Tag Archive for: CRM software

Transform Your Field Service Team with Salesforce Field Service

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Introduction

As a leader in the field service industry, you know that there are many moving parts that need to be considered in order to run a successful field service organization. Day-to-day operations can be complex and streamlined communication is often lacking for both on-site and in-office teams. Ultimately, you need a tool that can support all the needs of your organization; and that tool is Salesforce Field Service.

“Salesforce Field Service is a feature and add-on that assists dispatchers and technicians with dispatching, directions, work orders, parts used, repair times, and more. This helps to streamline those operations and minimize paperwork,” Said Richard Jenkins, Co-Founder of Commercient. 

Essentially, Salesforce Field Service makes your team more aligned, operational management easier, and team efficiency skyrocket. 

How Salesforce Field Service Can Streamline Your Organization

How are teams operating without a strong field service management solution like Salesforce Field Service? 

Without the proper tools in place for field service teams, organizations oftentimes track projects through spreadsheets. They will manually dispatch technicians through email and phone, and don’t have a centralized clear way to see where their teams are at any given time. 

Without Salesforce Field Service, how do you properly track hours, parts used, etc.? How can you ensure that the technician’s route saves on gas, or that he or she isn’t spending unneeded time traveling between service calls? The other question to consider is, are you efficiently dispatching technicians? 

Commercient will be able to provide an ID through the SYNC, which will help to identify the correct building for a job and match that to the needed parts and labor.

What is Salesforce Field Service?

Salesforce Field Service essentially is designed to help teams fully manage every aspect of their field service operation in the most streamlined way possible. It also helps keep information updated for mobile-workers and customers. On-site technicians and contractors in HVAC, healthcare, construction, financial services, transportation, utilities, manufacturing, telecommunications, and professional services will find Salesforce Field Service particularly helpful. This is shown in the top features below.

Top Features of Salesforce Field Service:

Dispatching Console: 

Eliminate calls and emails, and dispatch technicians intelligently with regards to their location, schedule, and skillset.

Smart Scheduling: 

Take the guesswork out of scheduling for your team by creating an ideal schedule based upon current priorities or limitations.

Workflow Automation: 

Automate case creation for technicians and workflows.

Field Service Mobile App: 

Provide recommended articles, get directions, capture photos and sign work orders. What’s more, the Mobile App comes with offline capabilities so teams can work wherever they need to, regardless of connectivity.

Einstein Vision: 

Get image recognition with your photos and identify critical assets.

Field Service Analytics: 

Oversee safety protocols and your team’s current performance with the metrics that matter most to you.

Salesforce Appointment Assistant: 

Give your customers more visibility into your team and their whereabouts with your technician’s name, photo, ETA, and location. All of which are supported through email, WhatsApp, and SMS notifications.

With Salesforce Field Service, you can spend less time trying to find the best technician for a job, and more time on delivering the best in customer service. 

If you are looking for additional resources on field service operations, check out Abelian’s ebook intended to help teams avoid serious mistakes with field service operations.

Field Service Resource Button

Click Below to Download Your Free Ebook.

EbookCover.FieldService

Commercient and Salesforce Field Service 

For Salesforce Field Service and ERP integration, Commercient SYNC is your leading company. SYNC is utilized to ensure that data integration between Salesforce Field Service and your ERP runs smoothly. Your ERP data is automatically integrated into your Salesforce Field Service without the need to program, code, map, or use servers.

In Salesforce Field Service, there are four key players where Commercient is involved to assist customers with a smooth data integration process. The four key players are:

Administrator: 

An administrator configures field service features based on a company’s requirements. Commercient will collaborate with the administrator to sync relevant data into and out of Salesforce Field Service objects.

Service Agent: 

A service agent will take customer calls and log work orders via service appointments, which will be linked to the calendar of the mobile worker or technician. Work orders will be detailed and will include the skills and parts required to complete the job at hand. Then, Commercient can sync the work orders to the ERP system as a work order, sales order, invoice, or jobs.

Dispatchers: 

Manage service appointments that are assigned to mobile workers or technicians.

Mobile Worker or Technicians: 

Field Technicians will be provided with service appointments that will direct them to the specific location to conduct the service. They must then manage their work order and submit a report detailing the parts utilized and the service performed that day. The mobile worker or technician can then manage this by using timesheets on their mobile device. The parts and labor will be added to the work order, which will then be uploaded to the ERP system in the form of a work order, job, invoice, or sales order, depending on the customer’s needs. Salesforce Field Service empowers the technician to track hours by location and which parts were used; while Commercient will also SYNC timesheets to an import file that will be used by the ERP to generate payrolls and billing.

