CRM Services Archives - Page 2 of 7

How CRM and Digital Marketing can go Hand in Hand?

Abhishek Sharma / digital marketing services, lead generation strategies, lead management solutions, lead tracking software, online crm systems / CRM Services, Digital Marketing

Taking the decision to invest in a good quality customer relationship management system can be a game-changer for your business. It does not just help in automating tasks like payments, invoicing, and messaging, but the online CRM systems also help in playing an important role in planning a suitable marketing strategy.

The fact is that a customer relationship management system is one of the most critical components of a successful digital marketing campaign. CRM forms the foundation for the sales and promotion of a product or an idea. In essence, CRM is a set of applications that you can use for managing things such as customer databases, customer interactions, customer leads, customer satisfaction, and all else that pertains to the customers.

Improving sales requires a business to improve customer relationships. The customer service has to be impeccable in case you wish to keep customers happy because that is the only way to grow a business.

CRM Helps in Converting Online Leads

The primary goal of all digital marketing campaigns is to boost e-commerce sales. A considerable number of people shop online these days. However, more often than not the buying habits of these people involves researching a product, company prices, and taking some steps before finally making a purchase.

In other words, only because a customer is interested in one of the products, does not mean that the customer is going to buy it immediately. In fact, most of the customers rarely make it past the first step of the check-out process.

With the use of lead tracking software like CRM, it is possible to find when a customer researched the product while allowing the marketer to place targeted ads on social media and other platforms for maintaining the best interest.

The internet is anyway full of content which is why businesses must take steps that remind a customer that they are looking into one of their products or services. A CRM tool enables you to implement a marketing strategy that makes achieving the goal of engaging a customer much easier.

Digital Marketing Strengthens Customer Relationship Management Efforts

Digital Marketing plays an important role in ensuring a successful implementation of customer management. With CRM, you can establish more visibility, enable employees with relevant and timely insights, manage long-term goals, execute things flawlessly, etc.

Marketing is focused on establishing visibility, educating prospective buyers, and converting prospects. A comprehensive understanding of the buyer’s needs, shopping behaviors, and other pain points helps the marketer to truly personalize conversations across various channels. Capable digital marketers know how to capture customer feedback and data on multiple channels while segmenting customers and drilling customer experiences.

With consistent monitoring of customer data and capturing of buyer insights, it is possible to develop a unified and reliable view of the buyer’s journey. CRM also helps with accessing relevant and timely data needed in the marketing wheelhouse. In addition, the marketing automation tools and access to data analytics help in capturing the customer’s drivers and behaviors while tailoring conversations with buyers.

Association Between CRM and Digital Marketing

1. Tailored Digital Marketing Strategy

Different kinds of customers are exposed to different kinds of marketing. For instance, some customers are more than likely to encounter marketing content through social media than on the web. On the other hand, some others may be subscribed to an emailing list while some others are more likely to find relevant marketing content when an online search is being performed.

The bottom line is that the CRM tools help in understanding the journey of every customer in a different manner. You can encounter how each customer interacts with a marketing campaign with the help of a CRM tool. This also allows you to target each potential customer with marketing content designed to reach them.

Using CRM is important in this sense as it helps in personalizing a marketing strategy that tends to result in more sales and much better brand loyalty in the long run.

2. Better Services and Happy Experiences

No brand can win over customers by the product and price alone but it happens by offering the services and happy experiences as well. A customer who has been happy with the services received is more than likely to be loyal to the company and he will probably be ready to ignore some defects over the superior quality of service as well.

Anytime you have a happy customer, you can be sure that with time that customer will refer many more customers from his social media friend circle and his family too. This can sometimes work as a double-edged sword too because if the customer is not happy with the experience, he/she can talk ill about the company and the product to his friends and family.

In this regard, when a brand creates an e-commerce platform and chooses to promote the products and services then paying attention to the customer relationship management system becomes very important. Brands can use e-commerce as their sales engine while focusing on wider markets and volumes of prospects and customers as well.

With an increase in the volume of sales, there is a need to create the necessary backend process and e-enabled system infrastructure that can cater to the after-sales service and the customer relationship management as well.

Customer behavior has changed largely in the present time because of widespread use of the internet and superior services are expected almost immediately. Since the delivery and service expectations have gone up, servicing a large customer base in a relatively shorter span of time can only be possible with robust online CRM systems.

3. Cost Reduction

An effective marketing campaign helps in delivering a reliable return on investment. A brand may want to achieve some goals such as boosting sales and increasing brand awareness, but more than that one must also be sure that the revenue yielded by a campaign exceeds the cost.

CRM applications offer a reliable lead management solution in a way that the marketing campaigns can be reduced by offloading most of the work that other employees have to perform. With the use of tools designed to manage and analyze customer data, the team can focus on other important tasks easily.

With the use of CRM, time can be used efficiently and the need to hire additional staff is also reduced significantly. More than anything, the CRM tools offer the marketers a deeper understanding of their customers and that goes on to help considerably in the creation, implementation, and promotion of lead generation strategies.

4. Segmentation of Customers

Digital marketing enables organizations to get easy access to behavioral activities on social platforms for increasing their information about their customers. This is the way in which organizations can divide their customers on the basis of their interests, behaviors, and attitudes based on age group and locations.

This information allows organizations to easily communicate and send messages to their customers on the basis of different interests, behaviors, and attitudes rather than the demographic location. Hence, the data received from social platforms can be integrated with the information existing with the CRM tools of the organization so that it becomes a part of the actual CRM rather than dividing various customers on social media platforms.

The overlaying of information received from digital social platforms on the existing information with the organizations also offers personalized information about the customers. CRM digital marketing allows companies to send personalized messages to interesting segments of customers. For instance, special treatment can be given to prestigious customers whereas people with a negative attitude can be treated sympathetically so that they get attracted to a company’s products and services.

5. Connectivity With Customers

The ever-increasing popularity of social media platforms has made it very easy for companies to get more and more information about their customers. This information can be integrated with the existing information collected through the traditional CRM tools.

With the improvements made in the connectivity between the companies and their customers, the way of interaction has changed not just for the companies with their customers but also with their companies. Rather than the direct marketing messages, the customers prefer interacting with the companies directly. This has become possible only because of CRM digital marketing instead of traditional CRM which was earlier based on sales alone.

6. Digital Connections

When the brand uses CRM strategies to create data sheets on the present customers and the leads that a brand has on other customers, it becomes possible to approach customers in a one-on-one digital campaign.

Brands can connect with them using preferences to make suggestions on social networking sites so that they see advertisements and are also reminded of the things they want or like. Brands can send emails meant for personally suggesting some products and services based on a previously made purchase by a customer. This is one of the best lead management solutions because it lets the brands create collateral that interests the customers.

Brands can create blogs and articles that address the things a customer may be interested in by looking at the data to confirm their likes and dislikes. Anytime there is relevant information on a page that a customer finds interesting, that page will be visited again by the customer.

7. Increased Satisfaction

When CRM applications are used to create databases about a customer and product, one can also create a database on customer service calls. This database can be used as a reference to offer the customers just the things that make them happy.

Anytime a brand begins to look closely at the customer service calls, what the customer liked or disliked, and what all was done to satisfy the customer, it becomes easy to create a training program for each customer service representative that allows creating satisfied customers out of every call.

8. Lead Capture

The landing pages are a robust lead magnet for the people who are led to a website for the first time because of lead generation strategies. With the adoption of CRM, the contact information of the leads can be captured in an effective way.

Even if the intention of the customer was to not buy anything on clicking, they can be made curious which can further lead them to feel motivated for filling out the form and reaching out to the brand.

CRM For Online Marketing

Customer relationship management software is a tool that companies can use for recording customer data for future references. It enhances online marketing in the following ways:

Tracking sales figures and determining which promotions are the most productive
Keeping each member of a sales team updated with customer information, probable client leads, and consistent information needed to close sales.
Improving follow-ups and gaining customer approvals.
Connecting members of your sales team to the customers using GPS technology.
Sharing files and information between sales team members so that when one team member cannot make a follow-up or complete a promise, another team member can come forward and make sure that the customer is happy.

Conclusion

The integration of a CRM with a digital marketing promotional strategy goes hand in hand. In addition to boosting sales, the marketing managers also need to focus on building brand loyalty by using promotional activities that help in engaging with the customers along with enhancing value in the relationship.

The key lies in understanding that this is the digital age of business. People are doing more online businesses including shopping, banking, investing, and researching than ever before. If the brands want to stand out in this stiff competition environment, it is very important to come with lead generation strategies that genuinely help. CRM stimulates digital marketing campaigns significantly while showing quick results in a short time period.

For any more questions on functions and implementation of CRM for better digital marketing, get in touch with our CRM consultants at Encaptechno.

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CRM Services, Digital Marketingdigital marketing services, lead generation strategies, lead management solutions, lead tracking software, online crm systems

How to Maintain a Clean CRM Database?

Abhishek Sharma / crm consultant, crm database, crm deduplication, data cleansing, deduplication database / CRM Services

In running a CRM database system, a commonly challenging task is to ensure the precision and validity of data stored in it. When the data maintenance by an organization is not at par, the activities are slowed down, reports become inaccurate, and it becomes difficult to verify details of each record manually because there are other important activities to deal with.

An Example

Let’s consider an example. If a sales representative A from an organization makes a follow-up sales call to a customer and finds out that another sales representative B had already made that call, then the entire situation can be a little embarrassing for rep A. However, the question is where did the confusion arise and why exactly did the rep. A make that call anyway?

Now let’s say that representative A went on to cross-check the data and found that there was no previous record of a call being made to the contact. On further investigation, representative A discovers that there was a duplicate copy of the same contact assigned to sales representative B. Hence, the conclusion, in this case, was that two representatives in the sales team had a similar contact and both of them did their job by making the follow-up call to the client.

This is a classic example of the fact that the CRM has inaccurate data which is why it hampered the sales process in the case of the organization mentioned above. Since this data is not managed, sometimes this can also lead to the contacts being not managed and their phone numbers or email addresses being changed.

Maintaining a Clean and Organized Data Set

In the example mentioned above, we noticed that a case of data duplication led to an embarrassing sales follow-up call. In addition to the duplication, there can also be a chance of difficulty to manage the validity of the data in case the CRM deduplication is not done.

Hence, there is a need to maintain a clean, organized, and valid data set in the sales database so that the data can get updated regularly. Otherwise, the sales reports can be full of errors which can eventually lead to much bigger problems.

