrating marketing automation and CRM software, you can measure the results of your various marketing efforts, leverage these insights and channel resources well to make more informed business decisions.

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How CRM helps cut costs for your business

It is a fact that CRM software helps to make a business more profitable and kick start stagnant sales. This is done by increasing sales and cutting on expenditure. With CRM, you can get real-time feedback from your clients, track and nurture your sales leads, increase conversion rates and respond to your customers quickly. All these help your business increase productivity and maximise sales. However, that’s not all. While helping your business increase revenues, CRM also helps you cut business expenses. Read on to find out how it reduces costs for your business.

Reduce customer acquisition costs

There are many reasons why businesses need CRM software. And one of them is that it helps to reduce customer acquisition cost. Customer acquisition refers to gaining new customers. Usually, it takes a lot of time and effort to win new customers. For instance, for customer acquisition, you may need to:

• Send emails, reminders, and newsletters to your prospective customers
• Run expensive marketing campaigns and meetings
• Spend time and effort on cold calling and face-to-face consultation

CRM software makes customer acquisition easier and more organised, thanks to features like real-time monitoring and analytics tools that help gain insight into customer’s buying behaviours quickly and cost-effectively.

CRM also contributes in achieving better customer retention rates. QuickDesk’s CRM software comes with advanced features such as DNC filtering, real-time calling, auto dialling, recorded history and automated activity tracker – all of which help in the process of acquiring new customers. Not forgetting, CRM system also helps in your content marketing efforts!

Cut costs by revamping your sales process

CRM also restructures your sales process to increase revenue. With CRM, your staff will not need to keep track of leads, schedule appointments, and manage orders manually. CRM software helps book appointments, set reminders and display unfinished tasks on a priority basis. As a result, your productivity improves, and you can avoid income losses as well. As CRM software helps you schedule and organise your tasks, there is almost no chance of missing out on important ones. Plus, you get more time to focus on customer acquisition. Simplified CRM such as QuickDesk lets you streamline quotations and invoices by creating reusable templates and adding items like items, taxes and fees.

Reduce your travel expenses

Typically, field sales executives bring up more clients than in-store sales representatives. However, now you can reverse the situation and save on the travel costs of your field representatives. CRM software helps in-store sales representatives establish a strong rapport with customers and even acquire new ones from their recommendations. Thus, you do not have to depend only on your field representatives to obtain new customers.

No more misplaced invoices

Misplaced invoices often lead to massive financial losses for businesses. CRM systems can flag all misplaced invoices for you to follow-up immediately. Digital invoices also save you the trouble of manual invoicing. Paper invoices are labour intensive and take up too much time. With CRM, you can save on printing material as well. Another challenge of using manual invoicing is that they are prone to errors. With CRM software, you can save both time and money on invoicing.

Reduces costs with email integration

Effort translates into money and businesses should focus on channelling it in the right direction. Using any good CRM software, like QuickDesk, you can communicate seamlessly on email even as you chat or call your customers. Updating lead data with Gmail is easy. You can simply access your emails and share them with the rest of the team over the mobile app. These emails can also be referenced quickly while you’re still on a call.

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How to nurture leads using CRM

No matter the size, all businesses need a system to develop relationships effectively with prospective buyers at throughout the sales cycle. In marketing terms, this process is known as lead nurturing.

Lead nurturing is a long-term process in which you track your leads to maximise conversions, thus helping to kick-start your stagnant sales and boosting your marketing efficiency and increasing sales. According to a recent study by market research firm Forrester, lead nurturing helps boost sales by 50 percent at costs that are reduced by 33 percent.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps you organise your database and nurture your leads by maintaining timely interaction. Here are some useful tips on how to use CRM software for lead nurturing.

Have an organised database of your leads

Without an organised database, lead nurturing becomes difficult to manage. When you have a large database of leads, tracking and engaging them regularly requires a well-organized system.

In order to improve your engagement and ensure it is relevant to your leads, you could store the latest information about your leads in your CRM system so you can access them whenever you need. To maintain consistency when using the CRM software, ensure that all team members enter data using the same format. For instance, if you use the abbreviation ‘CMO’ for Chief Marketing Officer, make sure that every member of your team is doing the same (i.e. entering the abbreviated form).