If your team is concerned about customer details changing and not reflecting in their ERP and Salesforce Field Service systems, SYNC has you covered. New customers can be created in the ERP through the SYNC and their personal information can be updated if anything changes.

Integration with Commercient SYNC for Salesforce Field Service

Phase 1:

  • Jobs
  • Work Order
  • User
  • Building
  • Account
  • Service Invoice
  • Service Invoice Line
  • Contact

Phase 2:

  • Customer
  • Contact
  • Building
  • Work Order
  • Daily Payroll

Conclusion

Salesforce Field Service is designed for your team to thrive in field service management. Abelian has guided a number of teams to a more streamlined and successful field service operation with countless implementations of Salesforce Field Service. If you are ready to partner with teams that truly understand field service business processes coupled with the skillset to deliver the best in configurations, reach out to us. Contact Abelian, a certified Salesforce Consulting partner, or Commercient, your Salesforce integration expert, and we will provide a free Salesforce Field Service consultation to kickstart your journey in conquering field service management. 

Field Service Management Resource

Integration: Key to Increase CRM User Adoption

CRMs are designed to manage the most valuable asset of a company—the customers. As a customer management tool with customization options, pipeline tracking, and reporting and dashboard features it makes sense why company executives would want to maximize the user adoption of their CRM. Not to mention, a CRM can be a significant financial investment, so naturally, companies want to be sure that employees are using a CRM to its fullest potential. 

But all too often it seems, an organization purchases a shiny, new CRM and people are hesitant to use it. It’s like a 16-year-old who is given a brand-new Ferrari on his or her birthday with all of the bells and whistles who doesn’t want to jump in the driver’s seat to take it for a spin around the block. 

So, why are employees so hesitant to climb in the driver’s seat of this beautiful Ferrari and push the pedal to the metal? Often, this is because the CRM focus is Executive-driven instead of Sales Team driven. The Executive team provided a Ferrari with amazing executive-focused reports and dashboards, but the Sales Team’s focus is very different, and to keep going with the analogy, they wanted a Lamborghini. They need the bells and whistles that are directly related to their daily responsibilities, which are quite different from the information Executives are looking for.

Now the question becomes, what bells and whistles do the Sales Team need? While a CRM provides amazing pipeline features, something that is missing is the historical data of a customer’s past purchasing habits. Before a Sales Team representative gets ready to reach out to a client about their next order, they may want to ask themselves these questions: what did they buy last time? What price did they buy it for? How many did they buy? Do we have that in stock? Did they pay for it yet? In an Executive focused CRM, a lot of this data is siloed away in other systems, like the ERP. Therefore, Sales Team members need to look in multiple systems for the information they want, or they have the additional step of reaching out to the accounting team for more information. But what if there was a better way?

There is! Tailor your CRM to the Sales Team’s needs with integration between the ERP and CRM. Give the Sales Team the Lamborghini they deserve with increased visibility of the information they need at their fingertips to quickly and independently drive their sales. 

It’s really a very simple solution to this common problem… If you want to increase user adoption, you need to provide access to the information the users need, and that is made possible through data integration.

For a robust and reliable ERP and CRM data integration solution contact Commercient today!

6 Decisions Most Companies Overlook When Implementing A New CRM

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Introduction

Making use of a CRM could be one of the most important decisions your company can make. With that being said, it can be quite a daunting task to do, and decisions can be overlooked when a company implements a CRM. That is why Commercient and Roycon have teamed up to make their customers aware of what can be overlooked when implementing a CRM and to ensure a successful implementation.

Here are the top 5 decisions that are overlooked when implementing a CRM.

1. A CRM Team

When implementing a CRM, companies may overlook the fact that when implementing a CRM you need a team to do so. This is to ensure that the CRM is used correctly. To avoid this happening, make sure you put together a team that includes the following:

  • An Executive Sponsor: The executive sponsor is someone who strongly believes in the power of the platform, and knows the value it will bring to the organization. They should be influential and be able to champion and support the project from conception through go-live, and beyond.
  • System Administrators: Your system administrators will be at the heart of your implementation. Not only will they need to have enough knowledge and understanding about Salesforce, but they’ll also need to have an in-depth understanding of your business processes, as well as the requirements from your managers and users.
  • Project Manager: A project manager will be a helpful resource to make sure that your project stays on track.
  • Power Users: Your power users will be helpful because they’re thinking about the end-user. They’ll make sure that the needs of the end-user, as well as management, will be met. Power users can also help with troubleshooting issues, and testing out solutions. Their feedback is very valuable in the process.
  • Trainers: Whether it’s a team or a singular trainer, they’ll be responsible for documenting processes and gathering and creating the appropriate materials to distribute to end-users. They’ll want to be thinking about adoption, how they will support your users, measure adoption, and encourage adoption.

