CRM Optimization Best Practices

CRM‌ ‌Optimization‌ ‌Best‌ ‌Practices‌

There is no denying the fact that customer relationship management has evolved into an essential function for companies of all shapes and sizes. Because clients want more from the businesses they choose to do business with, it is critical to have a customer relationship management (CRM) system in place to stay up with their requirements.

But how exactly can you make this procedure more efficient? In the blog article that we will discuss today, some of the methods to ensure that your organization is making the most of its CRM potential will be discussed. Let's get started! To begin, what exactly are email marketing campaigns? Email campaigns are exactly what they sound like; they are when a firm uses its email marketing service provider to send promotional emails to its consumers or contacts. Email marketing service providers are exactly what they sound like (EMSP).

The success of the day-to-day operations of your company is the single best indicator of how well your customer relationship management (CRM) software is meeting your objectives.

Popular CRM Solutions This Year:

  • Salesforce
  • FreshWorks
  • Keap
  • Monday.com
  • Zoho CRM
  • Oracle NetSuite CRM
  • Hubspot CRM
  • Pipedrive CRM
  • Quickbase
  • Zendesk
  • Sage CRM
  • SugarCRM
  • Score
  • WORKetc CRM
  • Insightly CRM
  • Freshdesk
  • Creatio CRM
  • Apptivo CRM
  • Microsoft Dynamic 365

CRM is radically altering how companies communicate with their clientele, yet, the question remains as to whether or not your company is utilizing CRM to its fullest potential. 

Learn how you can transform your business with the following CRM best practices:

Always update customer information

The data provided by a CRM system may only be considered useful if they are up to date. For example, consider the following scenario: a customer's address, company name, or preferred mode of communication has recently been updated. If this is the case, your staff members need to instantly update the information so that the members of your sales and marketing teams are always prepared with the most recent and accurate information and know how to respond appropriately.

Use purchasing history for upselling opportunities

It is much simpler to sell to an established customer base than to bring in new customers. You may improve your sales success using your CRM by reviewing the buying patterns of your existing customers and developing special offers or events catered specifically to those customers.

For instance, if a customer has recently purchased a rasor from your online store, you may instruct your CRM to suggest other products, such as shaving cream or aftershave, which are complementary to the rasor. This increases your profit margins and makes the lives of your consumers significantly easier, encouraging repeat business from those clients.

Automate your processes

Utilise the workflow automation capabilities that are available in CRM software to reduce time-consuming and repetitive duties. You may automate many tasks related to data entry, so it is important to take advantage of these options.

For instance, when new leads are added to your CRM (for example, through newsletter subscriptions or website visits), you can program your CRM to send follow-up emails, offer promotions, and push other marketing efforts to keep your company at the forefront of their attention and to assist them in remembering your brand. In addition, it will help them remember who you are as a company.

It will save you time by preventing you from having to write the same canned responses while also ensuring that you keep your customers engaged throughout the entirety of the sales process.

Learn from analytics

CRM software can evaluate the patterns and behaviours of customers. For instance, if you observe a surge in demand for particular goods and services during the Christmas season, you should be more aggressive the next year in selling them. Likewise, suppose some of your email marketing campaigns were more successful than others (for example, they had higher open rates, click-through rates, and potential customers). In that case, you should investigate the factors that led to that success and try to replicate those factors the next time you send out a newsletter.

You should also design the sales and marketing strategies with customer data considered. For instance, a salesman familiar with the client's name, location, and preferences is in a better position to provide more targeted sales pitches. As a result, he has a greater chance of sealing a purchase. The important takeaway from this is that if you learn from your data, the expansion of your company will be unrestricted.

Integrate CRM with other business software

The capability of CRM software is exponentially increased when integrated with other systems. For instance, integrating marketing software with accounting software integrates customer and financial data, removing the need for duplicate manual data entry and generating reports with deeper insight. Additionally, when utilised with a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system, your employees can view pertinent customer information from numerous databases consolidated onto a single screen before making a call.