For instance, let’s say that an organization only enables a 10% discount on its products according to the policy, and some of the representatives may not be aware of this policy or they can get careless with it and enter a higher discount for some of their deals.

In case this happens, there will be a need to manually attend to the exceptions and set things right. This can be time-consuming for sure and unnecessary as well. Moreover, the representatives will have to be quick in catching the errors so that the sales are not affected.

Thus, all of this comes to one simple fact and that is the deduplication of databases. Using the Zoho CRM by taking the assistance of a CRM consultant can help in maintaining and cleaning the database. Some of the effective ways in which this can be done with the Zoho CRM are mentioned below. We will look at them one by one.

Managing Duplicate Records

The use of Zoho CRM can be helpful in offering a prompt and effective solution to the problem of duplicate records. We will see how to do that in two ways and an example.

Arresting Duplicates before Creating Them

When you make some field a unique field, the creation of a duplicate record is stopped immediately. This is an effective way for maintaining a database.

In case you have marked “Email Address” as a unique field in a module, the CRM can alert you to create a new lead with the same email address just like an existing lead. For making a field unique, you just have to select the “Don’t Allow Duplicate Values” option under the field’s settings.

Merging the Duplicate Records

Regardless of creating the unique fields and double-checking the data, there might still be some duplicate records in the CRM. In this case, the deduplication tool of Zoho CRM can be used to merge the duplicate data.

When the user runs a de-duplicate check, the CRM can automatically merge the records that are the exact copies of one another. In case there is a conflict, a Master Record can be chosen so that the duplicates can be merged into the chosen record.

Other than the deduplication tool, the Zoho CRM also comes with a special “Find and Merge” option that duplicates features. You can use the Find and Merge Duplicates option in case you know which record in the module got duplicated and should be merged.

For example, in case you know that a contact called Sanjay has duplicate copies and you wish to merge the copies then you can go to Jame’s page and click Find and Merge Duplicates. You can select the records, set the right record and merge the duplicate copies.

Validating the CRM Data

Other than clearing up the duplication of the data, one must also be proactive in ensuring the CRM database does not accumulate junk data in the first place. This also means that one should find out ways to validate the data that comes in the CRM account.

The Zoho CRM comes with some features by which you can easily ensure data validity. This also includes various efforts such as putting a process in place, setting some access restrictions, and having automatic record submission for manual approval.

Automatic Record Submission

Being a sales manager, you will often not have the time to look at and verify each piece of information that enters the CRM database. Regardless, you will want to have an eye for some important details such as the product discount percentage.

In case someone enters an unacceptable discount then you would wish to be notified of it. The Zoho CRM comes with a reliable solution for addressing this requirement where the records created by the sales team can be automatically submitted for approval of higher-ups based on customized criteria.

Hence, this is a way in which you can stay informed about the sensitive data that gets in the CRM in case that is a cause of concern. The simple configuration of the workflow approval process with suitable criteria is enough for submitting records automatically for approval.

Data Validation

When a record is added to the CRM, sometimes there can be a situation where you cannot fill all the fields of the record in just one go. For example, while adding a lead, you can see a field called Interested In.

Now at the moment, you might not be very sure but once you call up the lead and ask them what they are interested in, you will be able to fill in this field. In this way, you can also fill in a discount percentage for a deal when you have had a discussion with the sales manager.

In this case, you are following a detailed process. The details can only be entered at different stages of the process. You might be encountered with stages such as lead qualification, negotiation, discount approval, contract stage, etc.

If this is a situation that sounds similar then you can place a process in the CRM and at different stages of the process, you can have the system mandate while validating the information as needed. As the record progresses, the CRM will prompt a user to enter the details in the right context. When the record exits a process, you can have complete information for the record.

The Zoho CRM can be used to create a business process with the help of Blueprint. It helps in designing and executing the process in a systematic manner. With the help of Zoho Blueprint, each stage in a process and its associated people with each stage can be defined. You can also guide your teams through the process execution. You can validate and mandate information while automating routine actions as well.

Customize Fields

The Zoho CRM can be used to customize a field based on the below-mentioned strategies. We will look at them one by one.

Mandate Sales Information:

The first method is to mandate the important sales information by marking the fields as mandatory. A major problem that comes with unorganized data is that many fields are incomplete.

When you send the legal documents by email, you will often see that the street information is missing in the address section which is an inefficient way of doing things. This situation can be avoided by marking the fields as mandatory in the Zoho CRM. Once this is done, a record cannot be saved without filling in all mandatory information.

Setting Maximum Character Limit For Fields:

Many times, you can feel the need to fill a field that is unique to your organization. For example, a unique ID number that comes with 10 digits. What if someone enters 9 digits? In case the system accepts the number then the data will be inaccurate.

When you customize this field in the Zoho CRM, you can set a maximum character limit allowed for text fields and the maximum digits allowed for number fields to avoid this problem.

Maintaining a Style Sheet

There is no doubt that automation does a lot of work. However, there is also no denying the fact that human efforts are important for ensuring data quality. An effective way to ensure that the data entry is easy and consistent is by introducing naming conventions.

For instance, sometimes a country might be referred to with different names and in different formats. The United Kingdom is known as the U.K., Britain, and the United Kingdom. This is why a standard format for data helps in generating precise reports while filtering the records based on the criteria.

You can follow a style sheet with a list of abbreviations and standard data entry formats for addresses, company names, email addresses, designations, etc. The predefined drop-down values also help in eliminating a part of the problem in this case while making the de-duplication of database possible.

Using Roles for Security

The data comes in from many sources and multiple users access it at one time. This means that the maintenance of a clean CRM database is not so easy. However, one of the best and proven practices to achieve this task is to restrict access to data in the CRM account.

You can define the roles that will help you control the access rights of users while working on the CRM data. In this way, the users will modify the records that are relevant to them. The access is limited only to those who are responsible for it.

Conclusion

Making sure that the CRM data is clean is the responsibility of everyone and the benefits of doing the same include a much better understanding of the customers along with an ability to communicate effectively.

In case you need any help in getting started with the CRM data cleaning and maintenance strategy then Encaptechno is a CRM consulting partner that can be at your service. As CRM consultants with a wide range of experience, we have helped many businesses succeed with technology solutions.

Get in touch with us today so that we can clean your data and create a process to keep it like that while going forward.

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CRM Servicescrm consultant, crm database, crm deduplication, data cleansing, deduplication database

Future of CRM in the Gaming Industry

Abhishek Sharma / best crm platforms, crm consultant, customer satisfaction, role of crm in gaming industry / CRM Services

The gaming companies are a large part of a huge and vibrant multi-billion-dollar industry that enjoys great growth while showing no signs of slowing down in the near future. There are billions of gamers all over the world which offers the gaming industry to maximize unlimited opportunities for game development and distribution. However, the ability to drive innovation also leaves many gaming companies with a challenge.

The gaming industry is full of publishers who have millions of players but out of those millions, only a few are actually active and playing. In the present time, building a game, marketing it initially, and giving the entire process a sales unit target is not enough. If the gaming publishers wish to secure a customer base and their organization’s future then going a step ahead is important in regards to customer satisfaction.

Leveling Up in Gaming Industry

Leveling Up in Gaming Industry
If the gaming publishers wish to stand a chance of being heard in this competitive and crowded market, there is a need to level up and be completely connected with the players at all times without any exceptions. It is necessary to watch the players and analyze their journey using CRM tools so that an exceptional experience can be offered at each step. This is where the role of CRM in the gaming industry comes into play.

Forward-thinking is helping some of the digitally mature companies to adapt their businesses by changing them the way in which most customers would love. Adoption of the best CRM platforms helps the digital companies to connect more closely with players all through the product life cycle starting from the first moment a player signs up to the time of retention.

It is about building trust with the audience and making them feel immensely supported and rewarded and this happens when players feel valued in the sense that the bottom line sees the benefit.

CRM in Gaming – The Present Scenario

The present gaming market is noted with very few large companies prevailing over the major market revenue. The fact is that the gaming market is maturing at a good pace with each passing day and a majority of gaming players frequently show up at two or more venues. The overall cost to acquire and retain gaming players is increasing.

Some of the things that affect the present gaming scenario in India are:

Demographics: Oftentimes, there is not a holistic picture of the players, and every member must be researched in isolation and pieced together for insights.
Customer Intelligence: So many gaming firms accumulate a lot of information on their players who actively use their loyalty cards. That said, this information is soiled all over various disparate systems without any efficient mechanisms for centralization and consolidation.
Segmentation: Only a small amount of segmentation is undertaken while players are being grouped on the basis of age, gender, membership status, communication, interests, hospitality balance, gaming spend patterns, etc. The campaigns get organized around these fundamental topics.
Machine Learning: Sometimes, the problem is in the way in which machine learning functions in CRM systems. More often than not, machine learning identifies a direct relationship between large data sets. It just offers a large number of correlations without actually offering some real insights about why something is happening. There is a need for consolidating the customer data into a single storage point.

CRM Best Practices in Gaming

CRM Best Practices in Gaming
In CRM, the entire customer lifecycle gets planned from start to end with each important touchpoint being mapped and proactive communications being planned and automated. It is possible to measure a player’s life cycle in months while dividing it into stages such as early life, retention, in-life, etc.

Regardless, there are some best practices that can win the hearts and minds of players from the moment they log in to the time they spend gaming. Let’s look at them one by one.

1. A Welcome Message

If a player has signed up and has given your game a green signal then there shouldn’t be any option to leave the player on radio silence. As a rule of customer satisfaction, you can start by simply sending an email in real-time, i.e., in case the email lands in the inbox right when the player opens the account.

At the same time, you can also send an in-game welcome message as well. In case a player uses a two-step validation process then you can tell them to check their inboxes. You can also email to offer important information needed to get up and running without any hassle.

There is another option to include relevant links to player tutorials, guides, FAQs, and important community forums. Take out the time to thank your players and make them feel like they are a part of your community straight away.

2. The Initial Period

You can send your clients a “Getting Started” email in the first 24 or 48 hours. This is a fun way to give them access to more resources where they can learn how to level up, hook up with their friends, get rewards and also make in-app game purchases.

You can also track the progress and use behavioral data analytics to work out when they look like they are losing interest while sending reactivation messages. This will lead them to come back and spend more time on the platform.

3. Generating Loyalty

The key to success is to safeguard the loyalty of clients and prolonging the length of their subscriptions. By coming up with new ideas, you can get them to stay for in-game animation, new content, and competitions. You can consider this similar to a brand that comes with a new collection to renew the interest of customers.

