Using CRM in Cold Calling

This is the follow up to today’s Creating a cold calling process to increase sales post. In our first post, we outlined a cold calling sales strategy and briefly mentioned the need for a tool such as a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. In this post, we will focus on CRM tools.

Why Invest in CRM Software?

According to Salesforce, companies that add CRM increase their sales by as much as 41% and can generate ROI from $2.50 – $5.60 for every dollar invested.

Six more possible reasons to invest in CRM:

1. Increased Productivity

With data in one system accessible on internal computers as well as mobile devices, sales, CSRs, bookkeepers and A/R (accounts receiveable) staff can work more efficiently.

2. Better Documentation

There is no record or sales system that identifies when prospects should be called or when work should be expected.

3. Tracking and Analyzing Sales

Sales reports? What sales reports?! There is no system that can help track and analyze sales per employee on most popular applications.

4. Overcome Single Source of Information

There is no single source for customer information. The company may have data for billing purposes, but the salesperson may have their contact information.

5. Increased Personalization

Personalization is one of the critical factors in CRM. It not only helps salespeople keep track of unique aspects of sales, but service people as well. CSRs can make notes about certain “persnickety” issues such as corporate colors or shipping directions.

6. Overcome Lack of Information Sharing

There is no mechanism to share notes, strategies, successes, or failures. One person could discover a better sales pitch, or a new application, or a new marketing strategy, and keep it to themselves. Worse, salespeople can leave, and the company would have no idea what future work was promised.

Why Now?

According to a market research study by InfoTrends (US Production Software Investment Outlook, InfoTrends), only 29% of businessses in North America have bought CRM tools, and 11% have created their own tools. That may change now that Salesforce finally introduced software designed for small and medium sized businesses with less sticker shock.

CRM Tools for Smaller Businesses

Until a few years ago, Salesforce did not have a module for small business, but they released Sales Cloud Essentials and Service Cloud Essentials.

“Salesforce Essentials is really for… small companies, emerging businesses that are looking to… find a better way to manage their customer relationships. We are really looking for a simple way of delivering Sales Cloud and Service Cloud capabilities to that growing, emerging business,” says Marie Rosecrans, Senior Vice President of small-business marketing at Salesforce. “We’ve really optimized Sales Cloud and Service Cloud capabilities for the small-business segment.”

So, if you are considering CRM, recognize that there are less expensive solutions targeted for small to medium sized companies and more expensive tools for larger companies.

Best CRMs for SMBs

• Apptivo
• Bitrix24
• Capsule CRM
• HubSpot
• Insightly
• InStream
• Nimble
• Streak
• Zoho CRM

Source: TechRadar 7/2016

Best CRM Software for Small Businesses

Best for Small Business – Salesforce CRM

Best Free CRM Software – Zoho CRM

Best CRM Software for Startups - Hubspot CRM

Best CRM for Customizable Solutions – Apptivo

Source: Inc. 2/2018

Conclusion

Not everyone acknowledges the importance of CRM software. There are many old school salespeople that use Day Timers to perform the same tasks and others that use email, calendar apps, and other tools to do these tasks. However, there are some things that can only be done with CRM such as creating a single source of data, monitoring staff performance, facilitating personalization, and creating reports. CRM works best for those who use it the most. There are several low-cost CRM solutions. If you think you have people on staff who would benefit from CRM, we recommend creating a strategy with your existing tools or investing in one of the low-cost options.