Zoho Archives - Page 5 of 12

Focus on Converting Leads With Advanced Filters of Zoho CRM

Abhishek Sharma / lead management life cycle, online crm system, zoho crm customization, zoho crm services, zoho partner / CRM Services, Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementation

The Advanced filters in the online Zoho CRM system, are one of the greatest ways to understand the ways in which CRM works while discovering important insights in no time. It is a powerful search tool that allows you to extract valuable sales information which could otherwise take much longer to find out.

What’s key to understand here is that by the use of a regular filter, the search is based on field values. For example, all leads who are from “Los Angeles”. Now, this is very straightforward and simple.

However, with the advanced filters, it becomes easy to run advanced searches based on the activities associated with records such as leads that have no open activity associated with them. You can base your search on many advanced factors and get results.

To understand the advanced filters of Zoho CRM better, let’s consider an example.

Example: Let’s say that you work in a company called “Pioneer” and your CRM system has been able to get a decent number of leads over the last six months. Even though you have followed up with most of these leads, there is a possibility of a deal that is hidden somewhere amidst these leads and did not respond the first time. Now if only you can pull up this idle lead quickly and follow up again, you will be satisfied.

In another situation, let’s say that you have some leads that are waiting to be closed by the end of the month, but you suspect that the tasks associated with the deals are still pending. Only if you will be able to pull these deals in just one click, it would make sense.

In yet another situation, let’s say that you offer a live chat service to the customers from your website. Imagine that there was a way in which you could pull up the complete list of customers whose chat requests you missed in the past week.

All the three situations that are mentioned above require details that could take a long time to be drilled down using the reports. However, using the Zoho CRM customization and advanced filters, it can become easy to get this information instantly.

This is possible because other than the record details such as First Name or the Phone Number, advanced filters include a wider range of criteria for you to base the search on such as email activity, website activity, activity status, notes, scoring rules, etc. Using an intelligent combination of these factors, you can easily pull out the important records as discussed in the scenarios above.

Filter Records Using Advanced Filters

For filtering the records using advanced filters, the following steps must be taken.

Go to the module that you want
Choose the required module list view.
In the Filter (Records) By, select the desired combinations. You can also choose any number of search combinations as required.
Click on Apply Filter and the records that meet the criteria will be shown.
You can choose the records and assign suitable follow-up activities or run macros on them as well. You can also save the filter for future use.

After you have saved the filters, you will be able to see the overall number of records in every filter that will be updated in real-time. You will be able to see the number of records in every filter that will be updated in real-time. For example, you can save a filter in the Leads module called “Idle leads”.

Right when the number of records matching the filter’s criteria differs, the updated count can be displayed beside the name of the filter. This can help in quickly getting a snapshot of the volume of records under each saved filter and prioritize your actions accordingly.

Using Advanced Filters Effectively

Below are some of the common sales scenarios in which you can effectively make use of the benefits of advanced filters in the online Zoho CRM system. It must be remembered that these are just examples. There are some scenarios you can come up with depending on the combination of the search criteria.

1. Explore All Unused Leads

You can work on a new set of leads almost every week. With time, you lose track of the leads that needed a second or third follow-up.

Among the idle leads, there may be a great deal waiting for you but only if you follow up on it. The advanced filters can search records for you within a few seconds only.

2. Discover All Records For Conversions

You can also be aware of all chances of converting a lead and winning a deal with the Conversion Prediction by using Zia. Although this will make it simple for you to prioritize the leads and deal with high chances of conversion, you can also explore the ones you thought had less or no chances of conversions, but are trending now.

Using the advanced filters, it is possible to pull leads and deals that are trending recently with better chances of conversion than ever before while ensuring that there is no opportunity missed.

3. Track Sales Activities

You want to keep a track of all the sales activities as well as that of the subordinates. Using advanced filters, you can narrow the deals to which there is no activity associated with the next month but the closing date is still within the present month. You can also add the potential amount as a different criterion which can further narrow down the search.

To go a step ahead in this Zoho customization, you can also mention the potential amount. If you get a list of records for deals that are worth more than a certain amount to be closed this month but for which that are overdue activities then you must pay attention. Other than the overdue tasks, you can also filter the information about deals.

You can filter the information by deals closing this month but no activity, notes, and emails associated with them, and deals that have been lost which may want to reopen, and a follow-up. The advanced filters make it easy for sales managers to hunt down cases and act on them.

4. Filter Contacts Based on Deal Stages

Let’s imagine that you are looking to send emails and other relevant documents to those contacts that are in the value proposition stage. You can manually search for each contact that is in the stage that is consuming time.

Using the advanced filters in the Contacts module, you can choose the contacts easily. The contacts that match the criteria will be displayed in this way. You can also choose all these contacts and send a mass email, take bulk action as needed, and update records.

Tracking Records Based on Campaign Responses

Anytime you filter records based on the responses to the recent campaigns, you will be able to approach the potential customers in a much better way with a refined message based on their response.

Let’s say that all the recipients that were targeted in the recent campaign have opened the email and clicked on links in the email. You can also be sure that they are in need of your offering and are also interested in understanding what you want to offer. With the final push, you will be able to effectively convince them and help in making a good decision.