It is also important to categorise your leads. Consider using CRM software that allows you to create custom fields so that you can categorise your data in a manner that is most relevant to your organisation. For instance, if you are running a bus rental company, you may want to create separate categories for corporate guests and general tourists.

Track your leads

CRM helps you track and review your interactions with prospective clients. You can monitor how your engagement with leads across different platforms, such as social media and phone calls. With a thorough review of all interaction, you can assign leads to different categories depending on their position in the sales cycle. Prospects which are ready to make a purchase would be considered hot leads, while cold ones would still need to be nurtured. With a clear view on the status of every lead, your sales team can plan their marketing campaigns accordingly. This allows you to time your interactions with leads well and increase your chances of conversion.

Engage leads with the right content

Ensure that your prospects are given enough information to make an informed buying decision. To do so, you should first identify their pain points and the information they would need to make a purchase decision. Once you understand their needs and have identified the most relevant information for them, you can then develop content and engage them accordingly. For instance, some of your prospective customers may be looking for e-books to develop their knowledge, while others who are considering your products and services would like to view testimonials. With CRM software, you can find out and track what your prospective customers are looking for at various stages of the sales cycle, allowing you to deliver the right content at the right time. This will help you establish your business as one that delivers excellent service and value to the customer.

Use automation to ensure timely interaction

It is important to interact with your leads at the right time. For instance, if a prospect has shown interest by downloading an e-book on your website, you may want to send a follow-up email quickly to further engage and develop their interest. With automation features provided in your CRM software, you can track the actions of your prospects and react to them in a timely manner.

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How to use CRM to target Gen Y customers

Also known as the millennials, Generation Y is those born between the early 1980s and mid-2000s. Gen Y customers are tech-savvy and can be fickle minded. Their buying behaviour is a mystery that most marketers seek to understand.

Gen Y represents a large percentage of Singapore’s population. According to the latest statistics from HR consultant firm Aon Hewitt, they account for 22 percent of Singapore’s total workforce. Quite evidently, you – as a marketer – cannot afford to ignore Gen Y customers. In fact, depending on the nature of your business, millennials could be your target customers with the greatest potential.

Thankfully, there are ways to target Gen Y using the CRM software. Here are some useful tips.

Gather information about their social media profiles

If you want to target Gen Y customers with your CRM software, simply collecting names, phone numbers and other general information of your customers is not enough. Unlike the previous generation, millennials are very active on social media platforms. They share their views and voice their concerns on social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Before making purchase decisions, they will compare products online and ask for recommendations on social sites. If you can collect the social media details of your Gen Y customers and analyse them using CRM, you can gain deeper insight into their buying behaviours.

Practical tip: You can ask your sales staff to gather information about their social media profiles. For instance, you can collect and enter the Facebook addresses of your prospects into the CRM system, so that you can track their social media activities and plan marketing campaigns for them.

Conduct real-time analysis

Simplified CRM software, such as QuickDesk, comes with advanced features including real-time monitoring. You can call your customers directly via your CRM, have your calls recorded and monitor your clients in real time.

While you can use this real-time CRM analysis to target customers of any age group, this strategy works best for Gen Y customers, as they are more likely to use multiple devices when making purchase decisions. For instance, a Gen Y customer can visit your website using their desktop computer, call your customer care executive from their Smartphone, and chat with another sales representative on their tablet – all within 24 hours. With real-time monitoring via CRM, you can track all of the information shared by the customer at every contact point and analyse it to gain a deeper understanding of your customer’s buying behaviour. And this is the right way of targeting and retaining the right customers. By following them closely.

Track interactions to provide better customer service

As mentioned, CRM software lets you track interactions between your customer and sales representative. Using this information, you can gain deeper insight into the buying behaviours and preferences of your Gen Y customers. Once you know their likes and dislikes, you can tailor your customer service to suit them. Remember, excellent customer service is a prerequisite to winning repeat business from Gen Y customers – they hate delays in responses and value companies that provide exceptional customer service.

