Monday, June 30, 2014

Salesforce Automation Pushes Sales to Higher Levels



How automation makes life easier for your salesforce

If you think automation makes your business processes too impersonal, you’re living in the past. Automation is a word that might be a bit overused today, so perhaps your take on salesforce automation isn’t exactly accurate, but don’t discount it when it comes to driving lead generation for your sales team.

It’s easy to get lost in the fray of technology due to the fact that it seems to change with every full moon. Regardless, you’ve got to take advantage of technology to stay on an even keel with your competition. Organizations that really embrace technology are likely to surpass their competitors. Let’s look at the ways salesforce automation positively affects the salesforce.

·         Opportunities Become Clearer
It’s so easy to miss opportunities when you fail to accurately track your appointments or set alerts for follow-ups. With salesforce automation, your sales reps will never have an excuse for missing another appointment.
Salesforce automation helps you keep your data in one place, which means you can stay current on your customer relationships – a perk that will lead to more sales.

·         Selling Becomes Automatic
Everyday tasks can be daunting, monotonous, tedious – any number of words describing an unpleasant process. However, everyday tasks are also very important if you’re going to stay on top of the sales cycle. When you simplify the tasks by using automation features in your CRM, you’re reducing the amount of time you spend on the paperwork and increasing the time you can actually be making sales. If forecasting and lead tracking are processes that seem to be pulling your salesforce down, try automating the tasks.

·         Better Upsell Opportunities
Automation helps you improve relationships, which means you’ll have more knowledge about their wants and needs. This leads to opportunities to make an upsell. Without the information you glean from automated processes, you go into a conversation nearly blind; you have no idea what the customer really wants or needs and therefore can’t provide suggestions for upselling. Furthermore, automated processes that give you more insight into customer behavior and lets you know when they are most likely to buy and how much they might be willing to spend. With this knowledge, you can set alerts that remind you when to reach out to that customer and customize your sales pitch.

·         Automation Boosts Reporting Probabilities
One of the keys to a successful sales department is having a robust reporting tool available to the salesforce. With a constant stream of detailed sales reports coming back to the office, the entire organization is armed with a database full of useful information that can help determine marketing strategies and the direction of the product line. However, without a proper reporting tool, sales reps are not willing participants.

Front Row Solutions is a company built by former sales reps, which means we know what is needed in the field. Our mobile application puts important tools into the hands of your mobile workforce. If it’s automated processes you’re looking for to give your salesforce a boost, look no further than Front Row.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Every Sales Team Needs an iOS CRM App




You really can’t underestimate the power of a useful CRM. Despite the excellent sales team you have at your disposal and a wonderful marketing team to help pull in more prospects; your CRM is one of the most important keys in unlocking successes in your operation. Because your salesforce is mobile, it’s time to start considering an iOS CRM app that can further push your team to more success.

App developers have been busy since the smartphone revolution took hold. Americans actually spend more time online using apps now than they do web browsers, so it makes sense that CRM app developers are jumping into the mix. A helpful
iOS CRM app can be an important tool at the disposal of your salesforce and can be the difference between an effective workforce and one that is stagnant.

For the sales department, the more mobility you can give them the more successful they’ll be. This includes giving them a
mobile app that can help them send sales reports back to the home office quickly and easily. The salesforce needs apps to help them manage their customers, their vendors and their suppliers. They also need the capability to manage projects and event scheduling. The best CRM apps will include a notification system and search capabilities, as well as tools for social networking.

Many CRM systems allow users to track and manage accounts from the home office on their desktop computers, but how many vendors have an iOS CRM app that works that well for users in the field? In many cases, the salesforce is left out of the planning process when it comes to introducing a mobile solution. This is unfortunate because 99.9 percent of them are equipped with a smartphone or tablet computer that is equipped with a camera. Most of the CRM apps the salesforce is currently using are not good with sending back sales reports.

Sales reports that can be sent through an iOS mobile app quickly and easily increase the chances that a sales rep will actually follow through with sales reporting. As you well know, without a consistent supply of sales reports from your salesforce, you have no information from which to create more robust coaching experiences. More importantly, without sales reports, you have very little information from which to draw upon for making decisions for your company’s growth.

When a sales rep can send back reports from the field, the whole company benefits.
Front Row Solutions has developed an iOS CRM app that puts the power in the hands of the mobile workforce. With the Front Row solution on their side, sales teams are able to send back the valuable information that sales managers, marketers and company executives use on a daily basis.

Furthermore, our app also includes integration features that sync email calendars to the CRM solution, allowing for better follow-up. Another unique tool is our camera feature, which allows the salesforce to take pictures of anything that boosts the usefulness of the sales report.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Keep Your CRM Database Clean: Tips on Creating Clear and Accurate Information




As most business owners know, it costs much less to maintain good relations with your current customer base and keep them coming back than it does to market to a new demographic and win new business. At the same rate, it’s more advantageous for companies to turn their prospects into customers than it is to find new prospects. A customer relationship management (CRM) database can be the key to keeping those current customers and prospects.

The key to keeping a CRM database well maintained is in ensuring that the data is clean, accurate and valid. It doesn’t matter how strong your CRM system is if your data isn’t useful. How can you maintain the integrity of your CRM database?

1. Get the Hard Information Right
Hard information should be the easiest to get, but without it, your content information will be completely flawed. It should be a priority to get the first and last name and physical address. If your contact isn’t willing to give you the physical address, you will have failed to get the hard information. At a minimum you need to obtain the ZIP code, which will allow you to group your contacts geographically.
 
2. Segment Your Contacts into Relationships
Most CRM distinguishes between actual customers and prospects you hope you’re nurturing toward customers. Getting the most out of your CRM includes segmentation tools that allow you to distinguish these prospects and customers into more identifiable groups. You should know by your CRM database if a contact is an advocate, a builder, an owner, etc. You can also separate these individuals into suspects, meaning you have their names, but it was due to something other than their express interest in your product/services.

3. Give Your Contacts a Grade
Most lead qualifying tasks are a subjective process, which makes it difficult to give leads a grade or rank based on how productive they might or might not be in the sales cycle. With a better system, sales reps can embark on a better qualifying process. One way to approach this is to establish how long it takes for a prospect to agree to an appointment. For instance, a prospect that schedules an appointment within three months would get an A. The prospects who take a year or longer to progress in the sales cycle would get a D. You can also give grades to prospects who have been called or emailed and haven’t responded or the one who responded and said, “not interested.”

4. Give Your Sales Reps a Mobile Tool
The best way to get to know your prospects and customers is to give your salesforce reporting tools that they will use to fill your CRM database with useful information. Since the salesforce is a mobile group, give them a mobile CRM app that will be easy for them to use from their smartphone or tablet computer. Front Row Solutions makes an app that gives sales reps the ability to file a sales report in under a minute. Contact us today and get connected.