As the global economy struggles and sales teams delve deep into their consciences about wasting fuel on poorly planned customer visits, market analysts are reporting a peak in interest in customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Paul Black, co-founder of sales-i, argues there is no shame in knowing EVERYTHING about your customers.
Here at sales-i, the growing trend and usage of CRM tools are becoming ever more evident. Giving sales teams the complete background information about their customers, the integrated sales-i CRM functionality allows sales professionals to keep track of client interaction, while also giving complete visibility of sales and customer buying behavior with our core sales intelligence system, giving you the perfect opportunity to stalk your customers.
When times are hard, deftness is crucial. Sales teams need to pull every trick out of the bag to secure repeat orders and increase their penetration in existing accounts.
If a customer has been complaining to the customer service desk about a faulty printer or has indicated a growing interest in rival supplier promotions, your best chance of turning the situation to your advantage will be if you are armed with this information ahead of your next sales call, or are able to plan a pre-emptive, off-diary meeting.
Every little helps
Our CRM capabilities are cleverly integrated with core sales data and extended to mobile workers on smartphones and tablets so sales teams find they can dispense with laborious paperwork because key data can now be logged and accessed on the fly. While the ‘hard’ data, (that is, your sales figures) are clearly the most important tool a sales team can have access to, the ability to combine this with ‘soft’ information (personal details about the main contacts and a history of recent correspondence and meetings) can make all the difference when closing a deal.
Having a 360-degree view of the customer, which any ambitious salesperson should strive to have, provides the best possible opportunity to stalk your customers to meet their objections head-on and drive through new business.
While, given a choice, most salespeople will focus on hard figures rather than soft, personal information (ultimately it’s more important to know that the customer has stopped buying toner, than that he’s vegetarian with a golf handicap of 14), having the best of both worlds will give one sales team the edge over another.
And in an unforgiving business climate, every little helps!
