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Automate Your Sales Process with CRM: A Comprehensive Guide
In the fast-paced world of sales, efficiency is key. Sales automation Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are powerful tools that can streamline your sales process, improve productivity, and boost revenue. In this guide, we’ll explore what sales automation CRM is, its benefits, and how you can implement it in your business.
What is Sales Automation CRM?
Sales automation CRM is a software solution that helps businesses automate their sales processes, from lead generation to closing deals. It combines customer relationship management (CRM) with automation tools to streamline tasks such as lead scoring, email marketing, and pipeline management. By automating these repetitive tasks, sales teams can focus more on building relationships with prospects and closing deals.
Benefits of Sales Automation CRM
- Improved Efficiency: Sales automation CRM eliminates manual tasks, such as data entry and lead tracking, saving your team valuable time and allowing them to focus on selling.
- Better Lead Management: With sales automation CRM, you can easily track and prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert, ensuring that your team is focusing on the most promising opportunities.
- Increased Sales Productivity: By automating repetitive tasks, your sales team can be more productive, allowing them to handle more leads and close more deals.
- Enhanced Customer Relationships: Sales automation CRM allows you to personalize your interactions with customers, leading to stronger relationships and increased customer loyalty.
- Improved Sales Forecasting: By tracking sales data and performance metrics, sales automation CRM can help you make more accurate sales forecasts, allowing you to better plan for the future.
Implementing Sales Automation CRM
- Identify Your Needs: Before implementing a sales automation CRM, identify your specific needs and goals. Determine which processes you want to automate and what features are essential for your business.
- Choose the Right CRM: There are many sales automation CRM systems available, so it’s essential to choose one that aligns with your business requirements. Look for a CRM that offers the features you need, such as lead management, email automation, and reporting tools.
- Integrate with Existing Systems: If you already use other software systems, such as marketing automation or customer support software, ensure that your sales automation CRM can integrate with them seamlessly. This will help you streamline your processes and improve efficiency.
- Train Your Team: Once you’ve chosen a sales automation CRM, provide training to your team to ensure they understand how to use the new system effectively. This will help them adapt to the changes quickly and maximize the benefits of the CRM.
- Monitor and Optimize: Regularly monitor your sales automation CRM’s performance and gather feedback from your team. Use this information to optimize your processes and make improvements where necessary.
Conclusion
Sales automation CRM is a powerful tool that can help businesses streamline their sales processes, improve efficiency, and boost revenue. By automating repetitive tasks, such as lead tracking and email marketing, sales teams can focus more on building relationships with prospects and closing deals. Implementing a sales automation CRM requires careful planning and consideration, but the benefits are well worth the effort. With the right CRM in place, your sales team can achieve new levels of success and drive your business forward.
Original Source: Sales Productivity
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Revolutionizing Sales: The Power of Sales CRM Mobile Apps
In the fast-paced world of sales, where every minute counts, the ability to manage customer relationships efficiently can make all the difference. Sales CRM (Customer Relationship Management) mobile apps have emerged as indispensable tools for sales professionals, empowering them to streamline their processes, enhance productivity, and ultimately boost sales. Let’s delve into the world of sales CRM mobile apps and explore how they are revolutionizing the sales landscape.
What is a Sales CRM Mobile App?
A Sales CRM mobile app is a software application designed to help sales professionals manage customer relationships, track leads, and streamline the sales process from their mobile devices. These apps typically offer a range of features, including contact management, lead tracking, sales pipeline management, and reporting tools, all accessible from a smartphone or tablet.
Streamlining Customer Relationship Management
One of the key benefits of Sales CRM mobile apps is their ability to streamline customer relationship management. Sales professionals can easily access customer information, communication history, and purchase patterns on-the-go, enabling them to provide personalized service and build stronger relationships with customers.
Improved Lead Management
Sales CRM mobile apps also excel in lead management. Sales reps can capture leads directly from trade shows, meetings, or other interactions, and immediately input them into the app. The app can then track the progress of each lead through the sales pipeline, ensuring that no opportunity falls through the cracks.
Enhanced Sales Pipeline Visibility
Sales CRM mobile apps provide real-time visibility into the sales pipeline, allowing sales professionals to track the status of each deal and identify potential bottlenecks. This visibility enables sales managers to make informed decisions and allocate resources more effectively, ultimately leading to increased sales efficiency.
Increased Productivity
By providing sales professionals with access to key customer information and sales tools on their mobile devices, Sales CRM apps can significantly increase productivity. Sales reps can manage their tasks, schedule meetings, and send follow-up emails from anywhere, eliminating the need for time-consuming administrative tasks.
Reporting and Analytics
Sales CRM mobile apps offer robust reporting and analytics features, allowing sales professionals to track their performance, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions. These insights can help sales teams optimize their strategies and focus their efforts on the most promising leads.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Sales CRM mobile apps are powerful tools that are revolutionizing the way sales professionals manage customer relationships and drive sales. By streamlining customer relationship management, improving lead management, providing enhanced sales pipeline visibility, increasing productivity, and offering robust reporting and analytics, these apps are empowering sales teams to achieve new levels of success. As the sales landscape continues to evolve, Sales CRM mobile apps will undoubtedly play a crucial role in shaping the future of sales.
Original Source: mobile crm app for sales
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The Essential Guide to CRM Key Account Management
In today’s competitive business landscape, maintaining strong relationships with key accounts is essential for long-term success. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems play a crucial role in managing these key accounts efficiently and effectively. In this article, we’ll explore the concept of CRM Key Account Management (KAM) and how businesses can leverage CRM tools to strengthen their relationships with key clients.
What is Key Account Management?
Key Account Management (KAM) is a strategic approach to managing a company’s most important customer accounts. These key accounts typically contribute significantly to the company’s revenue and require a specialized approach to ensure their needs are met and their satisfaction is maintained. KAM focuses on building long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with these key clients.
The Role of CRM in Key Account Management
CRM systems are essential tools for implementing and managing KAM strategies. These systems help businesses track and analyze customer interactions, manage customer data, and streamline communication with key accounts. Here are some key features of CRM systems that support KAM:
Centralized Customer Data: CRM systems store all customer information in one central location, making it easy for account managers to access and update customer records. This ensures that all team members have the latest information about key accounts.
Customized Communication: CRM systems allow businesses to personalize communication with key accounts based on their preferences and past interactions. This helps build stronger relationships and improves customer satisfaction.
Sales and Pipeline Management: CRM systems help track sales activities and pipeline progress for key accounts. This enables account managers to identify opportunities for upselling or cross-selling and manage the sales process more effectively.
Task and Activity Tracking: CRM systems enable account managers to track tasks and activities related to key accounts, ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks. This helps improve efficiency and ensures that key account needs are addressed promptly.
Reporting and Analytics: CRM systems provide valuable insights into key account performance, allowing businesses to identify trends, track key metrics, and make data-driven decisions to improve KAM strategies.
Best Practices for CRM Key Account Management
To effectively manage key accounts using CRM systems, businesses should follow these best practices:
Segmentation: Segment key accounts based on their value and needs to tailor the KAM strategy accordingly.
Personalization: Use CRM data to personalize communication and offer customized solutions to key accounts.
Regular Communication: Maintain regular communication with key accounts to stay updated on their needs and address any issues promptly.
Collaboration: Encourage collaboration between sales, marketing, and customer service teams to ensure a coordinated approach to KAM.
Continuous Improvement: Regularly review and analyze KAM strategies using CRM data to identify areas for improvement and optimize performance.
Conclusion
CRM Key Account Management is a critical strategy for businesses looking to build and maintain strong relationships with their most important customers. By leveraging CRM systems to manage key accounts effectively, businesses can improve customer satisfaction, drive revenue growth, and gain a competitive edge in the market.
Original Source: key account management in crm
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What is B2B CRM | Best CRM for B2B to Move the Needle in 2024
What is B2B CRM software?
B2B refers to Business to Business and CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management.
A B2B CRM software involves systems, technology, processes and strategies to help B2B companies manage their relationship with both existing clients and potential prospects. The right B2B CRM enables you to enhance client relationships and grow your business profitably. It helps you increase your revenue, serve your clients better and improve customer retention. It is also referred to as a CRM for Key Account Management
B2B CRM vs B2C CRM – how is it different?
B2B companies and B2C companies represent two different types of business models with unique characteristics. In the case of B2B, companies sell their products and services to other companies. While in B2C, companies sell their products and services directly to end-consumers.A few key differentiators are:-
Sales cycle
B2B companies undergo longer sales cycles compared to B2C companies.
Business relationships
B2B sales involve long-term ongoing relationships. B2C sales are generally transactional and short-term.
Decision makers
B2B transactions involve many decision makers and stakeholders compared to B2C transactions.
Quantity of leads and lead management time
The leads in B2C sales are generally more in number compared to B2B Sales. And the time spent on B2B leads is higher compared to B2C leads.
Sales Stages
B2B sales processes involve multiple stages compared to B2C. In B2B, the prospect goes through multiple buying stages which is usually not seen in the case of B2C deals.
Sales methodology
B2B sales involves high-touch engagements and relationship-driven sales. Whereas B2C is more of brand-driven sales with low-touch engagements.
Pipeline management
B2B needs to have a very high level of focus on sales funnel and sales pipeline to drive predictability compared to B2C.
Average deal value
The average deal value in B2B Sales is much higher compared to B2C Sales. It can range from several thousands to millions of dollars depending on the industry, product or service and other factors.