If the game is designed while keeping the community in mind then customer satisfaction will follow automatically. This is the way to ensure that the gaming community becomes supportive. The gaming publishers can also be active on forums, provide tools whenever possible and slowly move into massively multiplayer online games.

With the implementation of some of the best CRM platforms, game development can be supported because CRMs can offer methods and tools that have proved successful.

4. Rewards

Playing for rewards is something that all gamers consider seriously. In fact, it is one of those things that encourage the gamers to keep coming back while being immersed in the play and making the most out of a fun gaming session.

If there is a lack of rewards or an inability to see how the gaming session impacts their enjoyment then the gamers lose interest. Hence, CRM can be used for focusing more on offering rewards. The gamers must be clear about what rewards are, what they can do, and how the gamers can use them.

5. Community

Creating a community is the most important step for all online game developers. No matter what the game is or what the product is, all communities work in a similar way. All they need is a subject for discussion and a place for exchanging ideas.

Taking steps such as launching a game site where the gamer can come across screenshots, interviews, and artworks with development team members along with regular updates on the development of future games is something very important.

There are things such as newsletters that help in giving the players regular boosters by sending more information on the game. Things like these eventually help in keeping up the interest of the player until the new release comes up.

6. Social Aspect

It is common to find that most gamers love to play for the social aspect, so the game developers must make the most out of it in all ways. If the game is a multiplayer module then the ability of players to build a community with strangers or even friends is an important component in the enjoyment.

It can be beneficial to use in-game and other messaging tools to remind the players that their teammate is waiting for them. This will lead the players to come back quickly and progress at their game with the help of others.

Future of CRM in Gaming Industry

The future of customer relationship management needs simplicity and sensibility. Without the benefit of predictive analysis, looking for customer information is the same as looking for a needle in the haystack. With the use of predictive analysis and AI, it can be easy to analyze customer sentiments and intent, score important leads, recommend products, and upsell.

One must realize that the customer demands are changing quickly and gaming companies must keep up with them. Using the best CRM platforms can yield accurate and actionable behavior models that deliver much better content and real-time processing based on historical data and in the moment behavioral data that provides a personalized customer experience.

The role of CRM in the gaming industry can be used to its maximum capability by gathering data insights from human analysis for spotting opportunities that improve sales processes. The back to basics approach of combining convenient automation with a human touch can change the face of CRM for gaming companies.

The CRM capability of gaming companies can be used for the better by developing and maintaining a centralized data storage point for guests. One can use more efficient and effective processes for gathering customer intelligence reports while moving beyond market retention to market the growth.

CRM can also be used for detailed segmentation analysis based on common characters while making use of an increased understanding of how segments respond to marketing tactics. With the use of CRM, the gaming companies are looking for a unified view of the customer journey from the time when you know the customer to acquisition, retention, and upselling. In the coming years, the increasing competition amongst CRM providers will lead to a shift in the way gaming companies work with CRM tools.

If a gaming company has a sound CRM system in implementation then there is a good chance to increase the market share and total share of players. The key is to operate with pre-defined objectives, detailed segmentation, and a great understanding of characteristics.

Conclusion

Attracting and retaining the players is the key to success in the highly competitive online gaming industry. The ever-growing multimedia communications offer the game developers an opportunity to make the best use of CRM. Ever since there has been an emergence of online multiplayer games, there has been an opportunity to reach a massive audience of young and motivated fans.

The process of attracting and encouraging them to come back requires effort which is right where CRM comes in. Given the benefits of CRM, the game developers are very much aware of the opportunities and are also keen to make the most out of the benefits of CRM platforms.

CRM is about offering an exceptional customer experience in an efficient and automated manner based on the habits and preferences of the player. When this is done properly, CRM offers an ability to identify and engage with players to create a fully immersive and engaging experience within the first few hours of signing up.

If you need any support in maximizing the value of your gaming platform, get in touch with CRM consultants at Encaptechno for assistance.

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CRM Servicesbest crm platforms, crm consultant, customer satisfaction, role of crm in gaming industry

Streamline Your Business with Salesforce Integration

Rabia Bajaj / business workflow automation, salesforce cloud, Salesforce integration partners, salesforce integration services, streamline business processes / CRM Services

When it comes to achieving success, business performance is considered to be the most important requisite. In case an organization is not performing up to the expectations then no many victories matter. At the end of the day, it must be understood that businesses require consistent management and optimization. If the business processes are not streamlined then the final result will not be so favorable.

Salesforce offers organizations the right tools that help to improve overall performance, boost revenue, increase ROI, and streamline business processes. As a CRM system, Salesforce includes important data about prospects and customers. In addition, it also provides reports and dashboards that enable us to make smarter decisions.

In essence, it is a high-quality customer relationship management tool that supports empowering sales, closing more deals, and improving accuracy. While it is a great investment for customer management, Salesforce integration services also play an important role in offering more value from the workforce by increasing productivity.

Organizations of all sizes can actually benefit from the modern cloud-based solutions that can help in increasing team productivity, promote collaboration between employees, and create a positive customer experience.

Salesforce Integration

Almost all organizations have different goals and as a result, unique requirements to fulfill those goals. For this reason, all organizations use software applications that work differently. The business workflow automation introduced by Salesforce integration brings about easy and effective communication between the Salesforce CRM and other applications using the API.

Each business uses many applications for handling daily activities. Integrating these applications with Salesforce is important to handle and execute important activities with ease. With the assistance of an appropriate Salesforce integration partner, a suitable analysis of data can be facilitated which further supports managers and directors at each level for making powerful decisions.

Points to Consider While Salesforce Integration

All organizations that make the decision to adopt Salesforce must ensure the below-mentioned points. Since the process of integration is different, there are some requirements that should be given due importance. They are:

During the process of Salesforce integration, you must be aware of the kind of integration that is included.
It is important to understand who assists with troubleshooting problems in case an issue comes in the integrations. Often the problem gets solved by itself, but sometimes, human assistance is required.
Finally, the data transfer must be regulated between Salesforce and another app.

Related Read: Benefits Of Hiring a Certified Salesforce Consulting Partner

Streamlining Your Business with Salesforce Integration

In recent times, Salesforce has emerged as one of the most trending platforms used by organizations for enhancing customer relationships. The built-in integration services offered by Salesforce enable an expansion of the capabilities of organizations effectively.

Below, we will mention the ways in which salesforce integration helps in streamlining the business processes.

1. Increasing Productivity

To make sure that all-important data is present on the systems, the team is required to stay on track at all times. With so much manual work to manage, there is an increased chance of making mistakes. The occurrences of these mistakes go on to necessitate more time for identifying as well correcting these mistakes.

This further leads to wasting time and affecting the overall productivity of an organization. However, with the help of Salesforce integration services, it becomes possible to automate processes that further help in ensuring an optimal accuracy of data.

This ensures that all the systems have the same kind of information and there is never any duplication of data. Furthermore, it also allows the team to focus on important tasks while enhancing organizational productivity.

2. Better Customer Visibility

For offering your customers the kind of personal attention that they expect and should be given, it is necessary to quickly access accounts, different events, tasks, contracts, and any personal data.

Salesforce cloud ensures to offer a comfortable platform for managing all the customer-related information while making it possible to treat all customers with immense value. In addition, with a better understanding of customers, one can be in a better position to forecast future actions. Salesforce plays an important role in forecasting accuracy by a significant percentage.

3. Improves Communication

With the help of effective communication, almost all the stakeholders of a company play an important role in ensuring success. However, many times it seems that one department might be comfortable in using Salesforce while another might be keen on working in a different setting. This problem can be quickly solved with the integration of systems in an organization.

The business workflow automation offered by Salesforce helps in ensuring that all departments have easy access to important business information. This further helps in streamlining internal and external communication while also improving information sharing. With enhanced communication in an organization, one can serve the target customers in a much better way.

4. Effective Time Management

There are a few hours in one day, and when a person is juggling multiple responsibilities, these hours can begin to feel shorter and shorter. In this case, Salesforce does an effective job of combining all the important information together.

For example, Salesforce combines the calendars, schedules, activities, and agent information together while scheduling appointments that serve customers in a better way. This basically means that there will be very few deadline-related problems or stress.

5. Efficient Sales Process

Looking for the right leads can be a long-time job. In addition, the process of guiding these leads all through the sales pipeline until a full commitment is another job. Salesforce integration services enable easy tracking of individual prospects including expectations, or other information that could be useful in helping a customer along the sales process.

As such, one can always see where a lead is in the pipeline along with knowing what the next might be. The overall result is that the Salesforce applications have been known to increase sales by a considerable percentage.

6. Better Access to Data

With the use of Salesforce integration, you can allow your employees to access required data from the integrated systems. There is no longer any need to switch to the systems for finding what they might be looking for. Salesforce integration offers all-in-one access that makes accessing data quite easy.

This streamlines business processes considerably because employees can log into the integrated systems and access required data while performing desired tasks easily. As there is no need to move from one system to another, this can help in saving a lot of time while enabling you to work efficiently and in a productive manner.

7. Advanced Collaboration

Salesforce integration means that almost any and every authorized individual can work together to ensure customer success. All it takes is a simple log-in to the company’s database from any internet-enabled device.

By logging in, the team can access important data and information that helps in communicating and collaborating for offering a seamless customer service experience that does not become a problem in interdepartmental miscommunication.

8. Automated Workflows

In the present highly competitive market, the automation of workflows has turned into one of the most important things for reducing any human intervention and saving important time.

The automation is an important thing in the business activities because there is a reduced chance of making an error when there is business workflow automation. Salesforce cloud comes into the picture by easily automating the workflows without any coding. Since it is possible to integrate Salesforce with several systems, the workflow can be easily automated without any requirement of additional codes.

9. Supreme Reporting

The Salesforce integration services also help in improving the reporting system of a business. Since there is easy access to important data, the employees of an organization can gain better insights with the help of different reports and dashboards.

The use of relevant and detailed reports helps in easy management and better decision making. It also helps in finally taking appropriate actions responsible for the growth of an organization.

10. Overall Support

It is a well-known fact that a tool is only as good as its functions. Salesforce integration services provide great support. In case, an issue arises, steps can be immediately taken to make sure that everything gets back to complete functionality at the earliest.

