What is a CRM?
Customer Relation Management or CRM is a software solution that can help manage and grow your business in a multitude of ways whether you are a self-employed individual or small to midlevel sized company. It is an all-in-one source of your company’s data that allows you to do more by giving you an array of business-intelligence of your business that can translate to a higher quality of customer service as well as an increase of business efficiency and profits. Centralized customer data can help save you valuable time finding and compiling the information you need.
How can this benefit you?
Manage the relationship of your leads, customers, and any other contacts you do business with. Track information and keep a history of every interaction between you and the contact. This allows you to really know the people you do business with and establish unique relationships. Nurture your leads to customers, and grow your customers into lifetime customers.
Give your contacts a strong level of commitment of your time. Manage a calendar and see a daily schedule of tasks and events for you or other employees in your company. Schedule meetings, phone calls, follow-ups, to-do’s, or any particular key activities practiced in your line of business.
Increase your marketing efforts by creating and sending out e-marketing campaigns that go out to a relevant targeted marketing list of contacts. Send out monthly newsletters or sale promotions. View reports that give you a hot/cold list to know what people you should further contact.
A CRM will allow you to close more deals and stop sales from falling through the cracks by managing your opportunities. Know the process and stage of your sale-cycle with every opportunity from start to close. You can see what has worked in your past to win the opportunity and what may have caused you to lose. You can harness this information to help you know where to make changes in your sale-cycle to increase the rate of closed sales for future opportunities.
A CRM can increase your productivity by assisting you with creating your own processes of automated workflow. Set triggers in your CRM based on the criteria of data you choose. You can automate schedule a series of activities for the type of processes your company has, such as contacting people that have ending contract dates so that they can be renewed, New Customer Welcome, cross-sell of products, birthday reminders, or just staying in touch to find additional after sale care.
You can network your CRM to be web-based and work virtually anywhere in a centralized environment.
Access your CRM with real-time customer data and view your daily schedule of activities from a remote location on a lap top, smart phone, or tablet. Some CRMs offer cloud-based hosting that manage your data for you and allow you to access your CRM at a desktop level which can be beneficial to those that may run into browser limitations or syncing issues. It can be essential to have your CRM networked for mobile access if your business has multiple locations or if you have a sales team that are true road warriors.
Integrate your CRM with other existing business solutions such as Outlook, Excel, E-mail, Accounting Software, Social Medias, a phone system with voice over IP (VoIP), and other web-based applications like Google Apps, to get a collaborated command center of your business.
Traditionally it’s utilized by Account Executives or Sales Professionals, but with the technology available, the features they offer today, CRMs can be used by the entire corporation. Executives, Sale Managers, and Sales Reps each reap different benefits CRM platforms.
Executives get real time market data to understand the company’s position. They get to see pipeline models, sales forecast information, and product trends. They can see where they stand currently and where they’re headed. From this information, they can make well-thought business decisions.
Sales managers monitor the day to day operations of their sales team. Managers can see the effectiveness of their Sales Reps and can review what deals are currently in the pipeline and at what stage each deal is at, and what deals have been closed. The information enables Managers to offer coaching on real time basis.
Sales Professionals are in control by having an organized view of their leads and customer information.
Know what is going on with every deal, every stage, every customer all in one place. Track several sales opportunities, and the stages, while scheduling follow up activities with hundreds of prospects and customers. This keeps your sales thriving. The death of all sales is when a lead falls through the cracks usually due to the lack of follow up and disorganized prospect information. –All which can be prevented with use of a CRM.
Customer Service increases their efficiency and effectiveness by knowing what course of action to take because they have access to customer information so they know which customers need attention, what customer’s needs are, and what course of action they need to take.
The business’s service quality with the customer is optimized overall at every touch point.
Who is using ACT!
Small Business People
Sales People
Consultants
Realtors
Financial Advisors
Manufacturers' Reps
Recruiters
Fundraisers
& More
Why do people choose ACT! over other CRM Programs?
Price- Price conscious when compared to other CRMs!
Easy to use- Friendly interface and learning curve higher than other CRMs!
Features/Benefits- Be centralized; track your sales and run reports, schedule activities/events etc., track customer information and history, and much more!
Integration/Compatibility- Integrates with Word, Outlook, Excel, Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail, Iphone/Ipad, Mobile Devices, Accounting Programs, and many more!
Customization/Flexibility- ACT!’s easy customization makes it possible for you to fit your business’s language and needs into your ACT! Database!
Brand Name/Familiarity- ACT! has been around for over 25 years, you do not need to worry about purchasing a solution that may not be around in a year, 5 years, or 10 years down the road.
Customer Service- I am not selling you just a product, you also receive services. My goal is to see that you are leveraging the software properly to reach your goals.