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3 ways to target and retain the right customers

Businesses all over the world are paying a considerable amount of attention to online presence. Purchases of all sizes are being made online. So, if you have a business, it is important to stretch your presence in the digital world. However, the idea should be to focus on specific demographics of customers. Targeting the right prospects is necessary to convert them into leads. CRM software goes a long way in identifying this base. All you have to do is collect crucial data via surveys, forms and events and render it through the analytics tool of your CRM. Read on to know the right way to target and retain the right buyer base.

Identify and develop on your target customer

Frame a fictional representation of your typical customer. If your company sells formal/business clothing aimed primarily at fresh adults, it is safe to assume that they are a part of an urban, upmarket, millennial culture. Identify the ideals and business principles that this group relates to, and incorporate them in your business model. The necessary information can be gathered using short surveys. It is important to offer incentives, so that you can have credible information. Surveys are great because not only do they provide demographic information, but ideas for blog posts and social media updates.

Keep a track of rivals’ activity

Your rivals could be doing better at marketing and leads conversion currently. This is why you need to be aware of their practices. Even otherwise, broadening your knowledge base is a good idea. Follow them on social media, read their content closely, and pay frequent visits to their websites. What you can do for successful customer targeting and retention is:

1. Use keywords to target followers on social media. This works by way of targeting people based on who they follow. You can even add additional targeting areas like interests, tailored audiences, and so on.
2. Engaging the customers of your competitors is a smart idea. Social media has additional tools to create prototypes of your ideal audience. You can customize the particulars of the audience.
3. Visiting rival businesses’ blogs is advised. Be sure to read the popular posts and the discussions that follow, carefully. Use similar keywords for your own blog posts and engage your prospects in the same way.

Purchase and install an efficient CRM

There is no more excuses to avoid CRM. It is important to have a centralised and an easy access to the updated database of a company’s prospects, leads, and existing customers to all sales and marketing staff. An efficient CRM software performs all these functions easily, besides providing even more insightful information. Across industries, CRM is the best way to optimize and analyze relationships with customers. CRM systems organize crucial customer information in a number of areas. Efficient CRM software will keep customer interactions updated, no matter what the mode of interaction.

It will also be able to prioritise these interactions and respond accordingly to any changes. This is necessary in order to know which prospects to retain and which ones to let go. While purchasing CRM software for your business, be sure that its processes are user-friendly and real time, and it delivers industry-specific reports.

If you would like to learn more about how a CRM software made in Singapore (Quickdesk) can help your business with the above functions do drop us an inquiry!

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5 signs your CRM software needs an upgrade

Outdated CRM software can be counterproductive because instead of serving its original purpose of helping make sales and leads conversion easy, it can seriously hinder your processes. And this can subsequently put you behind by a lot. Be warned if your software is not operating anywhere else apart from the desktop. If there are frequent complaints that your customers have to check through the history every time they want to contact you, you seriously need a system upgrade. To know what the 5 most urgent signs are, read on.

Your CRM software frequently crashes

To say that software crashes from time to time is perfectly normal. But if starts to crash frequently, then it is not. CRM that is in an urgent need of an upgrade, crashes multiple times in a day and you can judge how much that can wreck your sales. Customer service suffers, affecting employee productivity as well. In fact, this is not even a sign. It is a blaring reminder. Remember that CRM system is to help build brand loyalty. Not the otherwise.

The information is inaccessible

A CRM that needs of an upgrade will always be slow. Therefore, at most times, the information provided remains inaccessible. If your staff has been having trouble locating even basic details on the CRM, the ever-increasing average handle time will wreak havoc on your business costs. Old CRM software often has data on several screens and could be difficult to locate information on. By continuing with such a system, you are not only frustrating buyers and angering callers, but pressurizing your calling staff.

It is requiring learning

All things take a while to get off the learning curve, but CRM software is built for utmost precision. This means that if your system is bulky and complicated, and is taking rather long for new joiners to be trained, it is perhaps time to replace this version. To add, efficient CRM systems should themselves require no training as such. They should be easy to use and have an intuitive layout.