2. Ongoing Maintenance 

You will want to have a plan to handle the ongoing maintenance  of the CRM after the project has been completed. (Salesforce post-implementation plan) Who will be the internal Product Owner responsible for training new hires and existing employees, regularly answering questions, building reports, and handling ongoing administrative tasks? Business processes change, strategies evolve and companies evolve, it’s important that you and your business have the resources to ensure your CRM can evolve with them.

3. Determine Expectations 

Before implementing a CRM, you have to ask yourself and your team, what are the expectations for using a CRM? Take the time to research and discover what you want to achieve and what your end goals are. It’s also worth considering the amount of work that needs to be put into the CRM implementation to ensure all of the processes are defined. In addition to that, requirements need to be clearly and concisely outlined, and all internal team members need to be aligned on the overall goals and scope of the project.

Your goals to achieve with a CRM can also include:

– Understanding your customer’s journey, to make better decisions.

– Improve your sales process.

– Making use of analytics to help gain insights

– To improve lead management

4. Importance of Data Quality

The data quality within a CRM is underestimated by many companies because of the work it’s going to take to transform the data.  This means it is going to require time and work to import old data into the new CRM as well as, how the new data will relate to other applications (if integration is included). If you need to clean your data, take a look at this article on best practices for cleansing Salesforce data.

5. Success Criteria

Without clear success criteria, it is hard to determine the primary areas to focus on during the build phase, in the event that requirements change or budgets shift. Therefore, when you are implementing Salesforce or any CRM you will want to have a clear way to measure the impact and ROI the project will have on your business.

6. Budget

This is to ensure that there is a proper budget for both licensing and implementation costs for a proper build-out. While allocating a budget can seem like you are putting in guardrails, it is meant to keep service implementations in line for expectation setting, and for validations to meet deadlines.

If you’re ready to start your Salesforce implementation be sure to download this Salesforce implementation checklist to make sure you’re set up for success.

Commercient is a leading data integration specialist, SYNCing ERP and Salesforce data with ease, giving companies a complete picture of sales, customers, and marketing. Roycon, a Salesforce implementation, and consulting partner has teamed up with Commercient to help educate businesses on decisions that can be overlooked when implementing their CRM. 

Contact Commercient or Roycon for a consultation today!

Why Your CRM Implementation Feels Disconnected From The Rest of Your Company

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Introduction

CRM software (customer relationship management) makes your business objectives easier to achieve. They provide the best outcome for your customers through your sales, marketing, and customer service departments. However, it’s good to be aware that there are risks involved when it comes to implementing a CRM in your business, and there are steps on how to overcome these challenges.

There are several reasons why your CRM feels disconnected from the rest of your company.

Why Your CRM Feels Disconnected From Your Business

1. Customer records are missing important information

When a file is opened to start integrating data, vital parts of information are missing which can include names, history, or even an email address. This is problematic because then customers cannot be contacted to rectify the issue.

Sales or marketing representatives can prevent this from happening by asking all the right questions to ensure that the correct information is there. Using an ERP could work alongside your CRM so orders and invoices can complete the customer data you need.

2. Using the wrong vendor

It is easy to choose the wrong vendor to implement your CRM because of different marketing and sales strategies. Consumers get caught up with the wrong information to make an informed decision that suits their company best.  But, to avoid this here are a few questions to ask yourself:

  • Does your company have the right CRM tools to use to implement?
  • What reviews does that vendor have?
  • How long has the vendor been in practice for?
  • How does the pricing work for the vendor and what is included?
  • Is the vendor flexible enough to customize what the customer needs?
  • Will your company outgrow the vendor?

3.Complicated CRM

Some CRMs can be more difficult to implement than others, especially if you choose a vendor that does not provide support during your implementation phases. Keep it simple, and implement a CRM that has a powerful and user-friendly interface.

4.Users are Suspicious 

When we talk about users, we mean employees, whether it is in your marketing, sales, or customer service teams. Once your CRM has been implemented, you will expect instant results, right? Not always, because your employees need to get used to using new software which is why your CRM implementation can feel disconnected from the rest of your company. If you want to get your team on board, you have to demonstrate value. Mention how using a CRM causes fewer mistakes and saves them on time by spending less time with manual entry. 

5.Lack of Training

In order to use a CRM well, training has to be provided on how to use it otherwise employees will avoid it. With the right amount of training, employees will engage at a higher usage rate. But, without the correct training, it will lead to lower user adoption rates.

6.CRM Champion

When implementing a CRM, they are sometimes assigned to the wrong coordinators such as a CTO or COO. Your company can feel disconnected when not enough time is spent on the implementation to make it work. Therefore, it is advised to choose a CRM champion that has passion, the ability, and the time to work with the implementation.

