If you are running a business with marketing and customer care needs and still not using a CRM in 2020, then it means that you've just done okay without having one. You may have your own tools and methodologies to do it, or you are really good at using spreadsheets, or you just need a few-point solution to cope up with your needs.
If you are of the above category who felt successful in the non-CRM environment, then you may not feel the need to change now. However, most of them may not be taking it that way. If it's all messed up for you, then it's high time to fix it up to ensure that your marketing efforts find leads, sales succeed in closing it, and your business shits the targets as planned. Yes, CRM makes it simple. Salesforce now comes with a multi-point solution to your end to end business administration and marketing needs.
In fact, it is not that simple as said. If you take a closer look at your need, even with a successful team in hand, you may see that the entire process may be going through some pains. When we look into non-CRM companies as to how they improve their sales process through time, we can surely listen to how they explain these pain points from different perspectives.
It may be in terms of transitions or handoffs, whatever you may call them, the actual pain of working in a non-CRM environment may heat up when the team needs to work in a better synchronization, especially during the peak business periods. This may go wrong when there is a need to pass on the critical information to one another or different parts of a project being handled by teams locate at different geographical locations, etc. As a result of it, it's always the sales which take up the punishment.
We may further look into three more very common pain points your sales team may face in a typical non-CRM environment while trying to achieve their goals. This is, however, to give an overview of the challenges sales teams and the business as a whole may face in terms of manual administration of the sales process, which, once identified correctly, can be easily resolved with the deployment of an adequate CRM solution as offered by Salesforce. Let’s get into the topic.
The lead transition from marketing to sales
Pain point without CRM
Passing on a prospective lead from marketing to sales is similar to what you can see in a relay race. Handoff at the right time is crucial, as well as by taking extra care not to drop off the baton. If it's dropped, then the receiver may have to put in extra effort to recover it and then need extra hard to catch up with the lost pace.
Similar to this example, the companies working in a non-CRM environment may also need to have foolproof handoff mechanisms for such transitions. In fact, it can still cause many problems even if you have a manual mechanism for it, which will show up in terms of data needs as well as decision making, etc. while in a multi-team environment. The leads usually arrive with incomplete or inaccurate data, which may make it difficult for sales to convert it. On the other hand, regardless of the quality of lead, sales remain responsible for converting it to a business.
How Salesforce CRM helps?
As we have seen, the major challenge, both the marketing and sales teams face is during the handoff process. In the case of the modern CRMs like Salesforce, both marketing and sales get a single view of the leads from top to bottom. So, all the details, as well as the background information about each lead, are stored and get updated at a centralized location. So, as soon as the lead gets qualified by reaching a threshold, the sales team automatically gets a signal to get involved and take it over.
As Flosum.com operates with Salesforce, during this handoff phase itself, all the details are available to the salesperson who can instantly act on it and close. More importantly, the qualifying of leads, assignment process, and conversion everything can be automated to the follow-ups are done in real-time and not after many days or hours.
Sales operations passing pricing to thesales team
Pain point without a CRM
Sales teams always remain hooked in terms of closing deals, and things become painful form then by being at the mercy of the pricing decision-makers who are also business with other processes and priorities. So, during the final stage of the sales cycle where minute details matter, pricing comes as the biggest challenge and further slows down the entire process.
Usually, in a non-CRM environment, this process requires a lot of back-and-forth emails, which further require many revisions and approval in terms of preparing a final pricing quote to the customer. It may build up a lot of pressure to beat the deadlines, and on the other hand, rushing may also end up in some mistakes. If something goes wrong in terms of both the pricing delays or in case of pricing errors, the sales may end up in loss.
How Salesforce CRM helps?
With the use of modern CRMs like Salesforce, all involved in pricing also works on a single platform with easy collaboration and instant communication at the shared space. So, the pricing details and relevant product info is available to the sales team in the same view in real-time. Any updates or reviews are also reflected, so there is no need to wait for approvals and revisions. With this in hand, the sales can generate an instant quote as soon as a lead gets matured for sales and close everything at one stretch. Salesforce has many add-on tools to expedite this process, which will further fully alleviate the pain points in terms of sales vs. pricing.
Along with these major two, forecasting is also another challenge for leadership in a non-CRM environment. With Salesforce CRM, it becomes easier for the sales leadership to update the reports automatically to have a real-time view of the forecast and close the deals instantly.
