Ask any business owner about their top concerns and you’re bound to hear it– more sales. Sales give a company the financial means to continue growing. According to HubSpot, “75% of companies say closing more deals is their top sales priority.”
So how can you increase sales and support your team in the process?
Invest in a CRM software system.
Multiple studies have proven the benefits of having a CRM system in place at your company. According to Capterra, “47% [of CRM users] said their CRM had significantly improved their customer retention rates and customer satisfaction rates.”
But those kinds of results don’t happen by accident. It takes leveraging the information given to you by your CRM software, and putting that information to work, in order to increase sales.
What is CRM Software?
A Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) is a business management tool that can help you keep track of all of your company relationships. This could be relationships with both your existing customers and your prospective customers.
CRM Software→ Built for Increased Sales
When used to its fullest extent, a CRM system can help you maintain or improve customer loyalty and simplify sales procedures.
Here are 6 ways to increase your company’s sales with CRM software:
Capture Quality Leads
One of the best ways to increase sales for your business is to capture quality leads. Capturing leads is a no-brainer for any business, but the quality of those leads can play a major factor in whether the sale ultimately goes through. Thus, if you always use great-quality images, you will notice an improvement in your lead generation and marketing.
By implementing a CRM software system, you can use tools such as form integration on your website to capture a prospect’s information. Once that information is in your CRM system, your sales team can access customer data with ease.
Arming your sales team with this information before they follow-up with the prospect gives them the best chance to make the sale.
Target and Sell to Specific Customers
Once you’ve used your CRM system to collect information from potential customers, it’s time to put that data to good use! With your CRM software, you can sort your customers by parameters like demographics, stage of sale, or location, and then target your sales efforts using that information.
By having the ability to sort and qualify your leads, you can enhance your marketing and sales strategies, thus creating a likelihood that your business will increase sales.
Streamline Your Sales Process
When you reduce the number of steps in your sales process, you increase the efficiency and accountability of your sales team. A CRM system can help you do just that. When you have CRM software in place, you can easily keep track of your sales team’s progress, as well as monitor all of your customers through every step of the sales process.
Monitoring this information closely helps you identify which practices work (and don’t work) for your sales team– and make the necessary changes to improve sales.
Reduce Admin Tasks and Boost Productivity
How much of the workday do members of your sales team spend manually inputting sales data into spreadsheets? Wouldn’t their time and efforts be better spent working towards making sales? With a CRM system, that’s what they can do.
All of your customer and sales data entry can be automated in your CRM. This not only decreases the possibility of mistakes that comes with manual data entry, but also gives your sales team more time to focus on creating opportunities to increase sales.
Keep Customers Coming Back
According to Small Business Trends, “It costs 5% more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep a current one.”
It literally pays to invest in customer retention.
By having a centralized storage hub for all of your existing customer data, you can figure out the best ways to market and sell to those customers.
For example, if you know a customer purchases the same product every three months, reach out to them early and try to upsell them on an additional service. By showing your customers that you are invested in their past, present, and future experiences with your company, they will feel more inclined to stay (and continue buying) from you.
Get Accurate Sales Reporting
In order to make improvements to your company’s sales tactics, you first need to know what your current company sales landscape looks like. By having a CRM software system in place, you can easily generate customer reports using any parameters that you define. These reports can help you better assess what is (and is not) working for your company and what changes to make in order to improve sales.
Conclusion
Implementing a Customer Relationship Management system at your company is a great way to streamline several of your business practices.
Storing all of your customer (and potential customer) data in one location gives your entire organization access to this vital information. If used to its fullest potential, the data provided from your CRM software can enhance customer relationships, increase company productivity, and ultimately, improve sales for your business.