The data provided isn’t real time

Business is all about competition, keeping abreast with every update, and staying ahead of the trend. Good CRM software traces prospects on your site, collects valuable information, even as they browse the company website or blogs. Your CRM not doing it all is a sign that you need an upgrade. In fact, do not waste any time, since this can rob you of crucial insights into the purchasing trends and what web pages strike a chord with your buyers.

Integrating mobile with CRM software is not possible

Legacy software will often work on bulky desktops. Upgrade quickly to enjoy the updated services of newer CRMs that seamlessly integrate with the mobile platform. You should be able to trace customer information, analytics and other crucial data on your handheld device. A system upgrade is essential if you want your staff to achieve sales reps better. Even though it is fruitless to expect CRM on mobile to offer complete desktop functionality, it still helps to get important insights into customer behavior. Documents can be shared between the team, and this facilitates effective communication. Get a revamp today.

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Features to look for in CRM software for finance industry

The finance industry is seeing an unprecedented surge in the number of participants today. Like most industries, financial service providers will have to rise to meet the challenge. Clients are a businesses’ most important source of income, and meeting their expectations can help cement the bond between them both. CRM software can help stock broking firms, investment companies, insurance businesses, banks and asset management organizations to use special features built especially for account-based marketing. Read on to know what CRM features your company needs to thrive and win in the finance industry.

House holding

Family size is crucial in determining the products and services required. This feature searches your database for customers that have identical addresses and segregates customers accordingly. The strategy helps target sales, forecasting relevant messages for the current situation. If you take up a sample home in a specific locality, you’ll find different family members of different age-groups are saving for different purposes and their banking and loan requirements are also different. The house holding feature, in such a situation, helps improve your marketing.

Tracking KPI

KPI, or key performance indicators, help a sales team deliver the best possible results. KPIs tracked will depend on the services offered, your priority with certain metrics, and your sales goals. Check if the dashboard that displays this information provides visual analytics, reporting facility, and multiple views. Ideally, your CRM software should come with some important features, such as, new client accounts, account age, rate of customer retention, client subscription fees, response time, customer satisfaction, productivity of team, and sales quotas for both teams and individuals. This can definitely help to kick-start your stagnant sales.

Integration

Having sources of important data in a financial organization is not enough. This is because more often than not, they reside in banking software and specialty accounting. Your CRM should offer third-party integration with solutions that your company prefers. Look out if you would be able to incorporate more data for profiles. You should also be able to manage resources for many departments. Integration as a feature is a must-have, as it reduces the burden of data entry, since the whole organization can work with unified data. If there is no native support for your current applications, get application programming interface.

Compliance

CRM software accommodates a lot of customer information, and this falls under governmental regulations. Therefore, the compliance feature lets you store data, track accessed records and organizes auditing. You can easily adhere to legal requirements and look after transparency. Companies with flexible processes can also reduce productivity problems that occur due to misinformation about the law. You can make settings or create add-ons to meet the new requirements.

An all-round view of financials

Clients use your services for a host of financial services. This is the reason why you require absolute visibility about the products they have used, their approximate incomes, debts, credit scores and other crucial details. Your CRM software should have this feature because this lets your sales team customize marketing material and offers, by accumulating data in a centralized panel. This feature also helps you have records of conversations you’ve had with customers, contracts signed by them, and tasks around accounts data for the sales team.

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7 common CRM terms you should know

An efficient CRM system is proven to help organization attract and retain more clients and also cater to their expectations. They do by a combination of people, processes and the right technology. CRM helps understand and anticipate your customers’ exact requirements and helps you devise a business strategy accordingly, making this one of the top reasons why businesses need CRM software. Understanding your CRM inside out is essential to utilizing it better. For this, a good starting point would be to understand the common CRM terms. Here’s a look.

Calendar reminder

The calendar option lets users set and check their schedule. They can also schedule appointments and tasks. Users can activate calendar reminders and popup browsers will indicate due activities, with details, such as, time, status, and subject.

Campaign mass communications

A marketing campaign is aimed at achieving better sales by a combination of marketing spread across different platforms. This is often done so that newer leads can be generated and then converted to customers. Other objectives of a campaign include brand building and engagement of the customer-ship. CRM software can help to plan, carry out and monitor campaigns.