7.Thinking CRM is Just a Technology Solution

Implementing a CRM is not just about technology but it is also used to improve customer relationships. So, users have to use it the right way. By thinking the CRM does not need to be utilized correctly, it can lead to your CRM feeling disconnected from your company. This means having trained staff, the correct workflows, and the right management to use the CRM to its fullest potential.

Conclusion

Commercient and Aptitude 8 have partnered to help businesses use their CRM to its fullest potential, and to avoid time-consuming and costly errors saving time and money. By choosing Commercient SYNC, we guide your ERP and CRM data integration with 24/7 support to ensure a successful integration, enabling you to carry on using correct data to achieve daily tasks.


Commercient can integrate your data in an affordable and seamless way while making use of their data integration experts. By Commercient integrating over 85+ ERPs and 5-star reviews, this shows Commercient has the experience and knowledge to implement your CRM the right way. Contact us today!

Marketing Automation to Maximize Salesforce

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Salesforce is an incredible tool to maximize your sales pipeline. You can streamline and track your sales process with lead and opportunity stages; organize page layouts to give you the most relevant information first; set up alerts to notify your team of new leads and deals; access to unlimited reporting; and you can automate certain tasks and forecast with predictive intelligence. No doubt, Salesforce is a powerful tool. 

But what are you doing to fill your sales pipeline? How do you ensure that you always have leads ready to pursue? That is where marketing comes in; Sales is the back half of your pipeline. Let’s talk about the front half, marketing, and more specifically, marketing automation.

Marketing automation explained 

Imagine having a sales rep that works 24 hours, that can respond to thousands of emails right away without fail. Who consistently hands out relevant information to potential new leads, and every morning has a list of the top leads for your team to start working. Impossible, right? Too good to be true? With marketing automation, it’s all doable, and it’s the process of using technology to streamline and improve marketing activities.

Marketing automation systems, such as Pardot, Marketing Cloud, HubSpot, or Marketo, power automated and targeted messaging to your leads or potential customers based on their digital engagement with your company. These systems leverage information from digital ads, referring websites, social media platforms, lead forms, and website viewing history.

Marketing automation is able to segment these leads into categories you set up for targeted marketing. You can even set up scoring models based on this information, so you and your sales team are focused on the leads with the highest potential for conversion. This information can be automatically updated into Salesforce, so your sales team is able to consistently focus on the best prospects for conversion. 

As an example, let’s say you run an ad on LinkedIn which will link to a landing page on your website conveying relevant information from the ad. The landing page should have two to three paragraphs, a nice image, and a simple form for the lead to fill out with some basic information, often in exchange for an offer or access to value-add content. 

When the form is submitted, an email automatically is sent with the offer or content. You can then add this person to one or more lists segmented by geography, product interest, job title, etc. The marketing automation system can then begin sending more targeted email sequences to nurture the lead toward conversion.

The marketing automation system can then track the lead’s digital engagement with your company and rank them on likelihood of conversion, established on a lead scoring model based on your business. And all of this information can be synced to your Salesforce CRM system so your sales and marketing teams can have access to the same information about a prospective customer.  

By making use of marketing automation processes, the following benefits occur:

  • There is more time to focus on marketing strategies.
  • You will be able to obtain a full understanding of potential customers.
  • Marketing campaigns can be expanded.
  • Follow-ups with customers can be personalized.
  • Leads will be prioritized.
  • You can boost your marketing ROI.
  • Improve your ability to predict potential investments.

Conclusion

Salesforce is changing the way companies operate, so that clients can get the most out of their data. By making use of marketing automation, it provides an efficient and effective path to improving sales performance, and allowing your team to get the most out of its investment in Salesforce CRM. Commercient SYNC can help their mutual customers with marketing automation by sending important ERP data to Salesforce. NPWR and Commercient can lead you on the right path to assist in your Marketing Automation needs from any location in the world. Please feel free to contact us.

Technology Trends Driving CRM Software

Technology Trends Driving CRM Software

In a world of fast pace moving technology, we might often wonder if there are faster and more secure ways of keeping your customers information in one place. There is a variety of software designed to keep up with customer relationships and their data, and this is when Customer Relationship Management (CRM) comes in handy.

You might be wondering what a CRM is – it is software designed to assist in improving business relationships by overseeing the interactions between potential customers and customers. CRM is there to accommodate processes within an organization, that can lead to increased sales and profitability, building strong relationships with customers and improving customer services. By having a CRM, all customer data is stored in one place in which you can see all their personal information, history, orders, or any obstacles they are experiencing.