All contacts who have either just opened your email or clicked on the link that are listed are your prime prospects to be convinced and converted into your business. You can use the below-mentioned filters:

1. Time Tracking Filters

The advanced filters Zoho customization includes a set of time tracking filters whose purpose is to easily let you filter the records that have been worked on or not worked on in the specified time period.

For instance, you can effectively filter the leads that have been untouched for the last 5 months. For doing this, you can use the time tracking filter called “Untouched Records” so that you can get a picture.

2. Act on Insights Discovered

The advanced filters do not just enable you to discover the quick insights but also follow up on the results obtained. For example, you have discovered the potential leads that go unnoticed that need your attention but now what?

When you filter the records, advanced filters let you act on them instantly. Quick actions can be taken on records such as Macros, Mass Update, Assign Owner, and so on. From this page, you can follow the records instantly.

Filter Records With Visitor Tracking Information

Having a website pays off only when you are able to track who is visiting that website and make your insights about how people use the website when they visit, and what actions they take. This is key information that helps in serving the visitors better and convert the visits to the customers.

The use of advanced filters in CRM helps in making inferences about leads and contacts who visit the website with the help of a visitor tracking parameter. You can filter the contacts and leads based on fields such as the time spent on the site, chats missed, browser used to track the site, and so on.

Some of the situations in which visitor tracking information could help in making important inferences include:

1. Following Up With Contacts

If you have a list of contacts who are at a stage of conversion and out of these contacts, you are closing deals this month then you can do a more detailed search by choosing a potential amount for these deals.

Some of the contacts may have messaged you on chat as well but you might as well have missed these messages. With the advanced filters, you can filter out these contacts easily.

2. Tracking Leads Based on Time

It is possible to track the leads based on the average time spent on the website. This is also an effective way of converting leads to deals.

When the leads spend time on the website, you can know that they are interested in getting converted. You can take the right steps needed to trace them.

3. Tracking Leads Based on Email Address

You have filtered the contacts based on the stages in the pipeline of sales. The sales managers can track the progress that their sales representatives have made by entering the email address of the sales representatives who have attended to specific leads.

If you want to search for leads associated with a name called Alan Grey then you have to enter the email address of the sales representative who was dealing with Alan Grey.

4. Browser Compatibility

When the leads are filtered based on which browser your leads have used, it becomes easy to enhance the design of that website for that browser.

For instance, you are looking for leads who have used Google Chrome to access the website. In case a large number of leads are found through the filter, you can enhance the browser compatibility.

Conclusion

The sales process can become remarkably smooth when you focus on converting leads with the advanced filters of the Zoho CRM. These filters are made to make the job of sales professionals much easier and effective.

In case you need any further support to understand the use of these advanced filters then get in touch with our experts at Encaptechno for assistance.

Focus on Converting Leads With Advanced Filters of Zoho CRM Read More »

CRM Services, Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementationlead management life cycle, online crm system, zoho crm customization, zoho crm services, zoho partner

What is Zoho DataPrep? | Self Service Data Preparation

Abhishek Sharma / ai powered data preparation, data cleansing software, what is data warehousing, zoho partner / Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementation

The productivity provider SaaS provided Zoho entered the business intelligence platform field in July 2021. Zoho announced an AI-powered data preparation, business intelligence, and self-service platform application that combined the new Zoho DataPrep application with an enhanced version of Zoho Analytics.

This was to win over business users with a combination of features that focused on ease of use, supporting the data preparation, and the ability to blend internal data with the outside data sources. Zoho DataPrep application is self-service data preparation and management tool that uses machine learning to help business users integrate, transform, enrich, transform, and catalog data for creating and managing data pipelines.

Zoho has also added an integrated enterprise portal builder called Zoho Sites and presentation software called Zoho Show to the platform. This is for helping business users put their ideas into context. Basically, Zoho aspires to reduce any friction by empowering business users to drive decisions with data and without learning any new tools.

In this blog, we will learn about Zoho DataPrep in complete detail. So let’s begin.

What is Zoho DataPrep?

Zoho DataPrep is data cleaning software that enables organizations to prepare high-quality data by automatically looking for errors, discovering data patterns, cleaning, transforming, and enriching data. This is without any need for coding. It also helps in setting up data pipelines for syncing prepared data to Zoho Analytics or to any data warehouses.

Using Zoho DataPrep you can connect, cleanse, transform, enrich, schedule, and export data with ease. In addition, you can also catalog and manage how the prepared data is consumed with fine-grained controls. It is also possible to import data into Zoho DataPrep from over 50+ data sources such as files, FTP, feeds, cloud storage, databases, and data warehouses while making it simple to bring the data together.

The functions of Zoho DataPrep are:

1. Cleansing and Improving Data Quality

Zoho DataPrep helps in automatically profiling data for viewing distribution, outliers, statistics, and data quality. You can clean and improve data quality by removing duplicates, fixing invalid data, and missing values.