Communications functionality

CRM offers chat functions which provide instant messaging options that allow two or more users to communicate real-time. This may be public or private. While public chat allows every CRM user into a common chat room and contribute to the conversation, private rooms are meant for two users.

Contacts

These are individuals of an organization that engage and communicate with your business so that business opportunities can be utilized. Contacts may be from diverse departments in the company or could be multiple contacts. CRM contacts are created by carefully converting qualified leads that have been either individually added or imported from the list.

Field access

Field access lets CRM software users manage the visibility for different fields in different modules. It can also be used to show and hide certain fields. Default settings for field access include fields created before the installation of that particular software program.

Invoice

Invoices are more commonly known as payment seeking bills issued by vendors to their clients in addition to goods delivered or services rendered. Once a quotation is approved, CRM will use the original draft and the quote detail view to input the data in the invoice automatically.

Quotations

Purchase orders are documents sent by a company to a supplier. These orders authorize product shipments to the customers at mentioned prices and terms. A purchase serves as a legally binding agreement which can be changed only both parties consent.

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Why CRM is a must for startups

If your startup is not achieving enough success, or your sales team is underperforming, it is high time you stop giving excuses for not using a CRM  system. This is because you need one no matter how small your business is. CRM software allows fledgling businesses retrieve data about the rate of customer interaction and trace leads from sales cycles, thereby helping them convert into customers. Your startup is a small business only until you take big decisions. If you want it to grow, you need to make that first investment, no matter how daunting and unaffordable it might seem. Read on to know how you can make early progress using CRM systems.

Marketing becomes much easier

Marketing is undeniably the life-force of every business. The business world today is one of information-overload, and the power of advertising cannot be stressed enough. CRM helps achieve targeted marketing by effectively handling email communications and subsequently backing it up with sales leads. And not forgetting, CRM system helps in your content marketing too. It also promotes the business message, along with allocating labels to the leads of your business. All this is effective because it helps you alter your messages according to their respective positions in the sales process. Now, as a startup, it is particularly beneficial to you since it saves you crucial money that would have gone into the hiring of an entire marketing team.

Access to customer data helps make informed decisions

Leads conversion is dependent on vast amounts of data to be tracked. Your startup can feel overburdened with this amount of data, since you would need to ensure that all of it is tracked. However, if you have CRM software, you can easily host both customer data and sales information on one easy-to-use portal. With this, you can track your progress with a particular customer from beginning to the end, besides getting monthly reports about success. You can now proceed further with identifying the weak links of the sales process and easily rectify them. Even though data is not necessarily complicated, CRM systems help target relevant information.

Reporting and automation

CRM integration comes with the relieving assurance that your processes can be automated. Hiring staff to handle all that amount of data in your repository is unimaginably taxing, both on your time and money. Moreover, teams located at different sites could have a hard time coordinating among themselves. But CRM systems take over this complicated job and let you concentrate on the fundamentals. Once you get CRM installed, you can automate

1. Invitations and emails for following up
2. Customer profile updating
3. Scheduling important appointments

Automation is essential because it helps small businesses work smoothly and without lapses.

Delivers satisfaction to the customers

The present age is one of multiple options for the customer. Delivering extraordinary customer service is a real goal for businesses. This is where the opportunity for your startup, working with efficient CRM software, lies. It can help craft a much more personal experience for the consumer. This is because it is a repository of crucial information regarding leads and hence is built for identifying which products have let down customers and which ones have satisfied them, or have been on their wish lists. Recommendation of products to the customer becomes a more rewarding job than before.

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4 ways to avoid CRM implementation mistakes

Each dollar a company spends on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can return it up to $8.71, according a recent study by IT research firm Nucleus Research. While CRM helps boost sales, improve marketing effectiveness and customer service, not all companies using CRM software get to see equally great results. In most cases, it boils down to how you implement the system in your company. Mistakes do happen; and some mistakes are more common than the others. Read on to know how you can avoid the following common CRM implementation mistakes.