CRM’s include many benefits such as:

  • Reliable reporting
  • Improved contact management
  • Teams across departments can collaborate more efficiently 
  • Improves customer loyalty
  • Optimizes marketing 

Since CRM and technology have been growing, there are certain trends that are driving the software to expedite daily business operations and make customer’s journeys flawless. What are the technology trends driving CRM software?

1. Using data strategically

When a company gains potential customers, numerous data is produced in the sales or marketing department, by having CRM the data is unified and stored in one place making it easier for employees to access the data to satisfy the customer’s needs.

2. Artificial intelligence 

Artificial intelligence with CRM is a necessity as manual tasks can become automated which will free up a sales department time. Chatbots are also implemented through artificial intelligence and are equipped to handle service requests by capturing the customer’s important information needed to handle those requests. Not even that, usage patterns of marketers can be identified and data can be collected, then analyzed for leads and to predict customer trends.

3. Making CRM Mobile

Salespeople are always on the go and by having a CRM, they can access the information anywhere and at any time they need to. They can access any leads or opportunities that can result in customer interactions being dealt with faster. This can assist in boosting productivity since all the data is organized and in one place, which means a salesperson can respond to requests straight away. It will also increase sales since a salesperson won’t have to spend time searching for information.

4. CRM Becoming Social

CRM allows interaction in real-time and having CRM that is social, customers can be engaged with on any social media platform. Since social CRM operates on social media platforms, there are techniques and technologies that allow businesses to supply real-time feedback and programs to support customers. In addition, brands can use social CRM to identify customers buying patterns and behavior.

5. Workflow automation

CRM’s are useful in helping businesses automate their workflow as it helps determine whether certain tasks should be done by a machine or a person to provide the best customer service. In a CRM there is task automation that provides guidelines on what actions to take for an employee to assist the customer. The task automation functions are based on information received from the profile of the customer, and the circumstances surrounding the business. Not only that but, by having task automation it assists in distributing work amongst employees or machines. It, therefore, assists salespeople in reducing their time on tasks,  duplications of work is avoided and each stage of the sales process is looked at to make sure the correct steps are taken.

6. Data integration – Third-party systems and IoT

CRM’s are designed to deal with large amounts of data from different platforms, the data is able to integrate more easily through third-party systems and the Internet of Things (IoT). Third-party systems operate through web services as it delivers, for example, cellular services, subscription services, or GPS’s. Since CRM operates in the cloud, there are protocols in which data can be retrieved through the web services. This type of cooperation provides seamless communication with other sources of information in order to provide efficient customer services. IoT also plays a role in the trend for CRM as there are devices that will be able to detect and send issues about products, maintenance issues, or inappropriate usage. 

7. Technology – ease of use

Since data can be stored in one place with CRM, it will be easier to find and analyze, as well as, it can connect with other technologies making the process of interacting with customers easier and more efficient with no data duplication.

Commercient provides an app called SYNC that can integrate your data between your ERP to your CRM or your CRM to ERP in real-time with no mapping, coding, or ETL. Since there are technology trends driving CRM software, Commericent can provide a 360-degree view of all your data within sales and marketing to satisfy your customer’s needs in an efficient manner. Using SYNC to integrate your data, it will all be stored in one place which prevents salespeople or employees from searching for data in numerous places in order to perform tasks according to the customer’s request, and duplication of work is prevented.

Contact us to start reaping the benefits of digital technology!

How to Save Customer Relationships in COVID-19 and Beyond

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced businesses to maintain and build relationships with consumers from a distance. With “the new normal”, businesses are now facing a challenge of generating sales during a period of extreme economic hardship while keeping the threats to life and livelihood that have altered consumer priorities and preferences in mind.

Businesses that cannot supply the demand of their stakeholders are struggling, some might even be closing their doors, while some are learning how to adapt and pushing past this crisis. The rapidly spreading of businesses shutting down has proven the advantage of digital technology and readiness also shown how software platforms enable work to be done remotely. Whether for telecommuting, product fulfillment, or service delivery, modern technology systems have helped optimized operations in the face of limited person-to-person contact to comply with social distancing.