Customer success and post sales operations
Retaining customers is very key and important in B2B sales. Happy customers can open up many up-sell and cross-sell opportunities which is very important in B2B transactions.Hence its important to provide excellent post sales operations.
Why do B2B companies need B2B CRM
Strategic Key Account Management
The main goal of Strategic Account Management is to understand and address the unique needs of your key customers in an efficient and holistic way. 360-degree account management improves customer satisfaction, more repeat sales, and better customer retention. Implementing the right B2B CRM software for Key Account Management is imperative to manage all these aspects efficiently to grow your business profitably and consistently.
Long complex sales cycles require comprehensive opportunity management
The process of identifying and managing opportunities is the most important aspect in a B2B sales process. The entire sales process starting from lead management to deal closure is called opportunity management. A B2B CRM offers a centralized platform to organize and track meticulously the different stages of a deal. It serves as a linchpin for comprehensive opportunity management and improves overall effectiveness of the entire sales process.
Visibility into sales pipeline to run a predictable business
A structured sales pipeline management for better visibility into the pipeline is very important for a successful sales organization. It helps you to enhance your sales forecasting strategies that provide many benefits. A B2B CRM helps you to not only calculate the sales pipeline but also gives a clear visibility into the weighted sales pipeline. Calculating weighted sales pipeline is important for B2B companies as it also considers closure probability of the deals. You can read a detailed article here to understand the difference between total sales pipeline and weighted sales pipeline. Ultimately with a B2B CRM, you will be able to forecast your deal closures with better accuracy.
High costs associated with poor lead management process
Inefficient lead management can result in missing high-value leads, wasted resources, and decreased sales productivity. A CRM acts as a pivotal tool for lead tracking and nurturing. It not only helps to plug these leakages but also optimizes operational efficiency. It acts as a powerful and cost-effective solution to elevate your sales process.
Complex order management workflows
Order workflow management is a pivotal component of a specialized B2B CRM software. It enables businesses to streamline and optimize their order processing stages. B2B transactions are complex and involve multiple process owners. A seamless order workflow management within a B2B CRM ensures effective collaboration between different departments. It helps to automate routine tasks, reduce errors, and help to have real-time visibility into the order status. This facilitates better allocation of resources and efficient collaboration among different team members.
Long collection cycles require streamlined accounts receivable (AR) process
Efficient accounts receivable operations is very important to run a sustainable business. Many companies face challenges in reducing daily sales outstanding (DSO). A B2B CRM like HappSales has an integrated framework of accounts receivable within CRM system. This enables companies to reduce the DSO helping to stay top with your collections. This leads to healthier cash flow and improved working capital.
Need to automate post-sales service operations
Service teams are constantly under pressure to maximize their service visits and to improve customer satisfaction. It is necessary to document and track all service related information and activities for service compliance. A field service management software app empowers field service professionals with FSM software to automate end-to-end field service operations.
Customer success & retention is essential to maximize lifetime value
It is very important to keep our customers satisfied and happy. Happy customers can positively impact your business and increase your brand equity. Therefore you must measure customer satisfaction objectively. HappSales B2B CRM helps you to capture customer feedback at regular intervals and take necessary proactive steps to build customer loyalty.
Most essential features of B2B CRM software
360-degree Account Management
A very important feature of B2B CRM software is to support deep account management and contact intelligence. This information serves as a centralized repository providing you with the required information as and when needed. With a B2B CRM like HappSales, you will be able to effortlessly capture details of all stakeholders, company hierarchy, buying process, business plans, employee size, industry segment, sales history of your account etc.. This deep intelligence will always provide you with an edge over your competitors.
Sales Force Automation
Sales force automation (SFA) is an important part of a B2B CRM system. It enhances sales efficiency and helps streamline the sales process required to foster effective customer engagement.
Comprehensive Lead Management
Many best-in-class organizations leverage the BANT framework to reduce sales cycles and enhance deal win-rates. When used well, it helps your sales reps to pursue the right deals and not go on a wild goose chase. Using effective lead qualification methodologies like BANT, your inside marketing team assigns only qualified leads to the sales team. This will have a significant impact on your sales efficiency and deal conversion rates.Capturing leads, nurturing them, and scoring them using BANT lead qualification methodology enables you with better lead qualification and prioritization.
Opportunity & Pipeline Management
Opportunity management should follow the customer’s buying journey. The first and foremost task in opportunity management is to define opportunity stages from the time of identification of the opportunity till its closure. HappSales B2B CRM recommends deal stages that are aligned with the client’s buying process suggested by sales guru Neil Rackham in his sales framework.
Opportunity management and Pipeline management goes hand-in-hand. Sales pipeline captures, measures and analyzes your sales opportunities and their corresponding sales stages. A B2B CRM like HappSales automatically calculates this for four consecutive quarters starting from the current quarter (CQ) and depicts the rolling four quarters pipeline. Using sales pipeline management effectively helps you to make data-driven decisions rather than just intuition and gut.
Document management
B2B transactions involve multiple documents like proposals, contracts, forms, etc. Document management within a B2B CRM ensures that documents are organized in a structured way, easily accessible, and stored securely.
Task management
Client engagements involve many types of tasks and activities to be executed on an everyday basis. Task management refers to the process of planning, monitoring and executing these activities diligently. Systematically organizing and prioritizing these activities will help your team to enhance their performance. It will enable them to meet their objectives without missing any deadlines.
Quotation Management
This is the systematic process of creating, managing, and sharing customer quotations. It is also referred to as proposal management. An efficient quotation management process within a B2B CRM system helps to streamline the company’s sales process helping them close more deals. Sales teams can generate accurate and timely quotes. It also enhances collaboration between sales and other departments by providing a transparent record of all quotations.
Service Management
Service management plays a crucial role in fostering customer satisfaction, loyalty and long term relationships. It helps to maintain all information about your customer installations and service contracts at one place. Service visit plans are well orchestrated and assigned based on priority. This ensures that service team members will not miss scheduled activities. Easy scheduling and automated reminders of scheduled recurring jobs eliminate the risk of revenue leakage due to missed contracts or visits.
Accounts Receivable management
Automating accounts receivable within a B2B CRM helps to manage client payments as per the agreed payment terms. Accounts Receivable management helps to assign collection activities to respective team members to drive accountability, improve collections and reduce daily sales outstanding.
Reporting and Dashboards
Having intuitive dashboards within your B2B CRM software is of paramount importance. Real-time insights will help you to easily interpret and understand the trends in your business. You will be able to make informed and better decisions.
How to select the right B2B CRM for your business?
Deployment – Cloud vs On-premise CRM
In the case of on-premise CRM software, the required infrastructure, hardware, software and database applications are installed in the company’s data center within your premises. Whereas, cloud CRM software is hosted and managed in the cloud infrastructure.
You may read this article to understand more about the benefits of cloud CRM as compared to that of on-premise CRM software.
Need for Mobile CRM app
A CRM project’s success hugely depends on how fast your team is able to adopt the application and how easy they find it to use. best mobile crm app make a huge difference to these aspects. You can read this detailed article on the advantages of a mobile CRM strategy.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Total-Cost-of-Ownership is an important criterion while choosing your B2B CRM. While calculating the TCO, it is necessary to take the sum total of all direct and indirect costs. It includes – the cost of B2B CRM software license cost, cost of implementation and training, cost of customization, infrastructure and hardware costs, cost for regular maintenance updates and upgrades, and all other other operating costs including manpower costs to manage the system.
Ease of Use
The CRM you choose should be easy to implement, configure, adopt, and use. Else, it can be a huge drain on your team’s productivity and efficiency. This is one such reason why clients love to use HappSales voice-enabled CRM with a digital assistant. It makes data entry effortless and seamless for your team members.
Scalability
While investing in a B2B CRM software, you should have a futuristic view of your business requirements. The CRM software must be scalable and adaptable to meet your future business needs. Scalability could be either in-terms of additional features and functionalities as well as the need for more users accessing the software. This could also have implications on the performance and response time of the CRM application.
Unlike in the case of on-premise CRM software, it is much easier to scale-up a SaaS CRM software that runs on cloud infrastructure. The elastic servers provided by cloud vendors like AWS and Azure can dynamically accommodate these requirements of scale-up and scale-down.
Integrations
You may use a wide variety of applications to run your business smoothly. It is important to choose a CRM software that can integrate with other softwares as and when required.
Implementation vendor and timeframe
It is suggested that you decide the implementation vendor along with the CRM software provider. You should discuss and evaluate the vendor’s expertise in this field, their industry experience and track record. You should also discuss the cost of implementation, timelines and milestones.
Vendor Support
Another important factor that needs to be considered is to choose a vendor who offers excellent customer service and support. It is important that the vendor offers an extraordinary customer experience starting from implementation to ongoing support.
Change Management
Do not underestimate the aspects of change management when you are embarking on a new initiative. While selecting the right vendor, consider this parameter and thoroughly evaluate how the vendor can support you to navigate this.
Final words
In conclusion, understanding the significance of a B2B CRM is of paramount importance to the success of your business. A B2B CRM serves as a linchpin fostering seamless customer management for you to remain responsive and competitive in the B2B realm. The right B2B CRM software like HappSales can be a game-changer to unlock opportunities for growth, customer retention and data driven decision-making. The way ahead demands strategic usage of B2B CRMs if you want to move the needle in your business.
