10 CRM features that drive sales in Corona times

The pandemic abruptly shifted many sales activities to the home office. In the meantime, most companies have come to terms well with the new normality: According to a Study by the management consultancy McKinsey at the beginning of April, 50 percent still felt that working with less direct customer contact was very or fairly inefficient. In August 2020, the figure was only 32 percent. B2B customers in Germany, meanwhile, think the current situation is just fine: they don't want to change anything about the current communication channels with their suppliers, according to the study.

Ten important CRM functions

The rapidly developing mobile possibilities in the field of CRM play into both sides' cards: Because in addition to an end-to-end sales process, mobile applications also ensure better customer service. ERP manufacturer proALPHA reveals ten CRM functions that really drive sales today:

1. Query availabilities: Is a product in stock in the desired quantity? How long is the waiting time for a particular variant? Sales staff shine with excellent service and competence when they can answer customer questions immediately and promise delivery dates with binding effect. To do this, they need a mobile CRM with direct access to the ERP system, the current inventory, and other relevant values from production planning.
2. Direct document creation - from offer to order: The highlights of mobile working are undoubtedly the binding offer and direct order entry together with a legally valid signature. The customer thus receives the desired goods more quickly. The order data can be entered both in online mode and offline, without an Internet connection. Because the data does not first have to be transmitted to headquarters by fax, e-mail or telephone and then manually typed in again, the lead time for production, assembly or shipping is reduced by a day or even more. The fast, end-to-end digital process also minimizes the risk of errors.
3. Systematic history of all activities: Templates for structured visit and meeting reports help to record requirements and agreements as meaningfully as possible. After all, they serve not only as an aid to thinking, but also as a reference, for example for assembly. Even when there is a change of customer service representative, the new colleague needs to know what has "gone on" in the past and what orders and sales a customer has placed so far. All the relevant data is retrieved from the ERP system. This means that when the new employee starts work, he or she can immediately pick up where the previous employee left off.
4. Manage contacts and appointments efficiently: Mobile CRM not only strengthens the relationship with the customer. It also ensures greater efficiency internally, for example through integrated management of appointments, tasks and reminders. For efficient work with calendars, customer and contact data, synchronization with Exchange is of course a must.
5. Fact-based sales strategy: It is also helpful if the sales department can view meaningful, graphically prepared statistics, for example, on the sales performance of a customer in a year-on-year comparison. These statistics can be used to derive potential and sales opportunities more accurately than a simple calculation based on the wrist.
6. Project management for sales: The more complex a sales project, the more important it is that all notes, tasks, visits, call notes, quotations, orders and statistics are bundled in one place. This not only offers a lot of relief in daily doing. It also allows for solid sales controlling. If an additional opportunity arises in the appointment, the creation of a new mobile sales project must also be quick.
7. Route and tour planning: Even if the number of customer visits has dropped significantly in the pandemic: The time a sales representative spends in the field is precious. Sensible visit planning for an efficient route is therefore one of the particularly important CRM functions right now. It is particularly time-saving to display all contacts in the immediate vicinity via a map. In this way, a visit itinerary can be arranged in a meaningful way.
8. Complete paperwork from anywhere: Many sales representatives still have administrative tasks to perform in the evening, especially call reports and travel expenses. If receipts can be recorded and settled on a mobile device, this noticeably eases the burden on the end of the day. It also speeds up approvals and reimbursements - to the delight of everyone involved.
9. Extensive research capabilities: The core of a user-friendly interface is a comprehensive search. A search in the metadata of a company is just as much a part of this as the search for freely selected keywords.
10. Support of complex and international organizations: Large as well as international sales organizations have additional requirements for a mobile CRM. For example, not everyone is allowed to see and change all data. Multi-level rights and role management is therefore just as important as support for various national languages. Companies planning to introduce a mobile CRM solution should also ensure that the solution used can be set up for an unlimited number of sales employees. It must also run platform-independently on Android, iOS, or Microsoft devices and on laptops as well as smartphones and tablets.

Mobile solutions for more sales success

A mobile CRM is an essential building block in the digital transformation of a company. The associated increase in efficiency naturally benefits sales first and foremost. But that's not all. Because all employees who work with information from sales will always find all the data and documents they need up-to-date and directly in their work context - whether in the ERP system or other downstream applications.

Source: proAlpha