Get some CRM support

Collaborate with a CRM supplier that delivers help around the clock. In an ideal scenario, your CRM supplier will keep your data secure, routinely update your software, and offer guidance on using more advanced CRM capabilities.

It may seem like a lot, but remember that active engagement from executives, managers, and frontline personnel is required for CRM, just like any other technology investment. So call us now if you need additional guidance on keeping your customers happy or are interested in learning more about the technologies that can bring value to your company.

Important Optimisation Tips

1. Automate the basic tasks

When asked why they don't automate their processes, many owners of businesses respond that they need more time. In addition, even though you would anticipate that they would sell most of the time, making sales account for only one-third of their daily responsibilities.

What are the benefits of automating everything? Simply put, getting momentum with clients is a process rather than an event.

It is more of a journey than a destination, and some of the duties involved cannot be very safe. However, the journey is what is important here, not the goal. You are in luck because you have access to a CRM solution that will assist you in completing the task.

Automating tasks is most likely the most useful CRM function you have yet to investigate. For instance, rather than assigning busy salespeople the responsibility of arranging calls, you may program your CRM to take care of that task on their behalf.

You can also utilise automation to send automated emails to new and returning customers, drive clients to your knowledge library, and perform any one of a myriad of other jobs to free up time for more important responsibilities. If you have a good relationship with your CRM provider, they might even let you build scripts to automate processes that aren't already built into the system.

There is a wide variety of functions for sales automation from which to pick; all that is required of you is to determine which is most suitable for your company.

CRM providers are considering ways to improve the effectiveness of automation to lighten some administrative responsibilities' load. For instance, the HubSpot CRM has an automatic lead rotation feature that assists managers in equitably assigning responsibilities. Another popular feature of this system is the auto-creation of functions and deals, which is designed to reduce the amount of time spent on administrative tasks to let agents concentrate on what is truly important: making sales. As a result, almost every step of your workflow can be made more efficient by implementing automation with the help of HubSpot CRM.

2. Gather business intelligence from your CRM metrics

Your customer interactions will strengthen, and you'll gain vital insights into the state of your company by using an effective CRM platform. If you didn't take anything away from it throughout the years, you've been grossly underestimating its power.

The most important advantage of utilising a customer relationship management system is consolidating client intelligence into a single authoritative source. It indicates that you won't have any trouble extracting and analysing a wide variety of behavioural patterns; you'll also find it simple to tie those patterns to causes, channels, or even agents, and you won't waste any time coming up with the most effective remedy. It would be a shame to limit yourself to standard reports and statistics when you have such a wide range of options.

Also, CRM software specialises in adaptive sales enablement, which can accomplish a great deal for you even before you begin selling products or services. It will take you as far as gauging the expectations of potential purchasers and teaching you how to contact various target groups.

To make matters even better, professional customer relationship management software like HubSpot covers various key performance indicators (KPIs) used to measure how effectively customers are engaged. The key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can overlook include email click-through rates missed opportunities, the average response rate, and much more.

3. Create and maintain profitable customers' portfolios

When a company's customer data is aggregated in one place, it can gain a historical and cross-channel view of how it has dealt with a specific client or issue. As a result, you can traverse your whole correspondence on a certain case easily and foresee what customers would want in any given scenario.

It is how customer relationship management software maintains the consistency of your service and how it elevates quality relationships to the level of a recognisable standard.

Permit us to offer some suggestions regarding the things that you might try. First, you may pull out service guidelines and construct playbooks based on previous encounters to assist agents in dealing with specific contacts (especially new ones). These can be extremely helpful. It is a beneficial method for both parties, as returning consumers already know what to anticipate and are more content with your service.

You may distinguish these customers and prioritise their requests using your customer relationship management system (CRM), which will save you the trouble of making educated guesses about which ones are your most profitable clients. Take note that this will not imply that you will ignore any of the other clients; you will focus on ensuring that the most important demands are attended to at the appropriate time and by the appropriate staff member.

4. Put your CRM in the centre of your marketing strategy

Using CRM intelligence to generate marketing campaigns is most likely something else you have yet to attempt. Nevertheless, it offers some essential insights into approaching a certain market and frequently shows the most effective strategies.