Here are four ways to manage your customer relationships during and post a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic:

  1. Help Your Customers by Guiding Them Through the Changes: Stay ahead of the information curve. Set up robust media monitoring systems to stay educated on the outbreak. Offer your customers online learning opportunities. To keep your customer relationships strong during COVID-19, provide your customers with intelligence, guidance, and direction that makes your value delivery a seamless interaction. Stay on top of and ahead of all shifts, and provide regular updates on closings, delays, product changes, and promotions to keep your clientele informed and appeased. Learn what your audience needs and help them discover how your service will best help in these trying times.
  • Run webinars
  • Use media monitoring software
  1. Empathize and Communicate Like a Human: Provide employees with messaging to share with customers and partners. Be truthful about what you don’t know and avoid statements that may prove to be false in the coming weeks, whatever you say to your customers right now has to come from an honest place while still respecting their boundaries. Be mindful of how your service affects your clients, and how COVID-19 is affecting their lives and their own business.
  • Create a landing page dedicated to your clients during these trying times with FAQ’s, You can easily take a news plugin for this function.
  • I recommend enabling external comment functionality for improved feedback from customers.
  • Allow your customer service and sales teams to offer reduced prices or increased services during this time to customers.
  1. Keep What Works But Adapt Quickly: Some companies may have advanced their digitalization capabilities in the past few years. These companies are likely experiencing, only a moderate impact due to the global coronavirus pandemic. Shifting your operations to remote work via online conferencing and communication tools like Zoom and Slack, most projects can continue. 

During the disruption, operational challenges need solutions, cash management and liquidity need to be adjusted for the changes in demand. Communications and leadership must also be expanded into the digital space. If your company was not online before, it’s likely online now. In a fast-paced marketplace, shopping for new technology solutions may help some companies. Most companies’ issues resulting from the disruption due to worldwide efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 will need quick fixes and solutions, but for some, it might be the beginning of new problems.

  1. Leverage Technology to Generate Value for Your Customers:  In collaboration with marketing automation tools, you need to ensure they are integrated with channels where data can be pulled from. Once you have your data, it needs to be analyzed and segmented to an individual level and then utilized for personalized customer communication via marketing automation. Every part of this process should be talking to all the other parts for maximum efficiency, information, and results. Depending on your business your data collection channels can be CRM, Website, Email marketing platform, Mobile app, Event management tool, Social media, Online Store, or an ERP system.

Conclusion

During the pandemic having accurate data is key, it helps in making decisions based on your business’s day to day operations. Your goal as a business leader during this time should be to increase customer engagement and position yourself as a reliable, value-add partner who goes above and beyond during difficult times.

With an app like Commercient SYNCyou can grow your business from anywhere in the world using cloud software, automate sales, and become a fully digital business. Commercient’s SYNC’s application makes it possible to see your ERP data in your CRM and vice-versa since it can be used on any device. In addition to this, you will need a way to ensure that you have access to accurate, complete, and up to date data in your ERP and CRM.

Talk to us now to get on the digital business train!

Five Factors to Consider When Choosing a Small Business CRM

There comes a time when managing your client’s databases via thousands of spreadsheets, hopping from one system to another to find leads or customer data, or navigating amongst sales opportunities by checking scribbles on Post-it notes is no longer an option.

In order to effectively handle business operations and to improve the efficiency of your business, you need a robust customer solution where you can capture customer data, track incoming leads, segment customers into meaningful groups and create a structured workflow. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems work best for small businesses to maintain strong relationships across the board. In a CRM, all employees can record customer interactions with the company, create personalized messages for a targeted audience group, implement lead nurturing and lead scoring techniques, automate work processes, and much more.

Let’s take a look at factors to consider when picking a CRM software:

  • Define your business needs
  • Do I need to increase lead generation? Look for a CRM that delivers strong and agile lead generation software.
  • Are deals getting stuck in my pipeline? You’ll want a CRM with strong sales reporting, so you can identify the bottleneck.
  • Do I need to better access my contact data? Purchase a CRM that provides easy access to a 360-degree contact view.
  • Do I need to increase efficiency across my teams? Look for a CRM that can automate as many manual processes as possible.
  • Do I want easier access to insight around my results? Your best bet is a CRM that provides customizable dashboards.
  • Is my sales team unable to convert leads? A CRM that provides lead scoring so that you can qualify leads and identify the most sales-ready prospects will help.
  • Price of CRM for small business

Most CRM software providers offer a free trial and offer per-user pricing. Before making the final selection, it is advisable to take advantage of the free trial and consider the price your organization can afford on such a plan.

  • Ease of use/learning curve

Will your team be able to easily use the system? User-friendly CRM software is what your small business needs, so having to spend money on training might not be a great idea. Research reviews and find out if the CRM is easy to use and novice-friendly. 

  • Availability of customer support

You might have technical questions that only the software provider can answer-finding one that offers customer support without any delay is the key to success for any business. Your business needs complete and unhindered access to support that doesn’t allow geographical boundaries or time zones to come between you and support.

  • Marketing features

All-in-one CRMs include marketing automation software. The capabilities coming out of such software will let you do things such as:

  • Email marketing
  • Build landing pages and web forms
  • Score and qualify leads
  • Run multichannel marketing campaigns
  • Track the results of your efforts
  • And much more

An all-in-one CRM eliminates the need to spend more money on a stand-alone marketing automation solution, making it a great choice for small businesses.