2. Transforming Data

Using the AI-powered data preparations and intelligent suggestions, one can apply over 250 transforms and prepare the data. You can learn to take advantage of machine learning to enrich data with sentiment analysis, keyword extraction, language detection, and much more.

3. Data Lineage

You can track every change applied to the data using ruleset. It is also possible to modify, disable, and remove any changes at any point in time. You can reuse rulesets for applying the same set of changes in other datasets while removing automated data preparation.

4. Data Catalog

The Zoho DataPrep can be used to catalog and manage datasets by categories, data quality, custom tags, data readiness, and much more. You can perform a system-wide metadata search powered by Zia for improving discoverability.

5. End to end data Pipelines

The organizations continue to gather data each day and cleaning it is never a one-time task. It includes setting up pipelines by automating imports, preparing data using rule sets, and exporting to destinations. This status can be monitored and one can also get notified in case there are any changes to improve the data quality.

Basically, you should use Zoho DataPrep because it helps in doing the below-mentioned things.

Empowers business users with a self-service data preparation
Offers high-quality data for any business need
Helps in identifying the next step with augmented data preparation
Brings unstructured data into the fold
Helps in being expansive scale with the cloud
It is an extensible data preparation platform with powerful APIs.

Zoho DataPrep is multipurpose software by design. It can fit in wherever it is needed. It helps in:

1. Advanced Analytics

The high data quality helps the data analyst to get deeper insights from business intelligence and analytics tools. The use of Zoho DataPrep reduces the time and effort needed to prepare the data.

Basically, data analytics enables organizations to interpret and analyze the data and make data-driven decisions. The data analysts can clean and prepare inconsistent and invalid data before coming on to analysis and insights.

The data analysts and scientists spend around 80% time preparing data and the use of Zoho DataPrep helps in speeding up the process and improving the data preparation experience.

2. Data Warehousing

You can run automated data pipelines from various sources to Amazon Redshift, Microsoft Azure SQL, and other popular cloud data warehouses.

It is also possible to build resilient and end-to-end data pipelines while connecting multiple siloed data sources to the data warehouse of an organization. This can be done with easy to maintain and low-code platform.

3. Machine Learning

The overall efficiency of the machine learning model is dependent on the quality of the data used for training it. The use of Zoho DataPrep helps the data scientists with data cleaning at a full scale without any need for coding.

Zoho DataPrep can be used to perform data collection, cleaning and pre-processing, feature engineering, and data labeling with the Zoho DataPrep.

4. Business Processes/Migration

You can migrate data between business apps using the DataPrep. It can be used for cleaning and enriching the data in business applications such as CRM, help desk, and survey tools for weeding out any duplicates and validating records.

Hence, the Zoho DataPrep can be used for enhancing the data quality, improving data flows, inefficiencies, and removing any redundancies across an organization.

Now that we have had a look at Zoho DataPrep in complete detail, let us now have a look at the features of Zoho DataPrep in complete detail. This will help in understanding what Zoho DataPrep can do for us.

1. Connecting to Multiple Sources

You can eliminate data silos in an organization, connect to it and a variety of other sources including feeds, files, cloud storage, warehouses, databases, and business applications.

Import Files: It is possible to import files from anywhere in a wide range of formats including CSV, XLS, TSV, TXT, XML, XLSX, HTML, JSON from local storage, URLs, FTP servers, or from cloud drives such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box
Warehouses and Databases: It is also possible to import data from a wide range of warehouses and databases.
Tight Integration: Zoho DataPrep allows in connecting and cleansing data directly from Zoho Analytics using the built-in connectors.

2. Improving Data Quality

With Zoho DataPrep, you don’t ever have to miss out on important data with an intelligent solution.

Data Quality: Zoho DataPrep helps in viewing valid, invalid, and missing data from each column using the data quality bar. You can filter and cleanse data using intelligent suggestions while improving the data quality and removing duplicate and invalid data.
Smart Modelling: You can automatically find data types, create custom data types to find and fix invalid data, and get suggestions for joining the datasets.
Data Distribution: Zoho DataPrep helps in understanding your data better with the help of multiple widgets like value distribution histogram, outliers, text patterns, value statistics, and more.

3. Transform and Enrich Data

Using the interactive data preparation studio, the data can be transformed without any code.

Smart Selection: You can highlight the required part from the data and DataPrep helps in looking for selection patterns to offer accurate suggestions for extracting, counting, replacing, and splitting data.
Transforming: It is possible to format and change the data using more than 250 transformations without the need for any coding. The data can be reshaped using pivot, unpivot, and summary transforms.
Blend Data: The data can be blended from a wide range of sources using the join and append transforms.
AI-Powered Enrichment: The data can be enriched with AI-powered transforms such as keyword extraction, language detection, sentiment analysis, and much more.

4. Automating Workflows

The automation of mundane tasks is one of the quickest ways to reduce time in preparing data. With the use of Zoho DataPrep, it is possible to schedule the data preparation workflows and receive alerts as well.

End-to-end Data Pipelines: You can set up end-to-end data pipelines by connecting data from multiple sources, blending and cleaning data, and syncing to various destinations.