As the complete platform is based in the cloud, maintenance can be done without bringing technicians into the office or paying expensive maintenance costs. You will actually be amazed at the seamlessness in which problems get looked into and solved with ease.

Conclusion

The Salesforce integration services can offer great returns to organizations. They help in streamlining the business processes and automate the business workflow that brings down the operational costs. That said, it must also be remembered that Salesforce integration is more of a technical project that requires expert supervision. For ensuring optimal outcomes, one should make sure to work with the best Salesforce integration service providers.

Hence, in case you wish to offer a better customer experience, get in touch with an experienced Salesforce integration partner such as Encaptechno for the best results.

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CRM Servicesbusiness workflow automation, salesforce cloud, Salesforce integration partners, salesforce integration services, streamline business processes

CRM vs ERP – A Quick Comparison

Abhinav Bhalla / erp system implementation, online crm system, what is crm, what is erp software / CRM Services

Businesses all across the world wish to automate their processes with usually two kinds of software solutions, either a customer relationship management solution, or an enterprise resource planning solution.

Where the ERP system implementation helps companies run successful businesses by connecting operational and financial systems with a central database, CRM helps manage how customers interact with businesses.

Both of these software applications serve the purpose of working as significant data repositories while functioning to improve revenue generation, automation, and overall productivity. They solve the loopholes affecting the functioning of several departments and are often purchased distinctly.

Now, while purchasing these software solutions, many organizations might wonder about the difference between CRM and ERP. Even though both of these are similar to each other in several ways, their fundamental functionalities differ from one another.

In this blog, we will be shedding some light on the topic of CRM vs. ERP with the main aim of doing a quick comparison of these two software solutions.

What is CRM?

A CRM or a customer relationship management software solution is designed to capture all the details about the transactions that go on in an organization with the customers. The primary objective of implementing a CRM is that it helps in building trust and also focuses on maintaining a healthy and long-term association with the clients. An online CRM system can actually be used in various ways so that it enhances the satisfaction levels of a customer.

A CRM can include important information such as:

Customer’s name
Phone number of a customer
Address
Email address
History of interaction
Technical support details
Purchase details

All this information is mostly included in just one database and is handed over to the employees so that it can be used for the company’s benefit. By using a CRM software solution efficiently, it is also possible to contact potential customers on the basis of their needs and preferences. This helps in expanding the brand’s reach immensely. A CRM software might also include benefits such as employee training, advertising, relationship management that are developed considering a client’s requirements.

In simple terms, an online CRM system is excellent for providing a standardized method for collecting and sharing important customer data and cataloging customer interactions. Since the data in a CRM system is standardized, it is very easy to share it all through the company.

When used efficiently, CRM can be used for creating sales projections, contacting customers, shipping to verified addresses, and creating invoices. The goal of CRM is to offer a comprehensive store of customer data that is used for improving sales, expanding customer retention rates, and making much better customer relations.

What is ERP?

On the other hand, an ERP or an enterprise resource planning software solution contains functionality for a wide range of business processes including inventory management, finance, marketing, etc. With an ERP system implementation, it is possible to integrate important processes, streamline them and then centralize all information.

An ERP software has tools that are related to both the front and back-office information. It helps in advancing internal communication and data exchange as well. Other than this, it also offers automation which makes connectivity easy in multiple workflows.

Just like a CRM, an ERP is also made to optimize business operations. Where a CRM is mostly focused on the sales aspect of an organization, an ERP system can be implemented in various departments.

In essence, an ERP system provides interconnected management of important business processes just so that all departments can get the information they need in real-time. In case there is a problem that alerts are sent to the recipients right away. With an ERP system implementation, businesses can remain focused on data and make fewer errors while making much better decisions.

Some of the core features of an ERP system include processing business information, getting important alerts, managing hiring initiatives, managing benefits, payroll, and employee information, creating enterprise-wide strategies, updating accounts, etc.

Difference In CRM and ERP

When we talk about the differences between CRM and ERP, it is important to understand their meanings relative to each other for better knowledge. ERP facilitates business processes across a wide range of workflows which means that in case you are looking to invest in systems that benefit finances, operations, and warehouses, an ERP may be great.

However, an CRM system is more for a customized solution, Several ERP solutions include important functionality, but the total number of custom-related features included in a CRM is more extensive than what may be featured in an ERP package.

The final difference between a CRM and an ERP lies in the scope of work that they are capable of. While comparing the two software solutions, it is always best to look at a company’s needs so that the functionality needed from a solution can be determined specifically.

We will see the primary functions of both CRM and ERP to gain an even better insight into what these software solutions are capable of when it comes to their functionality.

Primary Functions of CRM

1. Storing Information

An online CRM system helps in collecting and storing information about the target customers from the market. The information that is collected is stored in an organization’s database in a centralized way.

This is important data that can be quickly accessed at any time and from any place. The information so collected is used by businesses to understand customer behavior in true essence. This helps in offering better satisfaction to customers.

2. Marketing Programs

A CRM is concerned with personalizing the marketing programs of a business. It helps in designing the marketing strategies according to the needs of different customers while making attempts to attract more and more customers.

The sales professionals are trained properly according to the information acquired with the help of a CRM and opportunities that can attract more customers are then included in marketing strategies.

3. Sales Operations

With the help of customer relationship management, one can increase the sales and revenue generation of an organization. It also helps in increasing the business with present customers and new customers. An online CRM system is focused on processes such as cross-selling and up-selling which help in increasing sales.

After the customers are happy and satisfied with a business, the up-selling and cross-selling techniques turn out effective in the process of business expansion. The customers can start believing in some brands and try their products as well.

4. Customer Relationship

Managing customers is another important task that a CRM performs. It segregates the customers into diverse groups according to the behavior, preferences, and interests. This segmentation helps an organization in understanding customer behavior while also offering much better services.

The customers are treated differently according to the groups that they are put in. This helps in improving the customer relationships and eventually, the marketing and sales endeavor of a company as well.

5. Cost Control

Efficient management of costs is often looked at as one of the greatest challenges while running a business. When this is done successfully, getting better-quality products at a lesser cost becomes way easier.

With the implementation of a customer relationship management system, a majority of expenses can be reduced because there is minimal paperwork involved. The data becomes digitally centralized and also brings the overall cost while increasing the profit margin.

Primary Functions of ERP

1. Business Intelligence

With a business intelligence module, business leaders can make important decisions that are based on meaningful data. ERP system implementation helps in benefitting from business intelligence that enables practical business process analysis and offering reports without any excess information.

These reports can be in a visual format or presented in the form of tables as well. This depends on the preferences of a business manager completely.

2. Customer Relationship Management

With an ERP system implementation, organizations can also get a CRM module that stores important data related to customers. This function of an ERP system helps the employees to get insights that can improve sales and marketing processes.

For example, a CRM can track customers with their buying habits seeing which products might be useful to sell and when is an appropriate time to offer the products. A CRM system is very helpful in the functioning of an e-commerce business because it allows targeting prospects with meaningful ads.

In addition, a CRM module can also help in tracking when the prospects have been contacted and what was discussed while getting rid of additional phone calls that might not be appropriate.

3. Supply Chain Management

The supply chain management offered by an ERP system helps many organizations to enhance the efficiency of a supply chain and use real-time data that optimizes distribution and manufacturing processes. With this function, it becomes possible to solve a logistics problem immediately as opposed to waiting for the next day.

Furthermore, supply chain management also helps in tracking and analyzing processes that help in predicting when a problem is likely to occur. The customers get notified when orders are being processed and shipped in real-time.

4. Financial Management

All businesses that have an ERP system implementation use the financial management function to their benefit. This function works along with the other ERP components for tracking the flow of money in a business.

From the purchase of new things to paying the employees and then sending invoices, everything can be managed. It also helps in budgeting, creating financial forecasts, and offering insights that can help in reducing costs.

5. Inventory System

An ERP software solution also helps in the inventory management system. Owing to this, order fulfillment and warehouse inventory tracking helps in tracking inventory manually.

This system is very useful to the manufacturers or companies that have their own distribution centers in which tracking inventory can become a complex affair. The features can include real-time inventory on the company’s website for informing the customers about what is there and what is not there in the current stock.

CRM or ERP, What to Choose?

If a business needs CRM or ERP or both depends completely on the size and complexity of a business. For small to medium-sized businesses, a CRM manages customer data stores on hand-written notes, emails, etc. Customer relations are fundamental in any business and CRM ensures that they go smoothly.

On the other hand, an ERP is an extremely useful tool that can help in streamlining business processes. It helps in managing different departments within a business by providing real-time information. As any business grows, the need for an ERP becomes clear because, with its implementation, anyone in an organization can know what is going on in a department.

Conclusion

In case, you are trying to choose between a CRM, or an ERP then it all depends on the size and setup of a business along with many other factors. They are both great tools for increasing revenue but the actual functions they offer differ from each other.

Take your time and decide which program is best for your business depending on the scope of your needs and the amount of investment you want to make.

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CRM Serviceserp system implementation, online crm system, what is crm, what is erp software

Salesforce Spring ’21 Release Quick Highlights

Abhishek Sharma / salesforce consultants, Salesforce einstein, salesforce lightning experience, Salesforce Spring '21 Release / CRM Services

We all know that Salesforce releases regular updates to its platforms almost three times a year so that the end-users experience much better functionality and stay in alignment with the new technological advances.

With the release of Salesforce Spring ’21, the tradition of moving towards developing in solution improvisation continues. With the consistent updates, Salesforce is always trying to improve the experience of cloud computing for the customers. The updates are simple, user-friendly, and are only meant to offer a better user experience.

When any new update comes, the platform also updates automatically behind the scenes while benefiting the users with improved performance and functionality. Salesforce also allows its users to submit relevant feedback and their own ideas with the online Salesforce ideas. This tends to create a linear and collaborative community that enables more and more people to put their ideas on the table that can come in the next update and be finally released.

It has often been made clear by Salesforce that the organization values customer experience and satisfaction more than all else and will strive to provide the best possible improvements numerous times a year.

Salesforce Spring ’21 Release

With the new release of the Salesforce Spring ’21 release, our team of expert Salesforce consultants has come together to put forth a comprehensive list of some of the most important and quick highlights for the admins.

The highlights that will be mentioned below will be a brief description but they will offer a high-level description of enhancements and new features as well. With the assistance of a qualified consultant, you can get started and use the best practices for ensuring continued success.

Going through the highlights that are mentioned below will be a great step for using the features. The highlights will help in being ready for what is coming your way. The features of the Spring ’21 release affect all users almost immediately. Hence, we suggest you go through them in complete detail so that you are well aware of the functionality of each of these highlights.