Original Source: What is B2B CRM | Best CRM for B2B to Move the Needle in 2024
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Sales Pipeline Management A Detailed Guide To Grow Your Revenue
INTRODUCTION
As per a recent report by Harvard Business Review, companies with structured sales pipeline management process reported 28% higher revenue growth.
WHAT IS SALES PIPELINE MANAGEMENT?
Pipeline management in sales is a scientific way to capture, measure and analyze your sales opportunities and their corresponding sales stages. It allows you to make data-driven decisions rather than just intuition and gut. It is also commonly referred to as Funnel Management in sales. It is an integral part of any sales management process.
WHY IS SALES PIPELINE MANAGEMENT IMPERATIVE FOR STRATEGIC DECISIONS?
For your business to thrive, you will need to make many strategic decisions on a daily basis.
Decision making in sales is most effective when you have answers to questions like –
- How to accurately predict and forecast your business?
- What customer segments and industries offer the most opportunities for your offerings?
- Which territories or regions have the highest potential?
- How many opportunity conversions are required for you to meet your business goals?
- How many leads are getting converted into deal closures – also referred to as conversion-rate or win-rate?
- What is the average deal size and sales cycles you are witnessing across segments and territories?
- How many sales activities are required to close a deal?
- Are you observing any specific customer-buying trends or patterns?
- How do you measure aspects like market coverage and penetration?
- Which sales channel is most effective for specific offerings and segments?
- What resources and training needs are required for your team?
Efficient pipeline management will allow you to answer these difficult questions and make those critical decisions strategic to your business performance to stay ahead of your competition.
TOP 8 METRICS THAT YOU SHOULD MEASURE IN SALES PIPELINE
Sales Pipeline management should be effectively used to track and measure data points across following aspects of your business –
Number of opportunities pursued by your sales teams
As in any funnel, your inflow of opportunities at the top of the funnel has a direct bearing on the outflow. This inflow at top of the funnel is also referred to as Leads.
Every organization should have a strategy and process to maximize Leads through a lead generation or demand generation process.
One of the most fundamental metrics you need to measure is the number of opportunities that your team is pursuing.
Deal conversion rate
Once a lead is captured in your system, it is the responsibility of your sales team to qualify, mature and convert the opportunity into closure. This is referred to as the conversion rate or win-rate. A higher conversion rate implies more opportunity getting closed by your team.
This metric also gives you a good idea on the quality of leads that are assigned to your sales team.
Deal value of your opportunities
While your sales reps are pursuing many opportunities, it is a good idea to keep a watch on the average deal value across different customer types, segments, period and geographies.
Measuring this would help you identify specific trends to take appropriate decisions on prioritization. You will also be in a better position to replicate what is working and avoid what is not working for your teams.
Deal movement across pipeline stages
This is possibly the most critical aspect of pipeline management. This defines your team’s ability to progress the deals through the funnel towards closure.
To measure this effectively, you must define the different stages of the pipeline and communicate the same with your teams. I am covering below this topic in detail to arrive at the right pipeline stages for your organization.
Sales cycles or closure timelines
Sales cycle is the number of days it takes your team to convert (or win) a sales opportunity. It is also referred to as deal efficiency as shorter sales cycles mean better results in a shorter time.
Sales cycle could vary depending on your sales reps, solution, customer segment, deal value, customer relationship etc. Measuring this metric across these parameters can provide you valuable insights about your business.
There are many ways to achieve shorter sales cycles. These include better deal qualification, deeper client engagement, crafting compelling value propositions, providing incentives to customers for faster closure, etc
Sales Velocity
Sales velocity is the most powerful metric that business leaders should track to accurately measure business traction. It is numerically calculated based on following four variables or business levers:
- Number of opportunities
- Average deal value
- Win-rate percentage
- Length of sales cycle in days (L).
You should measure this metric consistently every quarter. That will help you objectively analyze all the business levers to consistently improve sales velocity. It will also provide insights for you to stay ahead of your competition.
Rolling Four-Quarters Pipeline
Historical data about your deal size, conversion-rate, sales cycles etc. will give you an insight into the ideal pipeline that you should strive for. This is often referred to as a 3X or 4X pipeline depending on your industry or past trends. For e.g., your probability of achieving a target of 100 is very high only when you have a minimum pipeline of 300 (3X).
This measurement is effective only when you measure it quarter-on-quarter, ideally for consecutive four quarters including your current quarter (CQ). This is what is referred to as the “Rolling four-quarters pipeline” – CQ, CQ+1, CQ+2 and CQ+3.
When measured, this metric can help you answer following questions –
- How likely are you to achieve your immediate short-term targets?
- Do you have sufficient pipeline to improve your chances of achieving your targets in the upcoming quarters?
- Do I have adequate data points to substantiate my forecasts and projections?
- Is the team constantly putting in efforts to build and nurture pipeline?
- Which teams or segments or geographies are lagging behind?
- What support can you provide to your teams to improve the pipeline?
- Can you envision specific marketing campaigns or promotions to improve your pipeline?
Weighted Pipeline
Weighted pipeline is calculated by considering the likelihood or probability of an opportunity conversion.
Weighted Pipeline is calculated as the weighted average of all your opportunities or deals (opportunity value x probability of deal closure)
The below illustration explains the difference between sales pipelines and weighted pipeline. Total sale pipeline for 10 deals is reflecting as 1300K in this case. However, the weighted pipeline after considering the individual deal probability is amounting to only 800K. This value is more realistic than a simple summation of the total sales funnel.
While arriving at an accurate sales forecast is very tricky in sales, a weighted pipeline is one of the ways to give you a realistic sales forecast. It is a good idea to compare this with the verbal forecast that you get from your sales team to come to an even better assessment.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT STAGES IN A SALES PIPELINE?
Stages in the sales pipeline are a set of step-by-step processes to be followed to win any opportunity or deal.
One of the most critical aspects to succeed in sales is to make sure that your sales process is aligned to the customer’s buying process. So you should consider the customer’s buying process in your industry while arriving at the right stages for your funnel. This forms the basis of a strong Sales Management Framework.
I like to refer to the buying cycle framework recommended by renowned sales consultants and authors – Neil Rackham and Mike Bosworth. As per this, a typical buying process of any customer involves 4 stages – (a) their identification of a latent need (b) analysis of their needs (c) their evaluation of possible solutions (d) their commitment to a specific solution to address the need
Based on the above, I recommend the following stages in a sales pipeline –
- Lead
- Qualification
- Evaluation
- Negotiation
- Commit or Forecast
- Closure
While you may consider adding additional stages to this, my personal view is to keep it very objective and easy to measure. These sales stages are well aligned with the customer’s buying process and it also considers your internal milestones.
Lead
Lead is also referred to as “cold prospect”. This stage is more of a placeholder to capture basic details of a prospect like their name, industry, contact details etc. It is an effective way to create a good target database. This database will be used by your sales and marketing teams for their outreach plans and campaigns.
At this stage, you may not have much details about the customer’s needs and priorities. However, as a best practice, it is a good idea to capture as many criteria of a good target customer. That way, you make sure that your campaigns and outreach plan is focused and the probability of conversion is maximized with minimum efforts.
You may want to categorize this further into –
- Cold Leads
- Warm Leads
As the name suggests, Warm Leads are slightly more mature than the Cold ones. In this case, companies expect the lead generation or demand generation team to further qualify the Lead before assigning it to the concerned sales rep.
Qualification
Once a Lead is identified and assigned to the sales rep, he or she is expected to qualify the Lead. The most popular framework used for lead qualification is the BANT leads management framework –
- Budget (B): has the customer allocated a budget towards the initiative or project?
- Authority (A): who in the company has the authority to evaluate and make the decision?
- Need (N): what is the extent of need definition and clarity?
- Timeline (T): is the customer having a timeline to decide and implement the solution?
This is a very important part of pipeline management where the sales reps are expected to either qualify-in or qualify-out an opportunity.
A good rigorous methodology for lead qualification has the following benefits –
- team will save a lot of time and resources when they go after only the Real opportunities as against a wild-goose chase
- focus on the right deals will improve your team’s chances of winning more deals and meeting their business goals consistently
- You can expect an increase in average deal-size when the team engages deeper on opportunities
- Higher Intensity and focus on engagements could reduce your average sales cycle
You will witness improvement in your team’s forecasting accuracy
Evaluation
In the Evaluation stage, your team is engaged with the customer on a regular basis helping the customer evaluate options to address their requirements.
Here are some of the activities usually part of this stage –
- Interviews with customer stakeholders for need gathering and requirement analysis
- Discussion on technical specifications of your solution
- Assessment of problem-solution fitment
- Presentation of your offering to all customer stakeholders
- Solution demonstration or proof-of-concept
- Submission and discussion of your techno-commercial proposal
- Providing customer testimonials, references and other proof-points to customer
Negotiation
Once the opportunity matures, the next logical step is the Negotiation stage. This will constitute a detailed discussion with your customer on multiple parameters across –
- Solution specifications and fitment
- Overall scope-of-work, roles & responsibilities of teams involved etc.
- Pricing/cost discussions
- Payment terms and schedule
- Project delivery schedule and milestones
- Contracting and legal terms & conditions
During the negotiation stage, the objective of your team should be to closely engage with the customer to arrive at a win-win proposition. This is important for a successful long-term mutually rewarding partnership.
Commit or Forecast
By this stage, your team will have a good assessment of your chances to win the opportunity. By now, the team should have addressed all the questions and concerns raised by the customer. They would also have a good view into the probability of deal closure.