Monitoring Data Quality: The use of Zoho DataPrep helps in continuous monitoring of data quality while sending alerts anytime the quality drops.
Tracking and Reusing: The rulesets can be used to track any changes made to the data and reusing them across datasets.

5. Catalog Data

The built-in management capabilities help in classifying, cataloging, and governing data using the Zoho DataPrep.

Discover Data Easily: The data can be discovered easily using a system-wide search capability powered by Zia.
Mark as Ready: When the data is all prepared and set, it can be marked as ready for letting your team know that the data is available for sharing and exporting.
Data About Data: More metadata can be added to the datasets and workspaces using the tags and improving searchability and filtering. All the important details about the datasets and workspaces can be found in a single overview pane.

6. Safe Data Sharing

You can collaborate seamlessly with the teams and offer fine-grained permissions for ensuring that the users access the data intended for them.

Setting Access Permissions: You can set access permissions for sharing data, share workspaces with users and groups in an organization, and set role-based access controls to share data securely.
Data Audit: You can get a detailed report of changes made to your data. The datasets when shared and exported can be tracked and exported. In addition, you can also verify if the security measures are applied to protect personal data before sharing or exporting the datasets.

7. Security and Compliance

The Zoho DataPrep enables you to find personal data in your dataset, ensure privacy by masking or tokenizing sensitive data, and also enables to adhere to privacy policy and data protection regulations such as GDPR.

All the data associated with the Zoho DataPrep is encrypted in transit and at rest.

Zoho DataPrep In Sum

An important part of any business analytics tool starts with preparing the data for insights. Zoho’s DataPrep is an AI powered data preparation platform that takes out a lot of manual work for correcting formatting, updating fields, and determining missing values. This enables the clients to set up once and save time without being dependent on difficult processes and inaccurate spreadsheets.

The Zoho DataPrep platform is on its way to becoming AI-driven data analytics and self-service tool through data preparation and augmented analytics. It is a BI platform that will allow its customers to clean, unify, and analyze cross-departmental data and obtain an encyclopedic view of the company.

This is a solution that combines Zoho DataPrep which automates and simplifies challenges of importing data sources along with an enhanced version of Zoho Analytics 5.0. The users launch queries for a deeper understanding of data by using the graphical tools or using Ask Zia which is Zoho’s conversational AI platform. The end goal is to make things simple for end-users so that they can construct and share analytics featuring pre-built visual dashboards for data integration and flexible deployment.

Conclusion

Zoho DataPrep is advanced self-service data preparation and pipeline service that helps organizations prepare and manage huge volumes of data. In case you wish to implement Zoho DataPrep then get in touch with a qualified and certified Zoho partner who can guide you at each step.

At Encaptechno, we have a team of Zoho consultants who have helped many companies reach their maximum potential with the use of Zoho. Get in touch with us to advance your business and become a leader in your industry.

What is Zoho DataPrep? | Self Service Data Preparation Read More »

Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementationai powered data preparation, data cleansing software, what is data warehousing, zoho partner

6 Reasons to Integrate QuickBooks with Zoho

Abhishek Sharma / accounting software, quickbooks integration with zoho, zoho crm integration, zoho partner / Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementation

Managing finances is one of the most important and complicated functionalities of a business. It is only with superior financial health that a business can grow. For many companies, hiring a finance specialist or an accountant can be a costly affair, but the good thing is that small business owners have an alternative available to them. They can either become well versed in managing their own finances or they can purchase affordable accounting software such as QuickBooks.

Quickbooks is popular as affordable accounting software that enables businesses to manage different aspects of accounting and finance. The integration of QuickBooks with Zoho CRM increases the functionality of account management much more.

As it is well known, Zoho CRM is a customer relationship management solution that helps business owners manage and delegate business activities such as customer support, team management, lead management, social media management, etc. It collects and manages all the information related to a customer from the stage of procurement of leads to the time when they are converted into customers.

Multiple functionalities are involved when a lead decides to purchase a product or a service. The Zoho CRM integration with QuickBooks helps the business owners manage and understand the financial aspects much more easily. The integration of Zoho CRM with QuickBooks helps in doing the following things:

Easing the data transfer between Zoho CRM and QuickBooks.
Exporting records and synchronizing vendor or customer details.
Keeping important data as a common record or fields between the two solutions.

QuickBooks helps the sales team generate and track invoices, track expenses and bills, generate detailed financial statements of your business to keep track of the income, profit, and expense, keep track of employee work hours and offers salary accordingly, and much more.

The thing is that Zoho CRM already has features for tracking inventory and QuickBooks makes it extremely simple to track the quantity and cost of inventory. QuickBooks helps its employees and businesses to manage taxes, scan receipts, and send them back to the customers through Zoho CRM.

After seeing an overview of why one should integrate QuickBooks with Zoho, let’s look at the reasons in detail.

1. Measuring Productivity

Time tracking can go a long way in measuring productivity of employees. With Timesheets, one can get a detailed understanding of the Project costs and budgets. When Timesheet gets integrated with QuickBooks, many things can be done.