Not having a definite goal

Effective CRM deployment needs practical, feasible, and clear goals. You also need to set an exact time frame for achieving your goals. For instance, your goal could be to use CRM to enable your customers to locate specific staff members for specialized services. Knowing your goal means checking whether the CRM fulfils the most important requirements of a business. CRM requires adhering to your business model and industry. If you have a large number of active customers, only better management is needed. Your CRM vision should account for resources allocated within the organization.

Not letting the sales team handle CRM management

Ideally, businesses should have the sales and marketing teams operate the CRM system. Often, organizations make a serious error in implementation by handing over CRM to the IT department. It is even better to have a C-level technologist for marketing, which can take care of implementation, establishment of guidelines, training, and monitoring results. CRM pricing is usually based on the number of users with access to the system. This means that businesses can choose between spending more on training more staff for the implementation, in addition to paying higher for the software. However, it is the best to guard against the risk of one or more administrators quitting the job.

Not choosing the right software

Prices should never govern the choice of your CRM software. The right software is chosen based strictly on the requirements of your particular organization. It should be convenient for the staff to use, fairly maintainable. It is advised that one consider cost and expected returns over three years, and not the first time installation cost. Choosing the right provider is equally essential, so look for providers that thoroughly understand your requirements and preferences. For instance, simplified CRM software like QuickDesk has introduced an interactive sales-force feature that helps teams get together on one platform, receive notifications on deliverables, and set goals.

Not deploying proper executive sponsorship

Absence of leaders and capable project managers can hinder the implementation of CRM. Even before you have your desired system; it is necessary to have corporate executives on board. Installing and implementing an entire CRM requires modifying business methods and sales quotas, and companies need to ensure that the executive team has approved the chosen strategy. Apart from executives, it is also necessary to make sure that users are comfortable switching to the new system. You can consider using campaigns or response-seeking processes, and get customers’ inputs early and incorporate customer feedback before permanently implementing any new CRM process.

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How to use CRM to kick-start your stagnant sales

It is a proven fact worldwide that using software for customer relationship management makes handling the sales process smoother. Today, even small companies with less than 10 employees are also using CRM software to maximize sales. In fact, if your company is using CRM only for customer service, you are not fully utilizing the power of this amazing tool.  CRM can help businesses reach out to prospects far more easily, and increase sales number in an unprecedented way. They can save valuable time, and help processes run smoothly, making this one of the top reasons why every business needs a CRM system. Here are five ways CRM can help improve your sales:

By involving and classifying customers

With simplified CRM tools like QuickDesk, you can collect enough information about your present customers – which helps you engage them with tailored marketing materials and thus improve sales. The types of customer data CRM can gather include names, contact details, buying behavior, and social network data. With access to detailed customer data, you can easily segregate your customers in different categories based on demographics and other credentials. This eventually helps you create tailor-made content for each customer group. That way, you can improve customer engagement – and more engaged customers result in more sales.

By letting your team members know their position

Engaging customers isn’t the end of the story; engage your team, too. Moreover, every member of your sales team is important. Let them track their individual position and other things like whether they are meeting their sales goals. Providing real-time information to your team about their success path can be done using top Customer Relationship Software like QuickDesk. Teams can also share documents, keep track of calls regarding sales and let managers supervise better.

By integrating CRM with other platforms

Hunt in pairs. No, literally, you can try integrating CRM with another web application or cloud-based tool for project management. You will have to find out what platforms serve your requirements and combine seamlessly. To add, you can combine social media activity with customer mails to improve customer engagement.

By making requirements of reporting simpler

Using CRM software like QuickDesk, businesses can simplify the various individual jobs of their sales teams, including reporting sales. Using certain CRM apps available on mobile, activities can be recorded automatically. For instance, you can record call details, the amount of time allotted to business meetings. As a result, a lot of time can be spent making sales.

By streamlining administrative operations

With CRM, businesses can manage administrative processes better, which ensures better communication between the team and its customers. Add to this the fact that CRM can recommend services and products that are likely to interest customers. Heightening the customer’s experience directly influences sales and revenue.

Now that you know how CRM tools can be integrated with intelligent practices to improve your sales, all you need is to choose and use the right software. Experts suggest that you should keep in mind the kind of interface you will get for leads management. Calendar management and file repository are the other factors, apart from integrated sales communication platforms.

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