The Salesforce Spring ’21 release is said to help deepen the customer relationships, maximize the ROI, improve user experience, and offer many search filters. In this blog, we will be shedding clear light on all the important updates in the new release so that you can get a better understanding.

1. Salesforce Einstein

In the new release, the Einstein Recommendation Builder is made generally available and is meant to check the data as you keep building. The Einstein Article Recommendations will have a scorecard to help you make the most out of your data and improve the recommendations. You will also be able to navigate more easily with the help of the Salesforce Einstein Discovery story interface.

In addition, Salesforce released Einstein Opportunity Scoring completely for free for all the Sales Cloud instances around a year ago. With the release of this new feature, it required around 200 opportunities to be closed for having enough data to make predictions. However, this has changed completely.

With the use of Einstein Opportunity, one can prioritize the right deals as it helps in applying a score to the opportunities with the help of Artificial Intelligence. In case an instance has a small volume of closed opportunity data then you can use this feature by using the global scoring model which is made up of the aggregated data to score more opportunities. The new customers can start using this feature right away.

2. Vertical Solutions

Salesforce has come up with a wide range of vertical solutions that can be extremely useful for the customers. With the help of Loyalty management, one can run personalized customer recognition, reward, and retention programs. Batch management helps in processing and tracking millions of important records. With decision tables, one can define multiple business rules for evaluating products and calculating discounts.

In addition, the new data processing engine helps in extracting and transforming data from an org while creating records using the transformed data. It is simple to manage sales agreements and account forecasts in the Manufacturing Cloud, support volume, revenue, growth-based rebate programs, and also do rebate management.

On the other hand, the health cloud makes the process of provider management easy with a new API and new FHIR aligned support for the maintenance of health records while the financial services cloud helps in tracking branch performance and capturing life events and business milestones on the go.

Lastly, the Consumer Goods Cloud store visits and delivers smarter features while the Public Sector solutions add calendar support and help in making an application approval process more transparent. The emergency response management adds a list of updated flows for improving the emergency response experience.

3. CPQ (Configure, Price, and Quote) Improvements

Salesforce has come up with new CPQ improvements that include a smooth amendment and renewal service upgrades, background contact amendments, and a change of ensuring correct price rule configuration.

By using Salesforce Billing, you will be able to configure how the invoice lines get created when you use a bill with the data override and map financial information for customer accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

At the same time, you can also highlight the long-term value of life cycle managed assets. In addition, the standalone order activation and product creation logic are also improved because the advanced approvals users can manage their approvals without the need of logging into Salesforce.

4. Unified User Experience

The language used all through the Salesforce product has been updated to reflect inclusivity. The Salesforce Release Notes moved to Salesforce Help for an efficient and unified user experience. The viewed lists now have customizable actions.

You will have an option to add images to the in-app guidance and snooze the guidance thereon so that you can see it later on. You can also use new survey actions in a flow and target specific survey participants with invitation rules.

You can also use the new Salesforce Scheduler trial org for getting a head start on the implementation and set default time zones for the appointment slots. Go ahead and search using everyday words with natural language search for the Government Cloud and the Salesforce Mobile app.

5. Improved Sales

Salesforce has remarkably changed the way in which Sales representatives engage with prospects and the customers. The new functionality has come up to make meetings much better and productive for everyone. The two new aspects of functionality called Meeting Digest and Meeting Studio have come up as a preview in a way that they become generally available but one can also try them on a beta or a pilot overview.

The Meeting Digest is a part of the Salesforce Meetings and is meant to offer a single pageview for the Sales Reps before a meeting where insights can be received about who is attending a meeting. In addition, reminders about meeting invitation responses and details along with any related record activity are also received.

Other than this, the Meeting Studio is a tool that keeps the prospects and customers engaged at the time of meetings. The representatives are able to show their camera and presentations in the same window so that the meetings flow and bypass any possible awkward transitions while switching the content to share next.

6. Marketing Cloud

The Spring ’21 Marketing Cloud is one of the most premier platforms for delighting customers with an easy customer journey. It allows a person to build a single view of the customer, use data from any source along with a plan, and optimize the customer journey on the basis of business objectives.

You can also deliver personalized content across each channel and device at a specific right time. In addition, you can also measure the impact of every interaction on the business so that it becomes easy to streamline the approach in real-time and deliver better results simultaneously.

7. Salesforce Flow

The Lightning Flow in Salesforce has actually been rebranded to the Salesforce Flow. This will include all the processes and flows. The screen elements will now support multiple columns and admins will now be able to configure the screens while making sure of winder monitors by adding up to 12 columns added to a page.

The simple ability to access the previous values in a record triggered flow. The time-based flow actions will allow the admins to configure flows for executing an action at a particular time. This was previously available all through the process builder. The rich text emails will also be introduced which will allow some admins to have more control over the way the emails look and feel.

8. Opportunity Product Relationships

The opportunity product relationships had been in the process of being released for a long time. The idea of this feature was known to be posted on the Idea exchange a long time ago. With the new release, the users will be able to create relationships with the opportunity products so that the sales team can easily access useful information without taking extra clicks or flicking between the screens.

A perfect example of this can be tracking the delivery locations in related lists for a suitable opportunity record. For using this feature optimally, you can create a lookup relationship in the object manager between any standard or the custom object and opportunity product. You can also ensure that the lookup field and related list are added to the page layouts where you wish they should appear.

9. Forecasting

Since it is supported in the mobile version, the feature of forecasting has become simple to update. Forecasts are essentially perfect expressions of expected sales revenue that enable the sales team to predict and plan the sales pipeline. In the past, changes could be done only in desktop mode.

However, with the new release, the users can now make adjustments to the forecasts on the go from their mobile while they are using the Salesforce application. The new updates will in fact help the representatives to stay updated with the forecasts as opposed to waiting until they can access the forecast for making changes.

For the process of adjusting, the users should be in the Salesforce mobile app, they should then select “Adjust” for getting started, enter the required adjustment, add a note, and select save.

10. Manual Sharing

For all the admins who are tired of switching back to the classic mode for sharing records, managing record share will become possible now. Salesforce will bring back the functionality in the Lightning Experience.

The admins will now be able to rejoice as the Sharing button is now available in the Salesforce Lightning. The users will now be able to share a record with the user, or even a group of users similar to the Salesforce Classic.

With the use of sharing, it will now be possible to know who can manage the record and share the associated records. The manual shares are also available only for the accounts, opportunities, contacts, leads, cases, and custom objects.

Conclusion

All in all, the new Salesforce Spring ’21 release has brought about many new changes that offer better functionality to the end-users. In case you find yourself being unable to understand some important things or you have some questions then get in touch with a reliable Salesforce consultant from our team at any time.

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CRM Servicessalesforce consultants, Salesforce einstein, salesforce lightning experience, Salesforce Spring '21 Release

What is Zoho Connect and How Is It Different from Zoho Cliq?

Rabia Bajaj / social intranet software, team chat app, team collaboration software, what is zoho connect, zoho partner / CRM Services

One of the most important and fundamental tenets of doing a business is seamless team collaboration. It is only with effective team collaboration that getting the best out of two or more individuals becomes possible. In addition to keeping the team members safe from facing any burden of work, team collaboration ensures that the work gets distributed evenly.

For this reason, team collaboration software proves to be extremely useful. The implementation of a team collaboration software solution enables a team to work together and solve challenging situations. This also leads to innovation, success, better communication, and efficiency.

Both Zoho Connect and Zoho Cliq are team collaboration software applications in essence. That still, they still differ from each other in terms of the functions they solve.

Zoho Cliq is a business messaging tool that enables teams to communicate in real-time. The team members of an organization that uses Zoho Cliq can create channels for specific projects or teams while making audio and video calls that help in being more productive.

On the other hand, Zoho Connect is more like a private social network for enterprises. It is social intranet software that helps the team members to share ideas and updates, take part in discussions, share important files, create a detailed knowledge base, and automate internal processes.

In this blog, we will see what Zoho Connect is and how it is different from Zoho Cliq in complete detail so that we understand the team collaboration benefits that both of these software applications can offer.

What is Zoho Connect?

Zoho Connect is team collaboration software that is used for unifying the team members, resources, and applications that a team needs. With the implementation of Zoho Connect, the team members can share ideas, hold real-time discussions, contact each other, create their own applications, build the knowledge base, manage work plans, and access applications that are created to make teamwork easy.

Therefore, Zoho Connect can be used when someone wants to keep everything in the loop and understand more about what might be happening in an organization. It has a social network-themed feed that helps the team members with ideation and detailed planning. You can also set up a knowledge base and file repository that the members can refer to anytime when needed.

Features of Zoho Connect

1. Effective Collaboration: Within Zoho Connect, custom groups can be formed based on the completion of some project parameters. Without any lag or formality of an email or team collaboration, the project completion becomes much more practical with the use of Zoho Connect.

Once the team is selected and finalized upon, it becomes a way more effective collaboration with the same group again for the completion of future projects.

2. Real-time Communication: With so many features that the customers use in their lives already, Zoho Connect uses the capabilities like live feeds so that the teams can stay up to date and familiar with projects, share great ideas with each other, and partner on projects for streamlining completion.

With this casual approach to project management, the team members are more than likely more willing to approach the project because the communication turns friendly and teammate-like as opposed to the formality of email communication.

3. Consolidating Project Features: Regardless of how the project development has been taking place, it is more than likely that there has been some kind of shared documentation that is needed to finally bring the project to completion.

With the use of a social intranet software such as Zoho Connect, it becomes easy for the team members to get everything in just one place so that access becomes easy and quick. This further helps in delivering the project at the right time and successfully.

4. Chatting Easily: One of the best and most amazing benefits of living and working in the digitally forward time is the capability to connect with other people in real-time without getting the workflow to be disrupted.

Although phone calls and emails are effective communication tools, it becomes very hard to tend to updates in the same form in case you are caught up in a meeting or trying to arrive at an immediate answer. Zoho Connect helps you in getting a quick answer without disrupting your productivity or even delaying timing on any other projects.

5. Automation Saves Time: On a very frequent basis, we spend a considerable amount of time performing taxing things or investing valuable energy in the completion of tasks that do not require a lot of brain activity.

Fortunately, Zoho Connect has automation workflows that can be easily established so that the team members are not spending valuable time and energy on the tasks while using their time on innovation and collaboration for new ideas.