It’s more than likely that you’re already using other software systems in various departments of your small business. Commercient SYNC, the #1 data integration platform can help you integrate your existing systems, such as your ERP and CRM solutions. A systems integration will ensure the right information is available to your organization.

Your sales team will have access to ERP data directly in CRM, such as customer information, sales history, invoicing, serial numbers, inventory, multi-ship to addresses, and much more. With two-way sync, new accounts and orders are integrated from CRM to ERP. This gives you a 360-degree view of sales and marketing.

Revolutionize the way your organization does business and expedite all processes by getting an advanced CRM system.

Enhancing Customer Relationships with AI and CRM

Businesses are finding it hard to keep up with the shift in consumer demand. With the advancement of technology, customers have increased their expectations for personalization, service, responsiveness, and delivery. For your business to be successful, you need to build strong relationships with your customers. But how do you do that? The obvious answer is by using a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

A traditional CRM database was used to achieve goals more straightforwardly. Initially, it was only used for gathering, storing, and structuring data for easy access. It didn’t play any role in the process of analysis and interpretation of data to provide meaningful insight.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a vital requirement for large and growing businesses operating in a competitive market. A variety of tools and software enables the sales and marketing department to build and strengthen customer relationships. 

Artificial Intelligence has made it easier to predict user behavior and needs. AI combined with CRM enable businesses to enhance their customer relationships. Artificial intelligence, or AI, refers to the ability of machines to think and understand like humans. We have now provided machines with some capabilities that can do much more than just collecting and storing of data. With the help of AI, a system can process a huge chunk of data, analyze it and detect patterns to predict behavior, and also use the same insight to calculate risk.

AI has great potential to boost the output of CRM tools. AI can provide a clear view of the customer’s entire journey from the prospect stage to retention. Artificial Intelligence is steadily redefining the future of CRM systems. With the advancement in Artificial Intelligence, the field of automation is becoming broader. It prompts customer relationship stakeholders to focus on more pressing issues. In short, it will elevate the customer experience from the first touchpoint to after-sales service.

How AI is Redefining the Future of Customer Service

Intelligent Automation: AI coupled with CRM will enable organizations to restructure their workflow and automate manual processes intelligently. It can be used to evaluate sales funnels, predict customer behavior, and predict ROI with maximum accuracy. With predictive analysis, AI can enable businesses to use historical data to make predictions about the future and take relevant actions.

As mentioned before, AI can help predict customers’ behavior based on past interactions. It uses the same insights to evaluate the sales funnels and forecast market dynamics with maximum accuracy, allowing businesses to take relevant actions that will have a positive impact, restructuring, and automating the workflow, depending on the insights. For instance, it can help with lead scoring and assist in lead segmentation based on demographics, sales records, and more. 

Efficient Management of Data: Nowadays, a vast amount of information is generated every hour by interactions with consumers. This data can be used to gain insights into predicting buyer’s behavior and formulate your business strategies accordingly.

Artificial intelligence is a useful resource when it comes to collecting and processing a massive amount of data. AI can help centralize all data from different social channels and digital interfaces into a single platform — CRM. It can then easily interpret and analyze them and provide value to the company’s objective. 

In essence, it will help effortlessly manage the marketing department by enabling them to respond to customers more quickly and efficiently. 

Advanced Customer Service Capabilities with NLP: Natural Language Processing is defined as a type of machine learning. It understands words, sentences, and the context of your customer care queries. As a subset of artificial intelligence, Natural Language Processing interprets and analyzes customer’s verbal statements. When it’s done, it provides them with an answer without any human intervention.

Natural language processing in Artificial Intelligence is an essential speech recognition capability that can read, convert, and make sense of human languages. NLP can help the CRM system to meaningfully analyze the textual context of customer emails and send them a precise response and it can also provide real-time advice for sales pitches. NLP combined with CRM tools can help businesses to reveal their brand sentiments accurately, which will ultimately affect marketing efforts. 

Transform your Business with Our Artificial Intelligence and CRM Expertise

Commercient provides CRM and ERP software integration solutions. We integrate +85 ERPs with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Sugar CRM, Zoho CRM, and HubSpot CRM.

Commercient’s out-of-the-box “SYNC app”  is so easy to install. There’s no coding, no mapping, and no servers to manage on your end. Just download and go with easy access to sales and customer data when and where you need it.

Commercient SYNC can be set up to synchronize your ERP and CRM data as frequently as your business requires, once a day, every hour, or in real-time. SYNC is configurable to your company’s unique needs.

