Time is money. Especially in business, time is extremely precious so you want to make sure you are spending it wisely on things that can actually reap benefits for your business in return. You will want to make sure that your sales people are spending most of their time on things that can bring in more sales for the business. However, according to a recent study by Pace Productivity , they revealed that 78% of a salesperson’s time is not spent on selling. This means that they are actually spending most of their work time on other things such as handling administrative chores like input and updating of information as well as organizing data.

Although it may not be entirely wrong for them to do so, but these time-consuming tasks can slow down the entire sales process which will affect your business bottom line. As the more time you waste, the more opportunity there will be for your competitors to muscle in and before you know it, they will already be way ahead of you in the race.

If your goal is to improve productivity and increase sales revenue, then implementing a CRM system will be a good investment for your business in the long run. We have listed out 5 common CRM features below that helps to save time and allow your salespeople to work better.

• Tasks automation

One main functionality of CRM systems is the automation of daily mundane tasks, which is also the main area that your sales people are spending most of their time on. Implementing CRM system will allow them to store customer information and retrieve it easily whenever they want. Some CRM systems in the market today are even available on mobile which allows you to access information on the go. With easier access to information, your sales team can now allocate their time on more value-adding activities and customize their approach to customers.

• Sales pipeline management

Keeping track of your leads progression is important in order for you to have better sales closure. With a quality CRM system, you can easily see where your leads are on the sales pipeline and follow up with them promptly. On top of that, you will also be able to know when they will need more assistance or information to move them down the sales funnel. With a better look into your sales pipeline, you can easily tailor your approach to suit the leads condition, whether they are ready to close the deal or need more time to nurture.

• Instant business insights

Getting reports and insights on how your sales are doing is probably one of the most important reason to implement a CRM system. Being fast alone won’t get you ahead of the competition, but being able to make the right business decision fast will. Thus, having a well-functioning CRM system that is able to give you the information you need is crucial in order to speed up the business process.

• System integration

We know you may not be using just one single software to manage your entire business and having to jump in between different platforms to gather information can be tedious. Thus, it is fairly important for you to select a CRM system that can complement your existing business software, better if they can substitute them completely. Today, a lot of CRM systems offer user the ease of accessing information in one centralized platform. By integrating different data sources into the CRM, it allows automation of multiple tasks such as email automation or even report generation, which will free up your sales people a lot of time.

• Improved team collaboration

One important factor that determines how well or how far an organization can go depends on how well the internal team is able to coordinate and work together to support each other. Since CRM offers the access of information to different parts of the business, different teams can now communicate and collaborate to get their work done even faster. This is also to ensure sales deals can be closed fairly easy without affecting customer satisfaction level.

For instance, imagine if your sales team brings in a lot of sales this month but your warehouse do not have enough stocks on hand to cater the sudden influx of sales. Customers are bound to be unhappy with the service you provided as you seem to be overpromising the ability to deliver. This is something that you will want to avoid entirely and this is also where communication and information transparency come in handy. With all your different teams on board using the CRM system, you can be sure that this scenario will rarely – or rather, never happen.

Conclusion

All in all, CRM software is worth the investment when utilized well. It simplifies your business process and allows you to focus on things that benefit your business. It has grown to be a necessity in handling customers and drive more sales for modern sales teams. JustCloud CRM is a powerful sales-driven CRM tool that is used by high-performing sales team to help them in closing more deals. To find out more about it, click here.

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