With useful forms that are customizable to fit a team’s needs, the team can have all the important resources in one place for getting the job done quickly and effectively.

6. Assigning Tasks: A project development can include multiple stakeholders and so, it can often feel pretty overwhelming while managing every person’s expectations can be a task in and of itself.

With the implementation of Zoho Connect, you are able to assign some steps in the processes that should be designated to the team members so that they know what needs to be done. This also helps in eliminating small follow-up emails or a de-motivating work environment between the team members.

7. Mobile-Friendly: The simple ability to connect with another person through a mobile device changes the way in which we can communicate and relate to someone. Zoho Connect is very easily available on mobile devices

The team members can actually reach out as and when the inspiration strikes, in between different meetings, or even to check-in and ensure that the processes are going well and everyone has what they need. This connection offered by the product provides optimal collaboration and teamwork.

8. Integration With Other Zoho Apps: Zoho Connect is an important part of the Zoho family. It is a platform that can be integrated with other products that a company might be using to grow a business. From the email marketing tools to the productivity platforms such as emails and calendars.

Zoho Connect helps in complete communication with other Zoho apps so that all the updates are in one platform and can be reflected in the rest that you are choosing to sync together. This way, you will not only save time and effort, but you will also enable your team to trust the important information that they have as being accurate and updated at all times.

What is Zoho Cliq?

Zoho Cliq is a business messaging tool that helps in real-time messaging and file sharing between the team members of an organization. Most teams use Zoho Cliq when they wish to collaborate in real-time for completing specific tasks with the team members.

In addition, one can also work remotely with their teams by sharing the screen, making audio and video calls, or even by starting a video broadcast. There are chatbots in Cliq that help in communicating data across other applications that a person uses. This makes Zoho Cliq ideal for sharing important information and executing other tasks.

Features of Zoho Cliq

1. Group Chats: One of the most important functions of Zoho Cliq is that it helps in creating an easy space for facilitating group chats between the team members. The team members can create accounts, set up channels, and also invite more and more people to join in. These channels are a way to open up to any member of an account and help in easily inviting or joining someone. Almost every channel can get represented by a name and a description.

In addition to the channel feature, Zoho Cliq also offers a team chat app that supports direct messages with people and groups. An important aspect of Zoho Cliq is the columnar design that it comes with. As an increasing number of channels start joining and messaging, each chat opens its panel or column.

The more chats you end up opening more will be the columns that can fill the screen. This layout is simple and pretty organized because it enables you to open more than just one chat window at a specific time. You can also refer to any conversation while replying to another. All in all, this makes team communication very easy.

2. Video Calls and Screen Sharing: In addition to all the features offered by Zoho Cliq, there is one other feature and that is video calling screen sharing. This makes connecting with your team members much easier and interactive. You can talk to a team member sitting across the world thinking that he/she is sitting right in front of you.

All you need is a stable internet connection and you will be able to make video calls, audio calls, and share your screen effectively with your peers. This can also be done with group chats.

3. Monitoring Conversations: A very common problem with messaging applications is solving all the conversations that can happen between the team members. When a person asks a question or starts a conversation in a channel and in case that might get delayed in the way that the person does not reply at the right time then the conversational flow is disturbed.

Another scenario is that there are multiple prompts in one conversation that may lead to missing out on questions asked by some team members. When your Zoho partner implements Zoho Cliq for you, one of the best features that you will discover is no ignored conversation. When a post that asks for additional follow-up separates from the rest of the channel, it can be forked to a private message.

This forked conversation appears as an independent selection in the list of channels and direct messages that are there on the left with an annotation of being Forked. This is a useful benefit for people who work in different time zones and may feel the need to catch up with everyday conversations in just one go.

4. Extensions: With the team collaboration software of Zoho Cliq, you can be sure about downloading a variety of extensions from the Zoho Marketplace. You can also connect your Google Drive, other Zoho applications, Dropbox, etc. with the integration of relevant extensions. In addition, you can also download extensions such as the meme extension that allows you to post interactive memes in your chat quickly.

An entire list of the extensions that can be integrated is easily accessed on the website of the Zoho marketplace. Zoho makes sure that the extensions are published and created to the Cliq Marketplace.

5. Easy Access: Zoho Cliq offers a distinct ability to be accessed in different ways. The team members of an organization can access it through desktop applications, tablets, mobile devices, or browsers. In addition, if someone is working with different Zoho applications, they are likely to find the Cliq bar on the bottom of a browser so that communication with other applications becomes easy.

In fact, a conversation that was started on a mobile can be shifted to a tablet and then be finished on the desktop. This way, you will not lose any chats and you will also not have any hassle downloading the chats because you will be able to see all your chats instantly.

Unlike other applications, adding a new user to the Zoho Cliq channels means that the new user is eligible to access old chats before the time when they were added. All that a user has to do is a scroll in the upwards direction and it becomes easy to access the chat history. This also means that finding the messages is relatively simple.

Conclusion:

To conclude, Zoho Cliq is a team communication and collaboration solution that helps the team with private channels, video conferencing, searchable chat histories, file sharing, and more. On the other hand, Zoho Connect is a team collaboration application that unifies people, resources, and applications they need.

Both these software applications are excellent for team collaboration and pay off really well in seamless working. If you want to implement either of the two, feel free to get in touch with Encaptechno who can become your Zoho partner.

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CRM Servicessocial intranet software, team chat app, team collaboration software, what is zoho connect, zoho partner

What are the Advantages of Salesforce Over Other CRMs?

Abhishek Sharma / benefits of salesforce, Salesforce advantages, salesforce consultant, salesforce implementation partner / CRM Services

Customer focus and customer-oriented approach is an important aspect of creating a comprehensive ecosystem where the customer data can converge. Connecting significant business areas such as customer services, marketing, sales operations, and account management enables enterprises to get a holistic understanding of the customer while also managing customer relationships much better.

Customer relationship software can offer great benefits to companies. At the present time, many organizations all over the world understand the importance of CRM and implement this software for better productivity. However, with so many options available at one’s disposal, choosing a suitable CRM can seem overwhelming.

In this scenario, Salesforce emerges as one of the most widely chosen CRM adopted by many people and companies. This impressive level of success that is shown by Salesforce is a result of the many remarkable benefits and resources that it provides.

There are many Salesforce advantages that make this CRM a top choice for customers. In this blog, we will be mentioning some of the most common ones that make the implementation of Salesforce indispensable.

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is a customer relationship management solution that enables companies and customers to come together. It is basically an integrated CRM solution that gives all the departments including the marketing, sales, technology, etc. a single share of each customer.

Salesforce actually began as a Software as a Service CRM company. However, today it provides various software solutions and a platform for the users to develop and distribute custom software applications. It comes with multi-tenant architecture and allows customers to share common technology that runs on the latest releases. One never has to worry about application or infrastructure upgrades because they happen automatically. The benefits of Salesforce help an organization focus on innovation rather than just managing technology.

How it All Started?

Much before Salesforce came into the picture, customer relationship management solutions were hosted on the server of a company. It took a lot of money and time for companies to have their own CRM solutions and even after setting up the solutions, the purpose was not fulfilled because the solutions were difficult to use.

Hence, building a cost-effective CRM software solution and delivering it online as a service became an evident solution. This was actually the main idea behind Salesforce which started as Software as a Service company. After considerable development, it has now grown into one of the largest software companies in the world.

Not long after the release of Salesforce, it became a hit because it was not merely a product at a fraction of cost; rather it was a software that solved many purposes all at once. Some of the cloud software solutions offered by Salesforce are Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Salesforce Community Cloud, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, etc.

Advantages of Salesforce CRM

1. Collecting and Using Customer Information

One of the best and most important benefits of using Salesforce is the information that this software solution is capable of extracting, both in terms of quality and quantity. Getting in touch with the Salesforce implementation partner and actually adopting the solution will enable you to look at a substantial amount of information needed before getting in touch with a potential customer.

Now, there are a couple of reasons why this is considered as important. In the first place, it helps you in easily tracking information that is needed to keep your customer profiles organized. You can have all information that is considered useful at just one location and you can also look upon any lead that you want even when the leads are assigned to other representatives. This offers a holistic and complete approach to manage a business.

Moreover, with shared customer information, a company’s representatives can have better control over getting things done. They can also eliminate any possible gaps that a person can have in a customer support model. All in all, it becomes easy to manage and use important customer information with the help of Salesforce.

2. User-friendly

A standpoint that makes a software solution effective is the ability of that software to be user-friendly in nature. When it comes to Salesforce, this is particularly true and cannot be refuted. The CRM solution is designed in a way that even companies that do not have a technical background can use it for their benefit.

The benefits of Salesforce help many companies to reach their complete potential while being easy to use for even beginners. As a matter of fact, Salesforce is competent to meet and even exceed the user-friendliness quotient by offering its users a highly intuitive and simple user interface.

As opposed to many other CRM solutions, there is never any need to get increasingly involved in coding or pouring through information about different product updates. Rather, almost everything is served in an easy-to-understand format which is designed to reduce any problems and difficulties.

3. Scalable CRM Solution

Investing in a good quality CRM solution is actually like an investment. It should solve the business needs of the present and the future while assuring the businesses of better results. Salesforce does just that. Be it looking after a company’s present customer relationships or ensuring a strong customer base that can build in the coming years, Salesforce carries the capacity and ability to scale up.

All businesses have their own needs and this thing is valid for the customers of a business as well. Other than being scalable, Salesforce can also be customized to solve the unique needs of a business. Since most customers look for personalization while getting their needs solved and making important purchasing decisions, Salesforce plays an important role in solving that purpose.

As a matter of fact, Salesforce makes it possible for businesses to personalize the emails that get sent to customers. It takes the purchase history of almost every customer into consideration. With the assistance of Salesforce App Cloud, businesses can create and even run their personalized applications with ease.

4. Flexibility

Salesforce comes with a wide range of benefits for companies and businesses. One of the most important benefits that it offers is flexibility and customization. It integrates seamlessly with business models and is also able to offer a detailed report and analytics tailored to the specific needs of the users.

Furthermore, the benefits of Salesforce enable the companies to measure and monitor the success of marketing campaigns while also customizing the outreach efforts on a need basis requirement. This allows in creating a completely optimized system that has the ability to function on its own. The Salesforce Cloud system also means that employees can access the software from anywhere and at any time, allowing for increased flexibility.