Examples of AI and CRM

Salesforce Einstein: Salesforce Einstein is the first comprehensive AI for CRM that is designed for business to be smarter and more predictive about potential customers. Einstein is powered by deep learning, Machine Learning, Predictive Analytics, and Data Mining.

Zoho: Zoho has a conversational AI assistant called Zia. It assists customers with everything from simple responses to complex analytics. We at Commercient integrate Zoho products with CRM systems to manage products, sales, marketing, recruitment, social media, and more.

Sugar CRM: Sugar CRM has recently launched an AI product called Hint. It automatically searches, tunes, and inputs personal and corporate profile details of prospective customers.

Conclusion

A CRM is considered as the backbone of any business organization. In the end, you will see a vast improvement in the company’s bottom line. Investing in AI can help your business optimize various back-office processes –  your business will improve customer service, improve customer engagement, and increase retention rates. Artificial intelligence will help create a better experience for both customers and sales representatives. The combination of AI and customer relationship management is a gateway to a profitable business. 

How to Automate Workflows With a CRM And ERP Integration

In order to get the most out of your ERP and CRM’s, automating workflows would work best through the seamless integration of data between your ERP and CRM. To be able to elaborate on this, we need to discuss and gain a better understanding of what ERP and CRM’s have to offer your business, by providing examples of ERP and CRM data integration, and how to automate workflows.

Let’s define what is an ERP and CRM Software:

ERP stands for enterprise resource planning, ERP systems deal with financial data, supply chain management, and payroll. Businesses need an ERP system to assist in lowering costs and increasing revenue by having their communications and business functions consolidated. ERP systems are there to prevent repetition, arrange pricings, and assist teams in speaking to each other. To summarise, the ERP system looks at all aspects of a company. 

Examples of ERP systems in action:

  • It updates accounts and processes orders;
  • Manages employees on payrolls that deal with benefits, income, and stores personal information about employees;
  • You can track any manufacturing processes and create alerts for every phase of the process;
  • Supply chain management that consists of manufacturing, distribution and purchasing; and
  • You are able to track processes in and across departments.

There are about 85+ ERP’s and some examples are, Sage, Quickbooks, Acumatica and Netsuite to name a few.

On the other hand, you have CRM systems – customer relationship management systems deal with the interaction between potential and current customers, ensuring they enjoy their experience. It’s all about delivering a service that is timely, reliable, and consistent because if that can be delivered, the business will have more of a chance of having customers that are loyal, and that will increase sales. Therefore, CRM systems are mainly used for customer service, sales, and marketing departments. 

To illustrate CRM systems in action:

  • Assist in high-quality customer support;
  • Streamlining the process for sales;
  • The response time will be more efficient;
  • Leads and opportunities can be pursued more effectively; and
  • You can draw up reports to analyze how the customer interacts with the business and their purchasing pattern. 

Some examples of leading CRM systems Salesforce, Hubspot, Sugar CRM, Zoho, and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Data Integration and workflow automation

Every business would like to streamline their data, in order for day-to-day processes to be more efficient so they can deliver expedited service to customers. If you have a separate ERP and CRM system without them being integrated into one system, it becomes tedious and hard to manage, and not only that, you will have to keep track of when to synchronize all the data. The workflow of data will become slower and there are more risks of running into numerous errors.

Data integration between your ERP and CRM has numerous advantages, as your business will be able to share one database between all employees, which means the following: 

  • 360-degree view of customers and products;
  • Employees can access information at a faster rate;
  • Avoid manual data entry and the risk of duplications;
  • There will be better inventory, order, and quote management;
  • Better quality control; and
  • Better mobility meaning employees can collaborate easier and faster.

But, now how does ERP and CRM integration play a role in automating workflows?

Well, workflow automation is a logical method of automating any manual task or work for an employee or worker and consists of knowing what tasks employees or workers do and automating them through technology. By integrating your ERP and CRM data, you have already created a ground for workflow automation. It is ideal for any business because it helps with;

  • Data accuracy;
  • Avoidance of manual data entry by employees;
  • Productivity; and
  • Efficiency. 

But how can one integrate their data to automate workflows?

Commercient SYNC makes data integration simple and user-friendly. Information is made available on a platform accessible to all employees. Through SYNC, data is transferred from your ERP to your CRM and from your CRM to your ERP and stored according to the business needs. Through this, Commercient assists in automating workflow because once the two platforms have been SYNC’ed, there will be a streamlined workflow that eliminates unnecessary work and your employee’s productivity will increase. Unlike traditional data integration tools such as an ETL, there is no coding, mapping, or server required through Commercient. Here is a video to prove it.

Contact us today and get your department’s workflows automated with SYNC!