If the probability of opportunity closure is very high, then the team could Commit the deal to the management. This also gets referred to as Sales Forecast.
Sales Forecasting is one of the most critical aspects of opportunity management. It helps organizations to predict their order flows and make necessary plans to fulfill the same. This could include planning across resources, procurement, production, cash-flow etc.
Closure
Closure is the last stage of the funnel. Every opportunity at the closure stage needs to get categorized as one of these –
- Won: deal signed by customer and ready for booking
- Lost: deal lost to competition
- Discontinued: customer postponed the decision indefinitely or opportunity does not exist anymore
8 ESSENTIAL BEST PRACTICES IN SALES PIPELINE MANAGEMENT
Let us now look at some of the best practices for effective pipeline management in sales.
Define sales stages
As discussed above, it is essential for you to define the right sales stages specific to your industry. You should then communicate the same to your sales teams. They should understand the implication and meaning of each of the stages so that they could accurately categorize their opportunities.
Consistent lead generation activities
Lead generation is an important aspect of pipeline management. It is critical for organizations to undertake many initiatives to maximize opportunities at the top of the funnel. Teams need to make consistent efforts quarter-on-quarter to make sure the pipeline does not go dry and has a constant flow of deals for a strong pipeline.
Most organizations, assign this responsibility to the marketing team. They are the ones who plan and execute demand generation activities across multiple channels.
Lead assignment and management
Having a structured process of lead assignment and management goes a long way.
It is essential to keep a close watch on this process to make sure the leads are acted upon within stipulated timelines. If not managed well, there is a possibility of leads slipping out and falling between the cracks weakening the overall pipeline.
Stringent Deal Qualification
It is prudent to have two levels of deal qualification.
An ideal scenario would be to get the marketing team to qualify the leads using proven frameworks like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeframe) etc. before assigning the same to sales teams. These are often referred to as Marketing-Qualified-Leads (MQL).
Once the leads get assigned, it is the responsibility of the sales team to qualify further and nurture the opportunity towards closure. Health of your pipeline heavily depends on the quality of deal qualification by the sales team. This is referred to as Sales-Qualified-Leads (SQL).
Deal qualification by the sales team is normally achieved by thorough understanding of customer’s needs, urgency, decision criteria and business drivers.
Deal Nurturing
An important aspect of pipeline management is your team’s ability to nurture and quickly progress the deals towards closure. This would vary according to the deal size and solution complexity.
It is always advisable to follow a structured process. The steps involved could range from – working through multiple stakeholders, detailed impact analysis, executing activities like presentations and demos, handling objections, sharing credentials to win client’s confidence, getting access to decision makers, analyzing compelling events etc.
Measure and track metrics
Peter Drucker had said that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”. If you need to improve your pipeline metrics, you have to put in place a system to measure and track them regularly. This is why it helps to invest in to CRM software that makes this process very easy and efficient.
Discipline and hygiene in capturing data
This is where the concept of garbage-in-garbage-out (GIGO) becomes relevant. If you need to get relevant insights and intelligence, it is essential that your team captures and updates data periodically.
You will need to put in place a system that helps you to drive this discipline and hygiene among your teams. Easy-to-use intuitive mobile CRM software can play a significant role to achieve this objective. The right CRM tool can help you drive usage among your reps; that directly impacts the quality of information captured by them.
Your team’s endeavor should be to maintain up-to-date information relevant for tracking progress.
Periodic reviews
It is recommended that periodic weekly meetings are scheduled between sales and marketing teams to review pipeline progress. It helps to encourage collaboration and making sure the teams are on the same page always. This is often a neglected practice and can have immense impact on your business performance.
These meetings should be used as an opportunity to understand what works well and what the areas of improvement are. You could also review the status of leads, rate of qualification, deal movement etc. It is a good idea to also discuss your competitor activities and other market trends.
Moreover, you should also periodically analyze the status of dormant leads and inactive opportunities. Periodic updation and data cleanup will help you with a single-version-of-truth at all times.
7 MOST IMPORTANT BENEFITS OF PIPELINE MANAGEMENT
Effective pipeline management in sales offers a plethora of business benefits. Let us analyze some of them.
Improve Business Forecasting
Sales pipeline measurement brings in a lot of predictability in your business. If managed and measured well, you will have good visibility into the opportunities pursued by your team and their chances to win them. This will give you the ability to consistently forecast your business better.
Measure Sales Effectiveness
Funnel management is a great way to measure the effectiveness of your sales teams. You will have a good view of your team’s ability to create new opportunities, engage with customers, and convert deals.
You can also measure efficiency parameters and take the necessary steps to improve their productivity and effectiveness.
Deal Prioritization
It is important for your teams to prioritize their opportunities to get the maximum bang for the buck. With limited resources and time at our disposal, it is vital to pick your battles carefully.
Visibility into your sales pipelines would allow you to quickly assess and prioritize the top opportunities in-terms of opportunity value, stage of the deal, your ability to win, sales cycle and possible steps to deal closure.
If you fail to prioritize, the biggest risk you carry is to spread yourself too thin and end up with sub-optimal results.
Cross-Sell and Up-Sell Opportunities
When you measure and analyze your pipeline across solutions, it will enable you to identify and pursue cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. This in turn will help you to increase your wallet share and solution penetration with each of your customers.
Resource Optimization
A good assessment of your sales funnel would enable you to make intelligent decisions with respect to resource optimization and allocation.
This includes factors like the type of resources, their skill levels, amount of time you want them to invest, depth of engagement and activities etc.
Each of these factors has a direct bearing on your cost of sales and sales efficiency.
Planning for Effective Decisions
A consolidated and detailed view into your sales pipeline will enable you to effectively plan your business ahead and make strategic decisions. As popularly said, failing to plan is planning to fail!
If analyzed well, you can make effective plans and make decisions on –
- Your team structure
- Number of accounts assigned to each team member
- Territory definition and assignment
- Customer segmentation – large, medium, small etc.
- Deal segmentation – value, volume, transactional etc.
- Technical and pre-sales resource allocation
- Investment into demand generation activities
- Marketing and promotional related activities
- Business projections
- Training needs for your team
- and many more such crucial aspects
Sales Hygiene & Compliance
Last but not the least, visibility into your pipeline health gives you a view into the hygiene and discipline followed by your teams to build a healthy pipeline. After all, effective execution and rigor by your teams play a significant role for business success.
ROLE OF CRM FOR EFFECTIVE SALES PIPELINE MANAGEMENT
Selecting the right CRM plays a vital role in effective pipeline management. The tool should allow your teams to easily create and update opportunities across –
- Deal values
- Deal stages configured as per your industry-specific requirement
- Closure dates
- Probability of closure
- Product or solution selection
Once this basic information is captured in your CRM, the system should help you track the metrics that we discussed.
The biggest challenge that you may face is that your teams may not capture and update these opportunity level details on a regular basis. That happens when they find the CRM tool very cumbersome and difficult to use; and they do not find personal value in using them. As per an analyst research, only 30% of actual information gets captured and updated in CRM.
To avoid this issue, business leaders should select a CRM software that is designed with your end-users in mind. In our experience, we have witnessed that the usage is highest when you select a CRM with a mobile-first strategy.
SUMMARY
Effective pipeline management goes a long way in driving successful predictable business. While sales is most often referred to as an art, pipeline management brings in the scientific aspect. The combination of this is what would help you achieve some method and discipline to the madness in sales management!
If measured, tracked and analyzed well, the seven metrics we discussed, specifically sales velocity, can provide significant competitive advantage for you to outperform competition.
We discussed that intelligent pipeline management offers a plethora of opportunities – both tactical and strategic. However, this is most efficient when you empower your sales reps with the right CRM tool that they will find easy to use and add value to their work. Our recommendation is to select a platform like HappSales; which is possibly the most comprehensive and affordable B2B CRM for Key Account Management that can help you drive frugal sales transformation. It also offers a free mobile CRM app with personal-assistant designed to help your teams easily execute their plans and make them effective.
You and your teams can then manage, measure and track the most critical metrics that matter for your business with ease.
Original Source: Sales Pipeline Management – A Detailed Guide To Grow Your Revenue
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Enhancing Business Success with CRM Key Account Management
Introduction:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has evolved into a strategic tool that goes beyond basic customer interactions. One of its pivotal components is Key Account Management (KAM), a specialized approach aimed at nurturing and maintaining strong relationships with the most valuable clients. In this article, we will delve into the significance of CRM Key Account Management and explore how it can be a game-changer for businesses in fostering long-term success.
Understanding Key Account Management:
Key Account Management is a targeted strategy that focuses on a select group of high-value clients who contribute significantly to a company’s revenue and overall success. These clients, often referred to as key accounts, are strategically important due to their size, profitability, and potential for growth. CRM systems play a crucial role in implementing and optimizing Key Account Management by providing a centralized platform for tracking, analyzing, and managing interactions with these key clients.
Benefits of CRM Key Account Management:
1. Customized Customer Experience: CRM systems enable businesses to collect and analyze vast amounts of data about their key accounts. This data can be leveraged to create personalized and targeted strategies, ensuring that key clients receive a tailored experience that meets their specific needs and preferences.
2. Effective Communication: Communication is the cornerstone of successful key account management in crm tools facilitate seamless communication by providing a centralized hub for all customer-related information. This ensures that all team members involved in managing key accounts have access to the latest information, fostering collaboration and avoiding communication gaps.