Basically, the objects that are found in Salesforce can be set completely in line with a person’s desires at any time. As a user, you are never actually tied into a certain set of page layouts, workflow, and processes. This makes Salesforce way more flexible as compared to other systems that are present in the market.

5. User Resources

For offering ease of use and educating its customers on the excellent functionality, customization, and flexibility, Salesforce stands out as being one of the best CRM solutions. It provides many educational posts, webinars, and other informative materials on a spectrum of topics that can be published through a comprehensive web-accessible user guide.

The final goal of the varied resources that Salesforce offers lies in empowering customers with the ability to find quick solutions in different ways. Based on what customers might think is comfortable, they can choose a suitable solution because Salesforce does its best to present the solution in many different formats.

In addition to other style resources, Salesforce also employs a knowledgeable, remarkable, and customer-oriented tech service that helps the users in overcoming any difficult problem as and when it arises.

6. Functionality and Integration

Salesforce that offers great services needed to enable quick and easy data collaboration with multiple departments. It also offers centralized customer information, an array of reports, statistical options, and the ability to run on any browser, desktop, mobile device, etc.

In addition, Salesforce also delivers dependable data security and protection which ensures that sensitive information does not get compromised. It offers employers all the resources that are needed for enhanced business efficiency and productivity. Customers can also benefit from better customer service.

7. Time Management

With a comprehensive range of customer information available and a wide range of planning resources at a user’s disposal, one gets the benefit of remarkable time management with the implementation of Salesforce. You can have all the information that is needed to prioritize work for the customers, and this means that you can also organize tasks for different accounts based on the same criteria.

Along with this, the built-in calendar tools can also be used for better visualization of the schedule for the approaching days, months, years. This means that you can constantly stay on the ball all through the steps while nurturing a potential lead.

8. Comprehensive CRM Solution

With the help of CRM Salesforce, a customer can have almost everything in just one place. It is actually a software solution that is capable of fulfilling all the expectations of the customers and the organization as well. If the companies make the best use of Salesforce they can easily be successful in the long run.

In case a company wishes to grow and climb up the ladder of success then one shouldn’t waste time and consider the opportunity of acquiring this software for the company. When the team of a company will be able to facilitate work, develop and explore its full potential, it will become way easier to achieve great things.

Salesforce can be a remarkable CRM option for improving the commercial aspect of a business and lead the company’s sales and productivity. Hence, companies should approach an experienced Salesforce implementation partner as soon as possible to make the most out of the advantages that Salesforce is capable of offering.

Related Read: Benefits Of Hiring a Certified Salesforce Consulting Partner

Conclusion

Salesforce is one of the most popular and highly favored CRM solutions that offer immense benefits to its users. It is a platform that has been evaluated by many users and continues to offer assured benefits. In case you have still not implemented a CRM solution then take that decision today to give your business a positive transformation.

Encaptechno has been working as a reliable Salesforce consultant and implementation partner for many companies. Experience the unlimited benefits offered by Salesforce by implementing its software, today!

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CRM Servicesbenefits of salesforce, Salesforce advantages, salesforce consultant, salesforce implementation partner

Zoho Sprints V/S Zoho Projects: What is the Difference?

Rabia Bajaj / agile project management tools, project management software, what is zoho projects, what is zoho sprints, zoho consultant / CRM Services

The success of any project relies on finding something that leads to team productivity and effective project management. The project managers in any organization are required to see the bigger picture of each project and they might struggle to manage tasks that can effectively fulfill a project’s need.

More often than not, the project managers deal with a significant amount of difficulty to keep a track of everything that they are supposed to monitor which leads to the situation going haywire. Now, in order to get rid of this chaos, project management software ends up making everything much better and way more streamlined.

Zoho Sprints and Zoho Projects are both project management tools that enable businesses to manage projects efficiently. In case a business firmly believes in following a traditional approach to manage project completion and organize several tasks then Zoho Projects is perfectly suitable.

However, in case a business is keen on following a top to bottom approach for managing projects while ensuring a streamlined workflow at every step then Zoho Sprints can be preferred. Zoho Sprints is essentially an agile project management tool.

In this blog, we will see a detailed comparison between Zoho Sprints and Zoho Projects. In case you are running a business or if you are or aim to become an efficient project manager then this blog will give you a descriptive understanding of two of the most effective project management software applications.

What is Zoho Sprints?

Zoho Sprints can be understood as a cloud-based project planning and monitoring solution for businesses that prefer working on an agile methodology. It provides the agile teams with a drag-and-drop feature, a meeting schedule feature, a dashboard to manage everything, timesheets, reports, a team activity feed, etc. This is software that is used by teams of different sizes working on numerous projects.

It is extremely rich in features, very easy to use, and comes at an affordable cost. The users can begin a free trial of Zoho Sprints just by creating a Zoho account and opening the Sprints application. Eventually, the user can get access to an active application that will include a sample project. This app can enable the user to use rich features and functionality.

Features of Zoho Sprints

As an agile project management tool, Zoho Sprints solves the needs of an agile team for a quick and efficient system capable of keeping up with a fast-paced work environment. It comes with a wide range of features that help in achieving optimal performance. Some of them are:

1. Monitoring Project Development

Being aware of how close or how far away the team is from reaching project completion enables to keep a track of development and also achieving milestones within a decided time period. Zoho Sprints has a Scrum board that is used for tracking each team member’s progress transparently.

As and when a team member will complete a task, it will get reflected in the mutual team feed. Furthermore, the team members can also customize the project status dependent on particular requirements and steps of the project. The team members can reopen different tasks, remove errors, and also move stories with the help of the drag-and-drop method.

It is because of these small details that a project manager stays on track with small details while sorting items according to estimation points, priorities, and story. The graph of Sprint activity enables us to see all the changes made including the items that get added recently, closed, opened again, shifted, and the ones that remain idle.

2. Prioritize Tasks

Regardless of the size of different tasks needed to be completed in project completion, they can pile up on one another easily. In case they are not tracked, the ones with medium to low priority may be easily overlooked. With the implementation of Zoho Sprints, this problem can be solved.

The project management software comes with a drag-and-drop feature which enables to move the hierarchy of tasks based on importance and urgency. Moreover, there are reminders and fixed durations that notify the team members whenever there is a newly released sprint.

3. Timesheets Maintenance

With the help of Zoho Sprints, it becomes possible for all team members to log in to billable and non-billable hours. This enables tracking and aggregating the time logs of all team members. According to their discretion, the team members can choose which task they wish to work on while recording the total time spent on working on the same task.

This project management software has a global timer that helps in starting, stopping, and pausing for certain items so that the day’s work can be broken down. Simultaneously, the scrum master and product owner can also approve the timesheets in just one click. This helps in understanding the total time needed for the upcoming sprint and completing invoices efficiently.

4. Enhancing Project Analytics

Zoho Sprints comes with a velocity chart that offers the project delivery rate of a team and also helps in estimating future sprints. On the other hand, the Burnup and Burndown charts also showcase a team’s speed while reaching the project line.

In addition, the cumulative flow diagram is also important for determining any changes in the work progress and finding any possible bottlenecks. The data that gets recorded in these features helps the team members to implement some actionable steps that can further strengthen a team’s productivity and efficiency.

5. Consistent Interaction With Team

While using Zoho Sprints, it becomes much simpler to manage meetings because the software helps the team members to look for upcoming and already completed meetings.

All team members who are supposed to attend a specific meeting are sent reminders so that it is ensured that the meeting goes as planned and something productive comes out of it. Meetings are extremely important in an agile team. Keeping that in mind, Zoho Sprints enables the team members to connect and collaborate with regular meetings.

The above mentioned are some of the features of Zoho Sprints that make it capable of helping an agile project development. Let us now understand what is Zoho Projects and what features does it offer?

What is Zoho Projects?

Zoho Projects is an online project management software solution that enables a person to run a business with much-needed ease and efficiency. It was made to offer a rather holistic solution for everyday problems that occur in project management and adds great value to a business.

It is software that helps in planning, tracking, collaborating, and achieving business targets with ease. You can get started with using this software in a simple way with only a few initial configurations and customizations. This software is available in different subscription plans that solve the needs of organizations of different sizes.

Features of Zoho Projects

1. Task Automation

Zoho Projects enables you to automate a task which means that you can set time for adding a task or even a reminder. It is mainly known for its ability to automate different tasks by setting up a centralized workflow. There is a blueprint feature that enables the creation of an independent blueprint with proper designing, the configuration of settings, and execution of processes easily.

With the help of task automation that Zoho Projects offers, task automation can become way easier because the recurring work is removed. This helps in making sure that just the right steps are taken to complete the project implementation. Different tasks can be easily automated with the help of Zoho Projects and by getting in touch with an experienced Zoho consultant.

2. Forming Task Lists

While a team of an organization is implementing task management rules and timelines, the chances of working continuously are increased tremendously. There is no delay or interruption. A significant feature of Zoho Projects is that it allows creating task lists which helps the users to create a streamlined list of things to be done in any project.

By tasks, we mean that activities that should be accomplished in a specific period of time. For adding any specific task from the dashboard, you can click on the “Add Task” button and enter a suitable name associated with the task. You can also make any task in the task list while including associated files or attachments for the colleagues to view.

3. Document Sharing

Zoho Projects is a project management software that lets users access tools that manage and share multiple types of documents and files. These files and documents can be stored in just one place while being associated with specific tasks. A hierarchy of folders can also be used for storing documents in a manner that mirrors the structure of present workflows.

For uploading the important documents and tracking the file versions, you can click on the Documents button and choose the file that you want to upload. After this, add a description along with important tags and select which folder for the file.

An automatic notification will be sent to the users when the file has finished uploading in case you choose that option. These notices are going to go out irrespective of the fact if a user has enabled a notification or not.

4. Setting Tasks and Milestones

With the help of task management, task dependency views, and project milestones, it becomes possible to carry out resource allocation and report on any function. You can set the tasks and assign them to the staff just as you feel it is necessary.

Other than this, it is also possible to set the due dates for tasks so that they can be delivered in a timely fashion. With every task, there is a timer equipped anyone who is assigned a task can log in their hours while undertaking and completing that task.

A task can have attachments and instructions and it is also possible to form a dependency where beginning one task will depend on the completion of another. Right after the task is completed; the dependency can be set to close. Additionally, custom statuses of tasks can also be configured. The milestones must be logged separately. Either they can be associated with tasks or you can set a milestone for a set of tasks.

