Executing a B2B sales strategy has been a tough task for many organizations; the process needs well-planning and implementation to generate good results. With most of the customers having extensive resources in finding the right information about a product or service from the websites, salesperson nowadays does not have to provide much information about their company’s services to the potential customers. So, what else remains on the part of a sales team for making a successful sales strategy and closing more number of deals?
This question has bothered the sales manager for long, as no strategy can be termed as the perfect one. Sales team have to keep executing different strategies to check which one of them works best for their organization and process. For this, they have to understand the challenges which their potential customers are facing for resolving it efficiently. This is where CRM comes into play. CRM known as customer relationship management is a database which has a record of each interaction of the potential customer.
How CRM facilitates in improving the entire sales process?
As discussed before, every interaction with a customer is tracked, which is later analyzed to improvise the sales process with the help of CRM. Not only it improvises the productivity of the sales representative but also accelerates the growth of the entire organization.
Check some of the statistics below, which shows how CRM is helping to improve sales:
- As per a report by Salesforce, CRM has helped to increase revenue by 41% per salesperson.
- Some years back, even Tech News World published a research report, where they found that almost 54% of the businesses expect to improve their sales with CRM.
- A study by Innoppl Technologies found that 65% of the sales representatives using mobile CRM had achieved their sales target.
As we know CRM stores the information which helps in understanding the likes of a customer. It even has the information which can help you to understand the dislikes of the customer, for modifying the sales strategy as per that.
Developing a sales strategy is a continuous process as per a quote:
“Sales is an outcome, not a goal. It is a function of doing numerous things right, starting from the moment you target a potential prospect until you finalize the deal.”- Jill Konrath, a renowned sales strategist, and speaker
Find out 5 ways in which CRM helps to improve sales with a proper strategy:
- Centralized information:
The system centralizes the customer’s information so that crucial data is not missed out or lost. Every customer’s data is essential and can give useful insights into understanding their likes, dislikes, and preferences. CRM can even predict the sales volume, monitor the performance of the business, and determine the quality of customer service, thus helping a sales manager in developing an effective sales strategy.
- Time Management:
Time management is important in any organization; without which, everything can go haywire. The CRM system assists the salespeople in optimizing their schedules and prioritizing the tasks such as contacting the hot leads on time, spending more time interacting with the customers, thus increasing the customer base.
- Sharp Targeting:
CRM helps the sales representatives in segmenting the data and identifying crucial opportunities. It eliminates the manual process of pasting the data from different documents or finding the data from the disorganized lists. It makes the sales process a seamless and effective one.
The representative can target their potential customer accurately as they have all the required information to interact with them.
- Social Selling:
Social selling is known to be more effective, as shown in the above graph. So, as a sales manager one has to implement this tactic in their sales strategy. The CRM has a significant role in this as it stores the information which of the customers are more active in a specific social media platform like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
It has been seen that the length of the average B2B sales cycle witnessed an increase of 22% in the past 5 years, which means buyers are taking more time in making a decision.
The major reason for this is that more decision-makers are getting involved in the decision-making process. The sales strategy can be even planned by also considering this factor.
- Cutting down the costs:
Many mid-sized and small companies look forward to cutting down the costs wherever required. CRM systems help them in this process as it reduces the errors by the sales representatives, which can sometimes be in the quotations or orders. The rectification of these errors might cost the companies more than implementing the CRM system.
Conclusion:
The amalgamation of CRM and sales has benefitted many organizations motivating others to execute the same within their process. It has been seen that after the successful implementation of CRM, the sales team at mid-sized and small companies have been unburdened from extra responsibilities so that they can focus on selling only.
The modern sales process is undergoing many changes with the introduction of new technologies, so the need of the hour is to revamp the sales strategy to generate better results.
Guest post courtesy of Robert Jordan