The time logs from approved timesheets can be pushed as Time Activity or as Time Charge and the employees can be paid out on the basis of the approved timelogs using this integration. The time logs that are created for clients get pushed as Time Charge in the local currency.

Please note that the currency defined when the client was created on Zoho People should be the same as the local currency in QuickBooks because if this is not the case, the time logs can be pushed as Time Activity. The time logs created without being associated with any clients will be pushed as Time Activity for which the payment can be carried out in QuickBooks.

Basically, the bills that have been generated in the Zoho account can be pushed as Invoice into QuickBooks. The currency used in the bill can be the currency of the organization as created in QuickBooks. However, in case you would like to push the bill in some other currency then you can enable an option called Multicurrency in QuickBooks.

2. Inventory Management

The Zoho inventory is integrated with QuickBooks online for making the accounting and inventory management proceed seamlessly. This seamless integration can help the QuickBooks users easily access all of their sales and purchases in the Zoho inventory.

With this Zoho CRM integration, you can import your accounts into the Zoho Inventory from QuickBooks Online. In addition, you can also export your invoices, credit notes and bills along with their payments from Zoho Inventory to QuickBooks Online. The only thing is that you must have an active account with QuickBooks online.

Remember that you cannot connect multiple QuickBooks organizations to your Zoho Inventory organization and vice versa. The base currency of the organizations should be the same. In case you have enabled multi currency in Zoho Inventory then you have to enable the same in QuickBooks as well.

3. Transfer Important Data

The business owners are completely aware of the hassle that bookkeeping can bring with it. With the integration of Zoho CRM and QuickBooks, it is possible to create and update all the sales orders, customers and product list, invoices, etc. This integration can help in syncing data with the Zoho CRM so that you can gain complete visibility of customer updates with Zoho.

Zoho CRM also enables all aspects of the business to work in complete sync. You can depend on this accounting software for managing incoming and outgoing payments. For example, in case you are in a conversation with a client and they are enquiring about the latest sales that was processed then instead of going through the task of flipping through QuickBooks, you can stay within your Zoho account and have all the questions answered.

4. Importing Data

Zoho Books is an ideal accounting package for many businesses that seek an affordable and a user friendly alternative to other cloud accounting solutions. It offers a wide range of features that make getting paid easier than ever.

The QuickBooks integration with Zoho CRM can help you in using the best of both Zoho Books and QuickBooks. Zoho Books features an intuitive client portal that helps in accepting bulk payments from customers, expediting the estimate approval process and accepting valuable customer feedback.

In fact, Zoho Books also allows you to send and confirm sales orders before they get sent out along with an automatic reminder that can be set for invoices and bills so that it can be ensured that the client pays at the right time and you never fall behind when it comes to timely payments. Zoho Books can also offer seamless scalability for growing businesses integrating with Zoho’s line of business apps, payment gateways, POS appa, G Suite, and more.

5. Syncing Contacts

QuickBooks is an accounting application for small businesses and one man bands. It is a full scope of app integrations and features including billing, accounting, invoicing, and estimates which helps in keeping the books balanced and staying organized without ever losing valuable time.

On the other hand, the use of Zoho CRM empowers businesses of all shapes and sizes to automate many business workflows, get extensive reporting and analytics, and engage with customers through various channels such as social media, email, phone, and live chat. Zoho CRM is an important part of Zoho’s suite of applications and it integrates natively with other Zoho products.

You can create customized book sync for QuickBooks in less than five minutes. All you have to do is add collections, actions, and map the billing fields. You can either have all of your customers and suppliers sync two ways with QuickBooks or do it based on the custom attributes in your CRM or marketing platform. On the other hand, you can also go for a simple one to one integration or a workflow that spans across multiple apps within minutes without any technical help.

6. Saving Time and Energy

QuickBooks is one of the best solutions designed for small and medium sizes businesses. It is easy to set up and use because it replaces the need for spreadsheets. Zoho CRM QuickBooks helps in keeping track of all the money coming in and out of the business.

It is structured in a way that it makes the accounting process implemented automatically within the software. This further helps in saving time and energy for the financial team and helps the team to concentrate on other important tasks.

In essence, any business that opts for QuickBooks integration with Zoho CRM can benefit from the time saved by providing payment and invoice information for salespeople while reducing any need for double accounting entries. This is the best option that revolves around important factors of affordability, direct integration, user friendliness, and customer support. All these factors can strengthen the sales cycle and enhance customer experience.

Conclusion

The benefits of Zoho CRM with QuickBooks online cannot be stressed enough. The syncing of these two programs can help a company manage each of their accounting functions. This integration is also extremely user friendly and can help the users with a virtual orientation process.

With this integration, the team also does not need much time for making adjustments because most of the features can be easily activated with just a click of a button. All the updates are designed to streamline the relationship between a client and a customer.

In case you need any more support to make the QuickBook integration with Zoho possible then Encaptechno is at your service. Get in touch with us to get the process of integration going.