In a nutshell, if you approach clients in the manner they desire to be closed, it will be much simpler to create relationships that will persist. This information is provided to you by your CRM, in addition to hints regarding which market is the most interactive, which items and services are the most desired, and which support channel receives the most traffic.

Now is the moment to combine your customer relationship management (CRM) solution with your marketing system if you still need to. Regarding customer relationship management (CRM), following best practices can bring you a wealth of benefits. You may also think about productivity kits like HubSpot, which include CRM, marketing, and sales tools that are all linked together.

5. Sync your CRM to other essential tools

Since we've already talked about integrations, let's talk about why it's important to sync CRM systems with other technologies you're using now that we've covered that issue. The secure links to marketing, sales, and help desk tools are easy to understand. On the other hand, there are some fascinating connections that you might have yet to consider.

The customer relationship management system (CRM) you employ can provide the enterprise systems you use to manage your sales with the account data you collect. An enterprise resource planning system will never be adequate on its own. It is a well-established reality. Connecting your CRM system to your ERP software might be a good choice if you want to create a unified client-side enquiry management procedure that is also fully automated. Because of this, there should be no need to enter information twice if you use a CRM solution that works in conjunction with your calendars and the email service providers you use.

You shouldn't disconnect your customer relationship management system unequivocally and in no circumstances from your social media platforms. The reason for this is social listening, which means that you should always be aware of the conversations going place on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn since they can affect your brand's reputation.

Create a uniform system for data entry

You will need help locating anything you are looking for if everyone who uses the CRM is in charge of how they enter their data. If possible, it will be difficult to generate reports, and your system will become clogged with duplicate data.

Your relationship with the organisation is friendly. Establish transparent guidelines for the data-entering process.

Maintain a code for CRM processes such as the following:

  • Monitoring and logging phone calls
  • Logging conversations
  • Adding in the contract notes
  • Making plans and appointments
  • Calling in appointments
  • Making plans for further actions

When there are 15 ways to identify a conversation with a customer, how can a report on customer interactions be generated? How can you keep track of your customers' information if everyone is entering it differently?

There is no way.

Guidelines for data entry give you actual, practical results. You will have access to more accurate reports and a deeper understanding of the areas in which you may optimise your sales process.

Maintaining accurate customer information also lets you assess each employee's overall performance. For instance, you can examine the areas where each representative is excelling or falling short.

Your sales process can also benefit from having uniform data because it helps identify big-picture tendencies.

  • A specific number of customer interactions must occur before you can make a sale
  • You should notice reasons that bargains
  • Duration of the sales cycle Typical value of a transaction
  • Win percentage on the whole
  • Total pipeline value

Make better use of your data and increase the return on investment of your CRM system (ROI).

Using consistent data, you can reduce the cost of acquiring new consumers and increase the amount of time you keep existing ones.

Use data hygiene to get people to use your CRM

What happens if your staff does not utilise your CRM, although it contains all of the technically required capabilities?

Why wouldn't people use a product designed just for their needs?

  • Insufficient training
  • Complicacy and unnecessary embellishment
  • Concern about corporate oversight Uncertainty regarding the usefulness to sales reps

These issues occur significantly more frequently than you might think:

  • 83% of CEOs think getting people to use CRM is the most difficult task.
  • Insufficient user adoption is the cause of 22 per cent of all CRM-related problems cited.
  • Forty per cent of sales representatives don't even use their CRMs, preferring instead to use more conventional methods.

Therefore, how can you drive user adoption while simultaneously maintaining data hygiene?

Make it into some game.

James Wong, Chief Executive Officer of Avidian Technologies, states, "When using customer relationship management software, a good first step is to have the team begin entering their sales connections. The next step is tracking sales with the new system once they have completely incorporated this process".

Start small. By checking this, the contacts and information they upload are compatible with your system.

Move your users up to the next level once they have demonstrated that they have mastered the current assignment. The data in your CRM is being cleaned up, and at the same time, your users are receiving training.