3. Strategic Planning and Analysis: With CRM, businesses can analyze key account data to identify patterns, trends, and opportunities. This data-driven approach helps in making informed decisions and formulating strategic plans to maximize the value derived from key accounts. It also aids in identifying areas for improvement and addressing potential challenges proactively.
4. Enhanced Customer Retention: Key Account Management, supported by CRM, goes beyond acquiring new customers. It focuses on building long-term relationships with existing high-value clients. By understanding their needs and consistently delivering value, businesses can enhance customer loyalty and reduce the risk of losing key accounts to competitors.
5. Cross-selling and Upselling Opportunities: CRM systems provide insights into the buying behavior and preferences of key accounts. This information can be utilized to identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities, helping businesses maximize revenue from their existing client base.
6. Efficient Resource Allocation: Not all customers contribute equally to a company’s success. CRM Key Account Management allows businesses to allocate resources strategically, ensuring that the most valuable clients receive the attention and resources they deserve.
Implementation of CRM Key Account Management:
Implementing CRM Key Account Management involves several key steps:
1. Identifying Key Accounts: Clearly define criteria for identifying key accounts based on factors such as revenue contribution, strategic importance, and growth potential.
2. Data Integration: Ensure that all relevant customer data is integrated into the CRM system. This includes transaction history, communication logs, and any other relevant information.
3. Collaborative Training: Train teams involved in key account management to use the CRM system collaboratively. Emphasize the importance of data accuracy and consistent communication.
4. Personalized Strategies: Develop personalized strategies for each key account based on the insights gained from CRM data. This may include customized marketing campaigns, exclusive offers, or dedicated support services.
5. Continuous Monitoring and Adjustment: Regularly monitor key account performance and adjust strategies as needed. CRM systems allow for real-time tracking, enabling teams to stay agile and responsive to changes in client needs or market conditions.
Conclusion:
In a competitive business landscape, cultivating strong relationships with key clients is essential for sustainable success. CRM Key Account Management empowers businesses to not only identify and prioritize their most valuable clients but also to strategically nurture and grow these relationships. By leveraging the capabilities of CRM systems, organizations can enhance customer experiences, drive revenue growth, and position themselves as trusted partners in the eyes of their key accounts. As businesses continue to recognize the importance of customer-centric strategies, CRM Key Account Management will undoubtedly remain a cornerstone of success in relationship-driven industries.
Original Source: Kam crm
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Sales CRM for Activity & Task Management
What is Sales Activity Management? Why is it important?
There is a well-known quote that says “ Without execution, strategy is useless”. Execution is all about the activities and tasks executed to meet your goals and objectives.Your sales team members perform different kinds of activities on a daily basis to meet their objectives and targets. It can involve tasks like making a phone call, visiting clients, sending proposals, doing demos, emailing, messaging, etc. Sales Activity Management refers to the sales process of planning, monitoring, and executing these sales activities and tasks.
It plays an integral part in execution excellence. Systematically organizing and prioritizing sales activities will help you to maximize your performance and achieve your sales goal. Automating key selling activities and tasks will enable your sales team members to follow up on the tasks without missing any deadlines. Meticulous planning and execution of sales activities will help you boost sales efficiency and productivity significantly.
Why do you need an effective sales activity management?
Easy scheduling of tasks & Activities
Managing different tasks and activities by sales teams is the foundation for a successful sales organization. Sales CRM is a keystone that helps you to achieve this objective without missing deadlines. Using a Sales CRM, you can easily schedule important appointments, next steps, and follow-ups. With a sales crm mobile app like HappSales, users can easily link every activity to a specific account, contact, or opportunity. This makes it very easy for them to quickly fetch, track and manage different activities performed under various sections.
Centralized activity repository
Logging in every activity into the Sales CRM serves as a historical and comprehensive record of all client engagements. It helps you in sales activity tracking of all client interactions and serves as a holistic view of your client’s journey. Analyzing this information will provide very important insights about your clients that can be leveraged to improve client relationships.Timely reminders and alerts
You can use your Sales CRM app to set timely reminders and alerts for your key selling activities. That way you can be sure that no important tasks or follow-ups get missed. You will be able to execute all your tasks at the right time, thereby making sure that there are no missed opportunities. Setting these activity based alerts based on importance and priority will enable your team to always stay on top of their to-do lists.Better prioritization and planning
A Sales CRM like HappSales helps you to prioritize your tasks based on its importance. This helps you to track and manage your tasks well enabling you to optimize your day for maximizing productivity.Reporting and Analytics
The sales activity management dashboard in a sales CRM provides a detailed view of different activities performed by your sales reps including the top performers. It will help you in analyzing the type of activities as well as the corresponding number of activities executed by your team members.Communication and Collaboration
A sales CRM facilitates collaboration between different team members. It is easy to update and share information about activities performed for all clients so that it helps everyone to be on the same page at all times.Benefits of using a Sales CRM for Activity Management
Improved efficiency
Logging all your activities and sales activity tracking helps to have complete control of your work schedule. A voice-enabled CRM like HappSales makes data entry very easy and seamless. This helps in reducing manual data entry, streamlining workflows, and saving time. As a result, your sales team can work more efficiently and focus on more revenue-generating activities which in turn helps them achieve their respective sales goal.Enhanced customer satisfaction
Effective sales activity management will make your team more organized and help you establish a sales process. They will meet their scheduled client commitments at all times. This goes a long way in building client confidence and enhanced customer satisfaction for more repeat business.Increased revenue
Logging all activities and efficient sales activity tracking enables your sales team to be on top of all follow-ups and appointments. This ensures that no leads slip through. By prioritizing their activities, your sales reps can focus on activities that yield the highest deal conversion rates.Better decision making
A sales CRM provides activity based automated reports with valuable insights including those of your top performers. These insights will give you a good visibility into the different key selling activities executed by your team. You can analyze your team’s performance trends to make better informed decisions.On-the-go sales management
Sales CRM like HappSales provides mobile apps to deliver ease-of-use and convenience. They need not be bound to a specific place for updating their CRM. They can easily track and manage their activities on-the-go. Also, they don’t have to solely rely on their memory after a client meeting. They can immediately update the details without losing any vital information.Better competitive advantage
Systematically recording all tasks and activities in a CRM gives a comprehensive understanding of the different activities carried out for a particular client or an opportunity within the sales process. This helps in crafting tailor-made strategies and choosing the right communication channels based on the clients preferences. Excellence in execution of activities will deliver a tremendous competitive edge to help you win in a competitive market.Best practices for an effective Sales Activity Management
Define activity types in Sales CRM
This is first step in sales activity management. It is very important to list out the different types of activities that you would like to track in your sales CRM. For e.g., client meetings, demos, sending proposals, follow-up calls, payment collection, service activity etc. This will help your team members to select the right activity every time to manage their tasks and schedule.Accurate activity tagging
A specific activity can be tagged to an account, a contact, an opportunity, or a combination of these. It is recommended that every activity is accurately tagged to these. This will make it very easy for you to fetch and analyze sales activity tracking details.Setting up due dates
While creating or editing an activity, it is important to set up a specific date and time for that activity. This helps your sales team to take accountability for the tasks they need to complete. It ensures that prompt action is taken and completed in a timely manner. It will also help you to analyze and monitor the progress for you to take certain preventive measures.Tasks Prioritization
It is recommended that the tasks be specific and well-defined for them to be actionable. Tasks should be prioritized as high, medium, low, etc. so that you can assign importance and organize your work schedule as per set priorities. It will also help you with proper allocation of resources and track team’s progress accurately.Assign ownership
Ownership of every activity should be clearly defined. This is important to make sure that there is complete accountability for all activities without any ambiguity. This also helps you accurately track, measure team performance and identify the top performers.Consistent updation
Regular updation of the scheduled activities is an important practice within the sales process that needs to be followed. This will ensure that the database remains up-to-date reflecting the latest progress and activity status. That way, everybody is always on the same page.Conclusion
An effective sales activity management is a strategic asset that drives business excellence. It is a must-to-have for any organization seeking to meet their business goals, streamline their operations, establish an effective sales process, maximize productivity, and enhance customer relationships. Seamless sales activity management goes a long way in bridging the gap between strategy and execution.Analyzing activity trends diligently helps you assess your sales team’s performance and take proactive steps if needed. Following the best practices mentioned in this article serves as a building block for effective sales activity management. In an era where customer-centricity is of greatest importance, a systematic sales activity tracking management stimulates superior customer service. It is a well-known fact that companies with superior execution capabilities will always have a competitive advantage over their competitors to win market-share.
Sales CRMs like HappSales include an AI-powered assistant to make the entire process of activity and task management easy and seamless. Users can simply use voice-commands to get their work done.
Original Source: Sales CRM for Activity & Task Management
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6 Key Steps For a Successful Pipeline Management Process
Introduction
A structured pipeline management is the lifeblood of successful sales organizations. It serves as a guide to sales team members in the complex journey of converting leads into customers. Benefits of having robust pipeline management are manyfold.
This article details the 6 key steps involved in establishing a successful pipeline management system. It also discusses the best practices required for an effective pipeline management in sales.