6 Reasons to Integrate QuickBooks with Zoho Read More »

Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementationaccounting software, quickbooks integration with zoho, zoho crm integration, zoho partner

Benefits of CRM Integration With Google Analytics

Abhinav Bhalla / crm consultant, crm integration, data analytics, google analytics integration with crm, targeted marketing strategies / CRM Services, Digital Marketing

Google Analytics enables the measurement of the effectiveness of all marketing channels. It is a great platform that stores the online behavioural data of visitors. Now, if we integrate Google Analytics with a CRM then the overall productivity increases manifold. This is because CRM has additional data stored about the customer’s offline activity.

The CRM integration can help in getting data that can further be used to run different types of campaigns such as SMS, calling, emails, etc. for tapping the warm and hot leads. These are the traditional campaigning strategies that can be used by almost everyone while making a product or a service offer a tough battle against all competitors.

In the case of online marketing, the first party cookies are used for exclusively reaching out to the visitors of a website while they surf other websites on Ad Networks such as Double Click, Amazon, Google Display Network, etc. In the case of lead generation and e-commerce websites, in case we combine the CRM with Google Analytics then a platform can be created for user segments for carrying out online remarketing.

Why Integrate CRM with Google Analytics?

The Google Analytics integration with CRM helps in creating custom reports, remarketing audiences, segments, etc. This is because of more comprehensive customer insight. In other words, if Google Analytics gathers general audience patterns, CRM binds some user peculiarities to a specific User ID or Customer ID.

In addition, the CRM system stores detailed data on selling some products. For instance, you can classify some items by a supplier and transfer the indicators to a Google Analytics account while widening some specifications of the marketing performance reports and simplifying the process of comparing the key performance indicators between two systems.

The implementation of Google Analytics alone cannot be used for tracking some purchases and transaction data which can affect the final figures as well. However, the system in tandem helps in avoiding this problem because factual reports can be received on the marketing and business effectiveness.

Google Analytics helps with demographic analysis, traffic sources, visit duration, location details, product views, session numbers, technical aspects, etc. On the other hand, CRM helps with sales, lead nurturing, customer age bracket and gender, products returned, email survey feedback, user loyalty, etc.

With the Google Analytics integration with CRM, the immediate features that can be availed are:

No requirement for data structuring which largely simplifies the work of executors and the cost of the implementation as well.
Preliminary verification can be done which reduces the occurrence of problems in the future. You can check before loading to prevent any errors.
The system gets notified in case of any failures as it takes into account the specifics of Google Analytics Management API. In case it is necessary, support can be provided for troubleshooting.
There is immense flexibility in using data which means that it is possible to use information from internal databases for generating GBQ reports.
The integration does not require any involvement of specialists in the IT field. This functionality can be intuitive.

The CRM integration with Google Analytics can open new opportunities for working with new clients. With this integration, targeting will be as precise as possible. In essence, this integration enables remarketing, segmenting, and building custom reports.

Benefits of CRM Integration with Google Analytics

The overall benefits of using data from a CRM can be talked about limitlessly. There is a wide range of data that can open up new opportunities for further advancement. The main difference from Google Analytics, familiar to all of us, is the binding of information to the users.

Below, we will see the benefits of CRM integration with Google Analytics one by one.

1. Improved Monitoring

You can know all about a user and how that user has previously interacted with a company. In addition, CRM integration helps in forming an analysis that allows for more monitoring.

Buyers can be segmented by the frequency of purchases and the average check while uploading information to Google Analytics for getting maximum results. This also makes it possible to create audiences that can be later used for remarketing.

It must be noted that it is best to start the integration process by ensuring that both platforms have a common data key, particularly when the integration is being done for remarketing. You can either display a CRM ID on your website or shift this to Google Analytics in a custom dimension form. In addition, you can also shift each customer ID produced by Google Analytics to your CRM.

Most people choose to display a CRM ID because of the simplicity that the option offers. This is a small ID setup modification that does not take much time. After the creation of a common key, you can transfer the CRM information to Google Analytics using the Data Import function. Another option is to create measurement protocol hits.

For receiving the CRM data in the Google Analytics account, you can create segments. Find the desired number of customers and pass the list to AdWords. You can also run a remarketing campaign when the synchronization gets finished.

2. Analysing Ad Performance in Detail

Let’s say that you have a part of users who make purchases from your brand continuously. Now the integration of CRM and Google Analytics can help you in preparing individual offers for these users which will further increase their loyalty towards your brand as well.

You can also stimulate consumers who have not been using services for a long time by using the targeted marketing strategies. For shoppers with a low average bill, you can offer them to purchase related products. Basically, the system stores information that can allow you to track the effectiveness of some products.

There is data on product margin and sales that can be used to create reports that demonstrate the detailed benefits of certain items in the assortment. This way, it can be understood which advertising activities are profitable. It is not possible to do something like that with just Google Analytics.

3. Cost Per Lead Metrics

Regardless of the business they might be in there are some ways that companies approach digital marketing. They either spend a fixed budget on digital marketing hoping it will bear results in increased leads or they count how many leads they receive per month from different campaigns while optimising the average cost per lead.