5. Gantt Charts

Gantt Charts offered in Zoho Projects are another way to visualize the progress of the tasks that are underway. They allow you to see every detail of a project including the task lists, percentages of completeness, overdue tasks, dependencies, and milestones. Every category is assigned a different color which makes it easy to identify and distinguish the tasks.

Besides this, the rescheduling and reorganizing of the tasks are also made simple with the use of Gantt Charts. You can alter your plans by adding the tasks, dragging and dropping a task from one area of the chart to another, and then editing the milestones just as is needed.

Moreover, you can also switch views on a chart depending on the kind of information that is needed. If you wish to know which projects are due in the coming time then you can switch the view of the Gantt chart for showing the upcoming due dates first. Finally, the Gantt Chart can be customized based on your preference including scaling a chart, filtering the information, and exporting the task data just as needed.

Conclusion

Basically, Zoho Projects is an online project management software for creating and managing projects and Zoho Sprints is a planning and tracking tool for agile teams in particular. Where Zoho Projects help in planning project activities, assigning work, and managing resources, Zoho Sprints is a tool that prepares teams to cope up with changes and complete projects timely.

Regardless, both of these tools help in project management. Whether an organization wants to use Zoho Projects or Zoho Sprints depends entirely on the approach to managing projects.

Get in touch with the experienced Zoho consultants to make your project management goals sorted. They will help you get the most out of these project management software applications according to your organization’s goals.

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CRM Servicesagile project management tools, project management software, what is zoho projects, what is zoho sprints, zoho consultant

Integrate Your Apps with Zoho Flow

Abhishek Sharma / business workflow automations, what is zoho flow, zoho flow chart, zoho integrations, zoho partner / CRM Services

Workflows, deadlines, and the progress of a project are significant things to focus on in any business. Today, we have a different application for managing different tasks. Now imagine a web tool that can be used for linking business applications to produce effective workflows and application pipelines. Sounds good, right?

Well, we are here to tell you that this is actually possible with a tool called Zoho flow. It is a tool made to offer an empowered way for creating solutions that work in the best possible way. With Zoho integrations, you can modify and adjust the flows as business processes change and an organization develops.

With the Zoho flow, it is possible to develop tools for data processing or constructing robust routines for everyday use. Zoho flow helps to solve several problems in an independent way.

In this blog, we will understand how we can integrate applications with Zoho Flow but first, we will begin with the basics.

What is Zoho Flow?

Zoho flow can be described as an integration platform that helps in connecting cloud applications. It helps in setting up important workflows for automating information exchange amongst the applications a person uses. With the use of Zoho flow, there is no longer any need to learn to code for integration.

A flow is actually a combination of triggers and actions. The trigger starts the flow, and the other actions are tasks that are executed by the flow. The trigger can also be a data update or even a scheduled point in time. For instance, it is possible to create a flow that either creates or updates contacts in Zoho CRM anytime a new entry gets submitted in the Zoho Forms.

In the Zoho flow, a flow can be termed as a connection between a trigger and an action. A trigger acts as the “if” part in the “if-then” logic, it is what listens to a triggering event and what “fires” or starts the flow. The action on the other hand is the result of flow. It is best to think of this as the work that gets done once the trigger fires. Typically, it is for people to configure an associated path between applications to share machine-related data with the variables.

The business workflow automation enables one to create a flow that is capable of sending monthly email reminders to the employees for submitting reports. The actions can either be updating data in an application, delaying a project, sending an email, creating a custom function, etc. In addition, it is also possible to include branching logic based on conditions that create powerful flows.

For example; you can have a flow that is capable of sending an email over 15 minutes after an entry gets submitted in a form. This flow has two actions that include sending an email or delaying for 15 minutes.

Working of Zoho Flow

Zoho Flow is responsible for offering a platform that enables a person to create flows that connect cloud applications for automating data and transferring information. It is a tool that helps in saving time so that one can focus on tasks that need more attention. This allows saving time so that one can focus on the tasks that need more attention.

For instance, let’s say that you want to create or even update a contact in Zoho CRM each time a new entry gets submitted in Zoho Forms. Here, receiving a new entry is the main trigger, and creating a contact is an action.

Zoho flow also helps in adding multiple actions to a flow for executing things sequentially. In the example mentioned above, one can add an action for sending a message to a specific channel with details of all contacts from CRM.

The business workflow automations that Zoho flow brings, the logic elements automate complex business tasks down to small details. In this example, one can also configure logic to choose which channel is good for sending the workflow message dependent on the value of a deal.

Zoho Flow Makes Businesses Efficient

Zoho Flow is an integration platform that connects different applications together for setting a person free. From moving important information between applications to carrying out some complex business processes, one can automate a whole range of tasks with Zoho Flow.

The way in which Zoho Flow makes a business efficient is as follows:

1. Dynamic Integrations

Zoho Flow comes with a builder that removes all hassles from building workflows. It has a drag and drop interface that brings all applications together only within a few seconds while giving a flowchart view of all steps involved in the integration.

In addition, Zoho Flow also includes handy editing tools so that one can quickly adapt to workflow changes in a business. The dynamic integrations make business workflow automation much easier.

2. Customizing Workflows

Any efficient business needs extensive workflow management. By using the powerful logic elements of Zoho Flow, it is possible to introduce if-then decision branches for carrying out tasks in tandem or defining time intervals between the tasks.

For fine-tuning the workflows to custom business requirements, one can create functions with Deluge with an easy-to-use scripting language.

3. Automating Workflow

Zoho Flow provides effective business workflow automation with its features. With the use of Zoho Flow, one can collaborate to build workflows and share them all across an organization.

In addition, one can also add team members to an account, be a part of multiple teams and switch between them easily anytime when it is required.

4. Tracking History

The history interface that is offered by Zoho Flow helps in digging through all the Flow executions for identifying when and how a problem has occurred.

This registers the timestamps for every trigger and action that is involved in the Flows and keeps one informed about all details.

5. Workflow Insights

The dashboard in the Zoho Flow tool offers a bird’s eye view of all the business workflows which further helps in analyzing them from just one place.

One can view the list of top flows in an account, the number of lives, paused and drafted flows, execution details, and success rate.

6. Ready to use Flows

Zoho Flows also hosts a comprehensive set of around 200 pre-built flows, spanning across 100+ business applications that it supports.

One can either install or use these Flows just as they are or make simple edits for tailoring them to your needs.

7. Custom Integrations

Zoho Flow is offered in the Zoho One bundle which opens up many new possibilities for custom Zoho integrations.

In addition, now that Flow can power the third-party integrations on Zoho, there is no need to compromise on the applications that are needed for a business.

Functions of Different Zoho Flow Features

1. My Flows: You will see My Flows on the first screen only when you log in to the Zoho Flow account. In this feature, you can view the collection of flows in your organization, switch flows on or off, delete the flows, create a copy of the existing flow, etc.

By clicking on a flow, you can also edit it or view the execution details. All flows consist of three tabs namely Summary, History, and Builder.

2. Builder: The option of builder helps in building, configuring, and editing the flows in the builder. There are various builder tools such as save, undo, redo and test and debug that help in creating a workflow.

You can use app actions combined with logic elements for adding details and custom rules for adding to the workflow.

3. Summary: This is a tab that allows you to view all details related to the flow such as recent executions, success rate, and the connected applications.

By using Summary, you can also edit the name and detailed description of the flow.

4. History: Almost all execution options of the flow are recorded in the History tab. You can view the history for some time by applying a filter.

Click on each execution for more details such as input and output of every task. This is particularly more useful when execution fails and you need to understand where the error occurred to troubleshoot.

5. Dashboard: With the option of Dashboard, you can visualize the most important performance indicators for all the flows in your organization.

The dashboard shows many flows that are in the organization including the ones that are already live or paused and the ones that are yet to go live.

6. Settings: You can manage all your organization details including the flow history, connections, and profile information in the Settings action.

All the data that gets edited here will depend on a person’s role in an organization.

Today, there is a different application for all business functions. By using specialized applications, you can make your functions work extremely well independently, but for these apps to work together, integrations are extremely important. Most of the time, the integrations are too complex to build entirely on your own.

In the past, most people paid a significant amount of money to experts who built these integrations or took the time to learn to code and test these integrations. Now, this problem can be solved. With the help of Zoho Flow, all the apps can be connected together easily.

Conclusion

Zoho Flow is an excellent way to tie all apps together and be entirely free because it brings about excellent business workflow automation. By connecting, automating, and orchestrating everyday tasks to detailed workflows, all business tasks can run effectively.

In case you want to implement Zoho Flow and need support then get in touch with an experienced Zoho partner for the best results. For more information, reach out to Encaptechno, today!

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CRM Servicesbusiness workflow automations, what is zoho flow, zoho flow chart, zoho integrations, zoho partner

PRODUCTS

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SOLUTIONS

Salesforce

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CRM Services

CRM Helps in Converting Online Leads

Digital Marketing Strengthens Customer Relationship Management Efforts

Association Between CRM and Digital Marketing

1. Tailored Digital Marketing Strategy

2. Better Services and Happy Experiences

3. Cost Reduction

4. Segmentation of Customers

5. Connectivity With Customers

6. Digital Connections

7. Increased Satisfaction

8. Lead Capture

CRM For Online Marketing

Conclusion

An Example

Maintaining a Clean and Organized Data Set

Managing Duplicate Records

Arresting Duplicates before Creating Them

Merging the Duplicate Records

Validating the CRM Data

Automatic Record Submission

Data Validation

Customize Fields

Mandate Sales Information:

Setting Maximum Character Limit For Fields:

Maintaining a Style Sheet

Using Roles for Security

Conclusion

Leveling Up in Gaming Industry

CRM in Gaming – The Present Scenario

CRM Best Practices in Gaming

1. A Welcome Message

2. The Initial Period

3. Generating Loyalty

4. Rewards

5. Community

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Future of CRM in Gaming Industry

Conclusion

Salesforce Integration

Points to Consider While Salesforce Integration

Related Read: Benefits Of Hiring a Certified Salesforce Consulting Partner

Streamlining Your Business with Salesforce Integration

1. Increasing Productivity

2. Better Customer Visibility

3. Improves Communication

4. Effective Time Management

5. Efficient Sales Process

6. Better Access to Data

7. Advanced Collaboration

8. Automated Workflows

9. Supreme Reporting

10. Overall Support

Conclusion

What is CRM?

What is ERP?

Difference In CRM and ERP

Primary Functions of CRM

1. Storing Information