6 Key Steps in Effective Pipeline Management
Define sales stages
This is the first step in the pipeline management process. It is important to define and identify the different sales stages involved in how a prospect moves through from an initial contact all the way till the lead gets converted into a paying client. Some of the common stages include Lead, Qualified, Demo, Proposal, Negotiation, and Won or Lost. Defining these stages ensures a standardized approach to the sales process. It also helps the sales reps to have an understanding of important actions required to progress the deal through the pipeline.Categorize sales stages
As a next step, it is a good idea to categorize the sales stages into various groups. This helps your sales and marketing teams to understand the current stage of the prospect and what steps to be taken to nurture the deal further.Here is an example of the common categories that you may use –
- Demand generation – this stage involves you to create awareness about your company and offerings among your target audience
- Lead qualification – this involves qualification of your leads through a structured process. One such effective technique is called BANT lead qualification which we will discuss in the later section. This allows your team to invest their time and efforts only on the right prospects based on factors like budget, authority, need, timeline, solution fitment, etc. That way, only the qualified leads move further down the pipeline.
- Deal nurturing & closure – once qualified, your sales teams need to plan a set of sales activities to further nurture the deal and progress it to the closure stage. The steps here could include client meetings, demos, proposal submission, and negotiations.
The above categories are also referred to as –
- Top of the Funnel (TOFU)
- Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)
- Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)
Identify criteria for deal progress through the pipeline
Next important step is to identify the criteria for each stage’s progression. It is important to set clear benchmarks and criteria required for prospects to move from one stage to the other. These criteria could be based on involvement by decision makers, budget approvals, overall account mapping, etc. It is suggested that you provide ample training to your sales reps so that everyone understands when to progress a deal to the next stage.Assign specific roles and responsibilities for each of the stages
Each stage involves different stakeholders with different sets of sales activities and skill sets. Therefore, it is important to assign roles and responsibilities for every stage. For instance, the marketing team may be responsible for demand generation, sales development representatives manage lead qualification and account executives are responsible for deal nurturing and closure. Thus, clearly defining their roles and responsibilities will improve collaboration, higher accountability, and a much more efficient sales process.Implement effective sales forecasting process
One of the most important steps of a robust pipeline management process is better and accurate sales forecasting. Sales forecasting process could be one of the below or a combination of it –- System generated sales CRM system calculates the sales forecast based on the deal details like deal value, closure probability, total sales pipeline, weighted pipeline, etc.
- Manual sales forecast: wherein every rep gives their individual sales forecast along with their best-case and worst-case scenarios.
Periodic cadence and review process
This step is very crucial to maintain an agile and adaptive sales process. Having a cadence mechanism and periodic reviews are very important to streamline your sales process and create a well-oiled sales machine. It helps you to identify different areas of improvement and take proactive steps. This helps businesses to continually improve and optimize their sales efforts and costs.Best practices for effective pipeline management in sales
In today’s fast-paced competitive environment, we need to follow certain best practices for the sales pipeline management to become successful. Let us discuss some of them.Define your goals
The first and foremost aspect is to clearly define your objectives with clear and measurable goals. You need to work closely with different stakeholders and team members to establish realistic goals and targets for all of them. It is also important to ensure that these goals are aligned with the company’s overall business goals.Consistent demand generation
A steady flow of qualified leads is the lifeline for any business to succeed. An established demand generation strategy includes both inbound and outbound tactics. Email campaigns, LinkedIn campaigns, SEO, content marketing, etc. are all very powerful tools that help generate leads for your business. Consistency in these efforts ensures a steady flow of leads into your pipeline.Stringent lead qualification through techniques like BANT
Effective lead qualification is like sorting the wheat from the chaff. It is important to differentiate between good and bad leads using lead qualification techniques like BANT which considers parameters like Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline, Solution Fitment etc. This helps you to identify the right potential prospects so that your sales reps could optimize their efforts on these right leads who are more likely to convert into customers.Prioritize deals
Prioritization of deals is one of the essential best practices that any company must follow. This helps you to focus on revenue-generating opportunities to drive sales efficiency and growth . This will help your sales team members to optimize their efforts well and focus on the right deals. You would be able to now allocate your resources wisely while keeping your customer acquisition costs (CAC) low.Leverage sales automation tools
In a super competitive environment, sales automation tools like CRMs have emerged as a game-changing strategy for companies. Using a CRM software like HappSales, you can automate all the manual and time consuming tasks allowing businesses to focus on much more productive activities that will help you generate more revenue consistently. By leveraging sales automation tools, you can gain valuable data-driven insights into your pipeline performance and deal progress. Metrics like sales velocity, deal win-rates, sales cycle time, etc. can be easily and accurately measured and improved. Sales tools like a mobile CRM app can significantly improve your sales team’s productivity and efficiency.Maintain CRM discipline
Maintaining CRM discipline to keep the data up-to-date is a fundamental pillar in the context of best practices for pipeline management in sales. CRM provides valuable insights into leads, opportunities, sales performance, and customers. Diligently updating the data ensures accuracy and enhances the efficiency of the overall sales pipeline. Using up-to-date information helps sales reps to engage with clients in a more personalized and informed manner. Moreover, only updated current data can give you the right assessment of the health of your sales pipeline. Not updating data regularly leads to missed opportunities, miscommunication and decline in overall sales productivity.Measure and track metrics consistently
Define clear KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for your team members for every stage of the sales process. Metrics like lead conversion rate, average deal size, average sales cycle, rolling four quarters pipeline, etc. provide valuable insights into sales performance. Regularly analyzing these metrics and identifying areas for improvement will help you mitigate risks early and drive predictable sales performance.Continuous training
Investing in professional development of the sales reps through continuous training programs is important. Continuous updates on industry trends, product knowledge, negotiation skills and communication techniques are very essential for successful sales. A well-trained sales team adapts better to changes and offers more personalized solutions to potential customers and instills confidence in them.Conclusion
In summary, in this fast paced sales environment, efficient pipeline management is the cornerstone of success. By leveraging these steps and best practices, you can easily scale up your performance. Meticulous lead management and gradually nurturing them into qualified opportunities stand as the roots of growth. Enhanced sales activities coupled with active communication and collaboration propel the pipeline to move forward. As your sales pipeline flow gets fine-tuned, it brightens up the path ahead making it much easier for the sales team members to close deals and grow revenue.Original Source: 6 Key Steps For a Successful Pipeline Management Process
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B2B CRM vs B2C CRM – Which is Right for Your Business?
Introduction – B2B and B2C companies
The objective of this document is to help you understand the difference between B2B CRM software (business-to-business customer relationship management) vs B2C CRM software (business-to-consumer customer relationship management) and to assist you to decide the right CRM for your business.
However, before we get into the CRM discussion, it is important that you understand the difference between the two terms B2B and B2C.
Most companies get classified as any one of the two kinds – B2B companies or B2C companies.
B2B companies
Business-to-business or B2B companies sell their products or services to other organizations or companies; usually referred to as legal entities. In this case, the invoices (or bills) are raised in the name of these entities; and these entities make the payment.
Often people get confused when the products or services billed to organizations are used by employees or end-users. These also come under B2B companies as the companies are making the payments; and not their employees.
Some examples of B2B companies include medical equipment companies selling into hospitals and clinics, IT hardware and software companies catering to business requirements, manufacturing companies providing products to OEMs, etc.
B2C companies
Business-to-consumer or B2C companies sell their products or services to individual end-consumers. B2C business is also referred to as retail business.
In the case of B2C companies, the invoices are raised on individuals. These individuals or end-consumers are the ones who make the payments. In other words, every company that gets paid directly by an end-consumer is a B2C company.
Typical examples of B2C companies are educational institutes, insurance products, retail, restaurants, movie halls, Netflix, consumer goods, D2C brands, etc. B2C consumers buy products or services either by visiting a retail store, or from an e-commerce portal, or directly from the company.
Difference between B2B Sales and B2C Sales
Many consider sales as a very generic concept irrespective of whom you are selling to. This is not true.
As sellers, it is important for you to understand the above differences between B2B sales and B2C sales.
The decision-making process and the buying journey of B2B companies is very different from that of end-consumers. B2B businesses generally have multiple buyers and alignment between them is extremely important. This complexity is usually not there in B2C sales.
B2B buyers are generally more rational and cautious due to the high risks involved. Whereas, B2C buyers are mostly impulsive and emotional.
This is mainly because the transaction value and risk associated in b2b sales crm are much higher than that in B2C sales.
Also, in the case of B2B buyers, fulfilment of their needs and requirements usually takes a long time. This is unlike the case of consumers who generally buy for immediate results and gratification.
B2B CRM vs B2C CRM – 15 key parameters to select the right one
Let us now discuss the 15 key parameters to be considered while selecting the right sales CRM.
This understanding will allow you to adopt the right sales process and methodologies for most effective outcomes in your business.
B2B CRM B2C CRM(or Horizontal CRM) Client Engagements Supports strategic long-term client engagements Supports transactional business Primary Objective Maximize life-time value (LTV) of the customer Immediate transactions Stakeholder Management Supports many decision-makers and influencers; including hierarchies Not generally applicable Sales Methodology For high-touch engagements; relationship-driven sales Usually low-touch engagements; brand-driven sales Sales Cycle Designed to support long sales cycles and deal stages(months to quarters) Short sales cycles(minutes to days) Pipeline Management Very high focus on sales funnel and pipeline health to drive predictability Minimal focus Average Deal Value Relevant for high deal values Relevant for low deal values Buying Process Supports complex buying process Not applicable Quotation & Pricing Management Offers capabilities to manage quotations, bill-of-material, pricing, approvals, proforma invoices etc. Not applicable Sales Order Management & Workflows Supports post-sales order management and workflows to track fulfilment progress Not applicable Account Receivables Manages long collection cycle to reduce daily sales outstanding (DSO) Not applicable Integrated Account Management Integrated account management framework for selling and serving clients on a regular basis Not integrated; usually in silos Product Knowledge Equips sales teams with access to high product knowledge for high value sales Not applicable Customer Success High focus on measuring and improving customer satisfaction Lesser focus Post-Sales Operations Supports post-sales and service operations Not applicable Client Engagements
B2B CRM is designed to support strategic long-term client engagements while B2C CRM is a good fit for transactional businesses. Strategic client-engagements require a CRM that supports 360-degree account management, in-depth opportunity & pipeline management, post-sales service management, customer success, etc. which are the key characteristics of a B2B CRM.