On the other hand, there is an evolved way of doing this which is adopted by some other companies. There are some companies that count the number of new customers received per month from different campaigns and optimise the average cost per month.

In addition, they also calculate the lifetime value of a customer versus the initial investment on getting that customer and optimising for a maximum peak. Businesses that adopt the last two methods are the ones who can succeed quickly above their competitors while overcoming any storm since they have an upper hand in business intelligence which can be easily maximized with the Google Analytics integration with CRM.

4. Analyzing Reaction on Content

Another reason why it is important to integrate Google Analytics with your CRM or lead management tool is that the integration helps in segmenting and analyzing the target audience reaction to the content.

To put this simply, the Google Analytics engagement and conversion metrics such as pages per session, bounce rate, attribution, times on-site, etc. can help in the segmentation of data by channel for seeing which content provides the highest engaged audiences. In case you use tracking URLs, you can even trace back to which piece of content performs best.

Even though not an explicit measure of content value, bounce rate can be combined with the time on page metric to understand the content value. In case a page has a high bounce rate and low page time then that denotes a poor value. However, if a page has a high bounce rate and a high time on the page then that means the content was engaging and solved the needs of a user.

By the integration of Google Analytics with the CRM, you can combine the data with your lead data to see how the different segments of the target audience respond to the content. This knowledge can be accurately used in adapting your content to more accurately targeting the audience that you went to.

5. Tracking Revenue From All Sources

In case you are like most other businesses then your CRM system does not show you the source of your web leads. This can be causing you to spend a large part of your budget on low-quality leads that do not convert. It is important to understand that you need more than just form fills and goal completions for making important marketing decisions.

It will not be enough for measuring your form fills because different traffic sources attract customers of different quality. There is a possibility that one channel may be capable of generating high converting long term clients but many times the other one can generate nothing but unqualified leads. One of the best ways to evaluate a marketing approach is to track the revenue it generates.

Google Analytics does not track offline revenue and as a matter of fact, most sales do not happen online. A maximum share of sales gets closed either on the phone or in person. By default, Google Analytics does not have access to these sales which means that you have no idea how much revenue was generated by a certain approach, ad, article, or even a keyword. This will result in spending money on leads that do not purchase anything.

6. Cross-functional Insights

Data is an important part of a growing business in a digital-first economy and it is available through Google Analytics easily. However, until the CRM integration happens, it is mostly not sorted, cleaned, analyzed, and made actionable for multiple teams who have a single and shared view of important information shared by a customer.

For instance, businesses of all sizes use Google Analytics for relying on digital marketing metrics and monitoring their website traffic. However, these businesses can learn quickly that the tools alone are not so useful for providing recommendations. In addition, marketing analytics do not translate across other departments.

With the integration of the CRM system, a comprehensive analysis of the customer’s online activity can be attained that paints a holistic picture of their needs. When a company is designed to maintain clean data in this way, the CRM can be used for collaborating, tabulating, and customizing data in a report for unique department needs.

The important differentiator lies in all reporting centres around the customer needs that eventually enables all teams to make decisions while keeping them at front and centre. Businesses can empower their teams with a single and unified view of the customer which serves as one of the biggest benefits of a CRM system integration. This also extends to other benefits once you have usable data.

Reports can be run to see where the opportunities are, how well they interact with leads and customers, sales trends, customer service efforts, and more. This informs each experience delivered to customers including all the online features.

Conclusion

All the team members in a business can gather important data and insights with the integration of a CRM system with Google Analytics. This helps in working together to provide exceptional customer-centric experiences.

Moreover, the data can be easily organized and presented by a CRM platform while leading to a better understanding of customers. This leads to better messaging and outreach which can be done with automation and further helps in an efficient customer service processes. As a result, the teams collaborate easily and reduce any siloes.

Out of all the benefits, using CRM integration for powering a more efficient company is one of the biggest. It can help in managing better customer relationships and better businesses.

In case you wish to have your Google Analytics integrated with a CRM then reach out to Encaptechno for immediate support. Our CRM consultants will help you get the best results with the integration.

Benefits of CRM Integration With Google Analytics Read More »

CRM Services, Digital Marketingcrm consultant, crm integration, data analytics, google analytics integration with crm, targeted marketing strategies

How to Manage Your Financial Operations With Zoho Finance Plus?

Abhishek Sharma / finance platform for business, integrated financial suite, what is zoho finance plus, zoho finance plus suite, zoho partner / Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementation

As Zoho claims time and again, it is undoubtedly “The Operating System for Business.” This is something that Zoho has continued to prove this time and again. With the implementation of Zoho, the companies have been able to evolve their interactions with their customers significantly. Out of the many software applications and suites of Zoho, there is yet another powerful suite called Zoho Finance Plus Suite.

Managing the back-office operations is never so easy. There are so many quotes to be sent, invoices that need follow-up, orders that have to be processed, and taxes that must be filed at the right time. In fact, back-office operations and accounting are some of the most serious and not so easy parts of business management.

Many entrepreneurs struggle in getting these things right often, but the integrated financial suite can help a lot. Finance applications come into the picture to help business owners ensure that their business runs efficiently and has also freed them from the various tasks that might otherwise get in the way.