"Continue adding additional aspects regularly until they use every function the new solution offers in their day-to-day activities".

Never let unclean data into your CRM

Never allow uncleaned data to enter your customer relationship management system. If you do not, it will accumulate, and you will end up with a mountain of data that is insufficient.

It is possible to pollute data when:

  • Integrations need to be fixed or set up correctly.
  • Humans make errors.
  • Throughout a business process, data gets modified.

Locate the origin of the contaminated data and make the necessary corrections across the board. The next step is to assume the role of a detective and investigate the false information.

  • If the data comes from integration as the source, you will need to fiddle with the configuration until the data transfers appropriately.
  • Suppose it's a result of human error. In that case, the best practices are number two (establishing a uniform procedure for data entry) and number three (using data hygiene to promote user adoption).
  • If one of your company's processes is to blame, you may need to streamline it or break it down into more manageable steps.

Optimised customer data = optimised CRM.

Marketing information best practices

Because we live in a world that is driven by information, the moment a potential client or customer becomes aware of your company, you can start gathering information on them:

  • Social media ad impressions
  • Engagements
  • A preliminary discussion at the beginning of an event
  • Site tracking information

This information pertains to marketing. It can reveal a great deal about a potential customer, including the following:

  • Concerns regarding products and services
  • The stuff that they have engaged with previously
  • Level of engagement

CRM best practice 5: Marry your marketing and sales data

What information can you obtain about a potential customer before getting in touch with them? More than you could ever imagine.

If you make good use of the resources at your disposal, you should be able to provide an answer to the majority of the following questions:

  • How did they learn about you in the first place?
  • Which channel did they initially appear on?
  • Are you going to send them an email?
  • Are they interacting with the content you've provided?
  • In what do they appear to be most interested?

Marketing comes first in the steps leading up to sales. According to studies, 88 per cent of potential consumers had already formed an opinion about your company before you even had the chance to speak with them.

You now have a selection of options when it comes to customer relationship management software (CRM). In addition, integration between your customer relationship management system (CRM) and marketing platform is possible thanks to the proliferation of stacking SaaS applications, which shows no sign of abating.

Conclusion: Is your CRM optimised?

Your customer relationship management system's primary purpose is to assist you in providing superior service to your clientele.

Implementing these nine best practices for CRM optimisation will improve your capability. Consequently, you will gain more value from your data, lower the cost of acquiring new customers, and keep existing clients longer.

To increase the return on investment, you get from CRM, narrow your attention to these four critical areas:

  • Maintaining the cleanliness and structure of data.
  • Utilise the data from your marketing efforts and integrate the information from your other sources.
  • Wherever it is possible, automate.

About Us

You won't find a better way to prepare for your Salesforce Certification than by attending Focus on Force. I've spent the last eight years working with the Salesforce platform in various jobs, such as business analyst, project manager, consultant, solutions designer, and solutions architect. To advance my career, I've earned ten certifications in this field.

Salesforce Certifications Are Tough!

It is precisely how it should be: they genuinely mean something in the real world, and if you pass the exam, you'll provide a ton of value to the firm or the clients. Consequently, having one or more Salesforce Certifications under one's belt carries a significant salary premium. In addition, you will be able to profit from new work prospects, promotions within existing jobs, and instant credibility if you obtain certification. Finally, it will set you apart from your colleagues who do not have certification and need you to become intimately familiar with the platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

The CRM applications are a convergence of functional components, advanced technologies and channels. Functional components include campaign applications, sales applications, marketing automation, and customer service and support applications. Channels include the Web, call centers and phone, and mobile devices.
 

What is CRM software? Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a tool you can use to store and manage data about your customers. Contact information, purchase history, logged service issues, open enquires, sales opportunities, and even marketing campaigns can be managed with CRM.

Examples of CRM are sorted by types, such as general use, inbound lead management, sales tracking, social tracking, and a fully integrated system. Most software solutions fall into one or two or multiple CRM types. For instance, HubSpot CRM is an inbound marketing CRM, but it has general, all-purpose tools as well.

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