Primary Objective
The main objective of a B2B CRM is to maximize customer lifetime value (LTV). LTV is the total revenue earned from a client during the entire partnership as long as the account remains a client. A specialized B2B CRM go a long way in meeting this objective, unlike B2C CRM that is generally focused on executing immediate transactions.
Stakeholder Management
Unlike B2C buying process, B2B buying process involves multiple decision-makers and hierarchies. The buying process is very complex and all the decision-makers may have different perspectives to analyse the product/service offered. A CRM with the exhaustive capability to manage multiple stakeholders and decision-makers is crucial for an efficient B2B sales process.
Sales Methodology
Often B2C sales are impulsive, desire-driven, or brand driven. It may take place even without an explicit need. There might be zero to minimal engagement or expectation from the seller to educate or support the product. While in B2B, the purchase happens after a thorough detailed engagement between the buyer and the seller. Unlike B2C CRM, B2B CRM supports high-touch engagements with multiple touchpoints over a long period of time. It offers the ability for the sellers to capture and maintain details about every client interaction.
Sales Cycle
B2B sales cycle is more like a marathon whereas B2C is like a 100-meter sprint. B2B CRM is designed to support long and complex sales cycles since typical deal cycles in B2B could range from months to years. A B2C CRM is not designed to take care of these scenarios.
Pipeline Management
B2B sales require very high focus on sales funnel and pipeline health. B2B CRM will help your sales team to accurately manage deal stages and sales pipeline. This will in turn help you run a very predictable and efficient business. B2C CRM is not designed to address these aspects.
Average Deal Value
The average deal value in B2B sales is much higher than in B2C sales ranging from several thousand to millions of dollars depending on the industry, product or service, and other factors. B2B CRM is very relevant to manage these kinds of high-value deals, unlike B2C CRM that is best suited to low-ticket transactional deals.
Buying Process
B2B customers follow a very complex and long buying process. They conduct thorough research and analysis before making any buying decision. This analysis spans the technical and commercial aspects of the offering. This is why, in most cases, there are multiple people involved in the decision-making process. A B2B CRM is required to efficiently manage this end-to-end complex process. B2C CRM is not designed to address these kinds of complexities.
Quotation & Pricing Management
B2B sales process often involves selling a list of products or services to the client. This list of offerings, its corresponding prices and quantities are referred to as bill-of-material (BoM). B2B CRM allows your sales reps to easily create and send quotations to clients with the details of the BoM. B2C CRM does not have to cater to this requirement.
Sales Order Management & Workflows
B2B CRM supports post-sales order management and workflows to streamline and track order fulfilment process. It facilitates collaboration between the frontline sales team and backend sales operations team. That way, everyone in the team is updated on the order status with a single-version-of-truth that could be proactively communicated with the client. A B2C CRM does not provide these capabilities.
Account Receivables
B2B buyers often negotiate complex purchase terms involving payments in instalments. A B2B CRM is required to manage these long collection cycles. It can help you drive rigor and tight cadence around collections among your team members. When effectively used, a B2B CRM can help you reduce daily sales outstanding (DSO) and improve your working capital. B2C CRM is not built for these scenarios.
Integrated Account Management
Effective B2B engagements require in-depth Account Management. This involves customer intelligence, stakeholder management, account mapping, lead management, pipeline management, post-sales service operations, receivables management, customer success etc. B2B CRM like HappSales is designed to provide this kind of integrated account management framework, which is not provided by a B2C CRM.
Product Knowledge
B2B engagements involve dealing with complex products and services. Sales teams are expected to study and be familiar with all the offerings. B2B CRM provides capabilities to equip your sales reps with product literature, whitepapers, product presentations, etc. This way your reps will be able to educate clients better and they become more effective in their jobs. B2C CRM does not have to provide this capability.
Customer Success
B2B sales depends more on long term customer relationships to get more sales. Building strong relationships can open up many upsell and cross-sell opportunities. It can also measure customer satisfaction and Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measure how likely are the customers to recommend a company’s product. B2B CRM helps in boosting these capabilities many folds. B2C CRM has much lesser scope.
Post-Sales Operations
Retaining customers is the key to run a successful B2B business.
B2B businesses may have a smaller customer base than B2C businesses, but each customer may represent a larger revenue stream. That’s why it becomes very important to provide the best post-sales support and service operations on time consistently. This capability is an integral part of a B2B CRM like HappSales.
Conclusion
CRM software is a necessary software application for all kinds of companies to improve customer management and revenue metrics. It plays a massive role in the way companies execute their strategy around marketing, customer acquisition, sales management, customer retention, repeat purchases, customer loyalty, etc.
The choice between a B2B CRM and a B2C CRM largely depends on your business model, the type of clients you sell to, and your offerings. B2B CRM differs significantly from B2C CRM mainly due to the difference in the characteristics of client engagements.
B2B CRM like HappSales provide an integrated account management framework with a plethora of capabilities like account intelligence, stakeholder management, managing and tracking deal stages, sales pipeline management, post-sales service operations, account receivables management, customer success management, etc. Whereas, a B2C CRM focuses on capabilities around targeted marketing and consumer loyalty.
Here are a few situations when B2B CRM is highly recommended –
- Company is selling to other organizations or businesses
- Company has a team of sales reps or account managers to manage multiple stakeholders in the account
- More than one person is involved from client side during the decision-making process
- Your sales cycle is usually more than few weeks or months
- It is important for company to track deal stages during the sales process and have visibility into team’s sales pipeline
- Management requires detailed reporting around the sales pipeline, weighted pipeline, sales forecasting, deal closure probability, customer activities, etc. for effective sales management
- Company wants to automate lead management and lead qualification process for better sales efficiency and deal conversions
- Company wants to streamline the sales order management process to improve the order fulfilment process
- Company wants to drive collaboration between different departments and teams involved in sales and post-sales operations
- There is a need to better manage sales quotations, invoices, and account receivable (AR)
To summarize, B2B CRM software should be selected when a company does B2B sales selling in to other organizations. Sales cycles in these cases are long and complex involving multiple stakeholders. B2B CRM focuses on building long-term relationships and customer lifetime value. B2C CRM should be selected when a company does B2C sales selling to retail consumers. It is best suited for high-volume retail transactions, targeted marketing, and consumer loyalty management.
Original Source: B2B CRM vs B2C CRM – Which is Right for Your Business?
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Top Challenges in Implementing Sales CRM: Overcoming The Roadblocks by Mitigating Risks With CRM Failure
Introduction
Making a decision to implement CRM software is possibly one of the most strategic decisions an organisation can take. When implemented and managed well, a CRM initiative can add wings to help organisations soar, grow and prosper.This decision involves a lot of time, money, and commitment from all stakeholders, particularly from the business leaders. Many analyst reports show how an unbalanced and myopic approach to this initiative can jeopardise the success rates of CRM implementations.
One of the reports from Gartner stated that almost 50% of CRM implementations fail. Similarly, as per Forrester, 49% of CRM projects fail. Some businesses have failed even two to three times after implementing a new CRM. These statistics are the cause for some much-needed risk analysis and mitigating measures.
All these may seem overwhelming. But many companies do succeed with their CRM implementation. The key here is to learn from other’s mistakes and take the right approach as you embark on this strategic journey.
11 Most-common Reasons for CRM Failure
Inadequate management commitment
Many times, business leaders feel that their responsibility ends after selecting a CRM software. The reality is that it does not end there. On the contrary, leaders play an important role after that.
One of the main reasons for CRM failure is when leaders expect it to automatically generate revenue, and deliver results. Instead, they need to “walk-the-talk” and start using the CRM themselves. Team members need to see how their managers regularly use CRM for managing their work and business objectives. Managers should not review business performance outside the CRM in some excel or google sheets.
It is important for managers and leaders to set an example. They need to constantly demonstrate and coach their team members on the best practices, and its benefits. Learning through active observation is much more powerful than just someone preaching!
Misplaced CRM philosophy – Micro-management v/s Empowerment
CRM initiative is a very strategic decision that has the power to help organisations grow and drive predictable business results. It is critical that your team understands the project vision and this core purpose from the leaders.
Your team members should understand that the objective of the initiative is to empower them and make them successful. They should not perceive this like yet another process for managers to monitor their activities and micro-manage them. They should get a feeling that the initiative will add value to their individual performance and productivity, and give them more time and ammunition to excel in their work.
It goes a long way to encourage and motivate your team members to use the CRM software effectively to start seeing results. Leaders need to create ample positivity around CRM usage to make it work favourably.
Measuring Wrong Metrics
Peter Drucker said, “you can’t improve what you can’t measure”. This is true in the case of a CRM initiative as well. It goes a long way when you put together a cadence mechanism to measure your team’s KPIs (key performance indicators) using the CRM.
The ideal KPIs that you may want to measure could include revenue growth, deal progress, sales velocity, pipeline and weighted pipeline, deal conversion rates, sales cycle time, etc. That way your team will be able to appreciate the business value that a CRM adds. You will have a better buy-in from them that will also help you drive CRM adoption and usage across the board.
However, if you use your CRM to only measure the number of team activities, customer visits, their attendance, working hours etc., it might dilute the very purpose of the initiative. It could even be detrimental to your team’s morale and overall productivity.
Poor Planning
According to MIT Sloan, CRM failure occurs for those businesses that don’t do prior planning before making the investment. These businesses don’t spend time trying to evaluate their own business needs and analyse the pain points they wish to solve by using a CRM.
They experience CRM failure not because of the limitations of CRM capabilities but due to their own lack of understanding and planning.
Resistance To Use
Resistance to change is another factor for CRM implementation failure. People are used to the traditional methods and might be quite reluctant to move to a new way of life. Forcing a new method or software may cause resistance among users to abandon their old familiar methods. Human resistance has a big impact on a system’s effectiveness.
Other reasons for resistance might be due to lack of training and a clear understanding of the software. This might have an impact on team productivity; eventually leading to frustration among users.
Complexity in Usage
Complexity of the software is another major factor for CRM implementation failure. While your business might need a CRM software with a simple interface, there are chances that you might land up choosing a complex CRM. Because of its wide functionality and features, a CRM system can sometimes be complex to use. Users who are unfamiliar with CRM systems and who prefer to use a simpler interface can get overwhelmed with this complexity. For instance navigating through many screens just for one feature can be time consuming and frustrating.
Cumbersome Data Entry
Another important reason why many CRMs fail is that the end-users find data-entry very cumbersome and laborious. Sales team members are required to update the CRM regularly, which requires them to devote their time and effort. This may not happen if they find the CRM software interface not very seamless and easy to use. Not using the system to the full potential is one of the main issues in implementing CRM.
Lack of Customization
Few CRM systems might provide just basic functionality and may not be flexible enough to accommodate customization to meet specific client needs. In that case, businesses may not be able to align their CRM initiative with their needs and priorities. This will be a huge impediment to achieve your company goals.
Inadequate Training and Support
The efficient usage of CRM software heavily depends on the training and support provided by the CRM vendor. End users may not use it to its full potential if they lack adequate training support. Without proper ongoing training support, users might face challenges and it can hinder end-users from effectively using all features in the CRM.
Poor Fitment
One major cause of CRM failure is the insufficient compatibility of CRM software with the unique requirements of the enterprise. This substantial gap between the softwares capabilities and the organisation’s objectives hampers the installation of the CRM to a great extent.
Selection of Wrong Implementation Partner
There are many CRM projects that have failed not because of the software but by selecting the wrong implementation partner. It is important that the implementation partner is well equipped in terms of expertise, domain skills, experience and knowledge required for implementing this software.
Best Practices for CRM Implementation – Steps To Mitigate Risk of CRM Failure
Now that we have discussed the various challenges in implementing CRM successfully, let us discuss what important steps will help you to mitigate all the risks.
Proper Goal-setting and Planning
Clearly define your goals and objectives for implementing a CRM software. It is a good idea to make a note of all your pain points that you are planning to solve and the business objectives you want to achieve through this transformation initiative. It is important to have a clear vision of where your company should be after implementing the CRM software. Defining a purpose will serve as a guiding principle to help you at every step during the CRM implementation journey.
Committed Leadership
The commitment from the leadership team plays a pivotal role in making the CRM implementation successful. Shifting from old traditional systems to a modern one needs a lot of commitment and focus. Transitioning to a new CRM will be easy only when everyone in the organisation is committed to it and are encouraged to use it. The leadership team has to clearly pass on the message as to why are you implementing this new software. The Whys and Hows have to be clearly communicated to all the stakeholders across the organisation.
Buy-in From End-users
Gaining buy-in from end users is very important for successful implementation of the CRM. This means that all the stakeholders involved and directly affected by the new process comprehend the need for the change. It is necessary to make them understand the benefits and objectives of the proposed change. It is a good idea to take inputs from the end-users while evaluating the field service management software. This enables them to feel valued and motivated; and in the process they will willingly participate and cooperate with the new change. This will ensure increased productivity and overall success of the implementation.
Management Reviews Using CRM
It is very important for managers and leaders to lead by example. Often, they are so used to using Google sheets or excel sheets that they fail to embrace new technologies. It is important that they need to practise and demonstrate the benefits to employees.
The CRM platform should be actively used by managers and leaders for all their reviews and interactions. By doing so, they effectively communicate to their team members that the new system is worthwhile to integrate into their daily workflows.
When managers start actively using the CRM system in team meetings, the team members get inspired and follow suit. They start experiencing the effectiveness of the CRM on how it increases productivity and offers insightful data to help them with their performance.
Consistent Usage Across the Board
Consistent usage across the organisation is one of the important strategies for successful CRM implementation. A CRM can deliver significant benefits only when it is used to its full potential. Therefore it is very important that every stakeholder involved uses it consistently and effectively. It enables cross functional collaboration when individuals from different departments use the CRM to share information.
This helps to a great extent in decision making. With up-to-date information available from all stakeholders, management can use this data to identify trends, track important KPIs and make informed decisions.
Constant Feedback Mechanism
Consistent feedback from the users is one of the best practices for CRM implementation. Getting first-hand information from users in terms of systems usability, softwares ability to meet objectives and its impact on time management etc., helps the management to take proactive steps. This information enables management to make informed decisions before issues escalate.
Consistent feedback helps in improving user experience. Businesses can identify the pain points, usability issues and places where CRM falls short. With this knowledge, they are able to quickly address these issues, improve the system’s usability, and better the user experience as a whole. By addressing these challenges, management demonstrates their commitment and dedication to make the CRM implementation successful and help users have a positive CRM experience.
Progressive Adoption – Start Small and Then Expand
A proven approach for a successful CRM implementation is to start small and gradually expand. You may not want to boil the ocean with all the features in the first phase. It is a good idea to focus only on the necessary must-have features that have the highest impact on your business.
This enables businesses to efficiently manage the deployment process, reduce risks and ensure a smooth transition among users.
You may also consider the CRM roll-out for a specific department, and then expand to other departments. That way the early users can share their success stories, offer insightful advice, and assist in addressing any objections or worries from other users. Their positive experiences and feedback can have an impact on the larger user base and help the CRM deployment gain momentum.
Selecting The Right CRM Software
Choosing the right software will help you resolve most of the issues mentioned above and plays the most important role for succeeding in your CRM implementation journey. Following are few important points to consider when choosing the right CRM software
● Easy to Use
The success of a CRM largely depends on how much the users adopt and use it. Users love to use the CRM only if they find it easy and simple to use. A user friendly CRM should have a simple and an inherent interface that enables the users to navigate easily through different functions. The data entry should be seamless. People with less technical knowledge also should find it easy to use crm. The actions they have to perform should be easy to comprehend without the need of in-depth instructions.
● Customisation
First and foremost, try to choose a software vendor who is flexible enough to align with your business objectives for installing a CRM. The vendor should be ready to offer customization so that you are able to align the CRM with your business needs and priorities. The CRM should have the features to address your pain points and meet your future business goals.
● Adequate Training Support
Make sure your CRM provider has an effective internal support and training team. This gives your users the chance to learn the system thoroughly while also receiving excellent hands-on training. This is crucial since the success of the CRM depends on how extensively and effectively the users utilise it. They can completely lose interest in using the CRM if their questions are not promptly answered or if they are not properly trained. Their effectiveness and productivity can be greatly increased with the right training and assistance.
● Intuitive Dashboard
Having a dashboard that shows insights to real time data helps the management to have a quick view of the performance of their team members. The management should be able to quickly and easily understand the performance of the team members. Thanks to this real-time visibility, it helps the management team to quickly respond to urgent situations and take proactive steps whenever necessary.
● Pricing
In order to attract customers, few CRM software companies offer a very low Tier 1 pricing with very limited features. As your business grows and when you want to expand the number of users or add more records into the CRM, the pricing might be far more expensive. Choosing a CRM software vendor who offers a comprehensive framework with no hidden costs is a good solution to this.
Choosing The Right Implementation Partner
Choosing the right implementation vendor plays a very important role for a successful CRM journey. It is advisable to select the right CRM implementation partner along with the CRM software. This will prevent any unexpected surprises and ensure a smooth implementation process. It is also important to evaluate the expertise of the implementation vendor, assess their industry experience and also see if they have a proven track record of successfully implementing CRM systems. Their technical know-how and experience plays an important role for the success of the CRM implementation.
You should also discuss the project timelines, milestones and cost of implementation to arrive at the overall TCO (total-cost–of-ownership). Knowing the overall TCO enables you to ensure that it aligns well within your budget.
Here is a detailed reference guide to help you choose the right CRM software vendor for your business.
Summary
In summary, customer relationship management software enables you to organise and manage client data in a structured way. Businesses can make wise decisions to increase revenue and boost profitability measured using a CRM. It provides better visibility and a “single-version-of-truth” across the enterprise.
However, a CRM initiative’s success significantly depends on how the project is approached. In order to optimize the benefits of the implementation, careful planning and execution are essential. Organisations can reduce the risks associated with CRM installation by adhering to the best practices mentioned above. Organisations can realise their full potential and increase sales and profitability indicators with a properly implemented CRM system in place.
Original Source: Top Challenges in Implementing Sales CRM: Overcoming The Roadblocks by Mitigating Risks With CRM Failure