What is Zoho Finance Plus?

Zoho Finance Plus offers an end-to-end integrated platform for back-office operations. Other than accounting, invoicing, and expense management that is generally needed by a business, the suite also helps businesses in managing subscription-driven and recurring revenue streams. It has the ability to equip organizations to fulfill multi-channel online sales orders with an effective inventory model.

In essence, Zoho Finance Plus is a finance platform for business that combines flexible, scalable, and secure applications that can serve the needs of a growing business.

Zoho Finance Plus – An Integrated Suite of Apps

You can think of Zoho Finance Plus to be a powerful suite that breaks down department silos, streamline other operations, offers distinct visibility into the order and fulfillment process, and also ensures almost no tax period.

As opposed to other back-office tools, Zoho Finance apps are tightly integrated with each other and built from the same platform. This basically means that you will have much less or almost nil data entry problems with increased accuracy and a quick decision-making process. Zoho Finance Plus is an integrated platform that does the following things:

Multiple Applications in Single Platform: Almost all of the Zoho Finance apps are built from the ground up so that they can work together seamlessly. The information gets entered in one application and eventually gets reflected in the rest which basically means that your data stays up to date at all times.
Enhanced Quote-to-Cash Process: When the salespeople generate quotes and orders in one application, they are instantly available in others for suitable teams so that the order is fulfilled promptly, the customer invoice is prepared quickly, and payments get collected efficiently.
Overcoming Traditional Accounting: The world that we live in is moving towards a subscription model quickly. In this scenario, the Zoho Finance Suite equips you with a solid recurring billing solution that eventually helps in bridging the gap with traditional accounting.
Quick Employee Reimbursements: Zoho Expense automates the reimbursements approval flow while making it simple for your employees to claim reimbursements. All of their expenses fall into the right accounts in an instant.
GST Compliant Solutions: The various finance apps that come in Zoho Finance Suite are optimized to handle the single taxation structure of GST that makes the tax filing process simple and convenient.
Easy Administration: In just a single administrative console, it gets very easy to manage multiple uses all across different departments. You can add and offer role-based access to the users to different applications from a centralized panel.

Apps Included in Zoho Finance Plus

Zoho Finance Plus is a GST-compliant unified platform that is extremely useful for all of your back-office needs. Right from invoicing to order management and even accounting, Zoho Finance Plus is an integrated finance suite that has all the bases covered when it comes to back-office operations. It has all the features that are needed to make sure that your business becomes and stays GST compliant.

Since Zoho Finance Plus has everything you need to manage operations and finances, it has the following apps:

1. Zoho Invoice

Being free GST invoicing software for small businesses, Zoho Invoice can be effectively used in streamlining a business process. It is custom-made for Indian businesses and is absolutely free. Some of the benefits of Zoho Invoice are:

Professional Invoices: The software application has many easy templates that are helpful in crafting professional invoices. You can choose a template that suits your brand in the best possible way, serves individual customers, or even the occasion.

The professional invoices help in getting paid on time.
You can handle customer returns and manage refunds effectively using credit notes.
You can create delivery challans to accompany your goods while they are in transit.
Make sure that your customers are on board with your price quotes before you begin billing them.
Send retainer invoices to your clients and collect payments in advance.

Getting Paid On Time: Other than crafting accurate invoices, enabling easy payments, and tracking or following up on the transactions, you can also contribute to quick payment collection. Make sure that you get paid on time, every time with the help of Zoho Invoice.

You can track time and also bill your customers effortlessly for the hours that you spend working on their projects.
You can also track reimbursable expenses and bill your customers right away.
Zoho Invoice enables you to track all your transactions and business performance in one place only.
You can provide a self-service portal to all your customers where they can view their invoices and also make payments easily.
You can track the invoice status, follow up on the late payments, and send payment reminders at the right time.
Enable your customers to pay round the clock through UPI, credit/debit cards, cash, bank transfers, or checks.

2. Zoho Books

Zoho Books is efficient online accounting software that helps in efficiently managing your finances, automating the business workflow, keeping your business GST compliant, and helping you work collectively all across departments.

End-to-end Accounting: From negotiating the deals to raising sales orders and invoicing, Zoho Books is efficient in handling mundane accounting tasks so that you can focus on your business.
GST Compliant: You can create GST invoices, know your tax liability, file your tax returns directly, and ensure that your business stays compliant with GST.
Integrated Platform: As your business keeps growing, you can add more of almost 40 plus apps by Zoho while managing and running each aspect of your business from wherever you are.

3. Zoho Inventory

Zoho Inventory is inventory management software designed for Indian businesses. You can manage orders, track inventory, handle GST billing, and oversee warehouses with this application. It is a perfect inventory management software to run all inventory operations.

Order Management: You can handle your sales, purchase activities, payments, invoices, and bills with order management. Zoho Inventory helps you in managing packages so that your shipments can be delivered on time.
Warehouse Management: This enables you to control your stocks in different warehouses or godowns centrally from Zoho Inventory. You can track item movements, transfer items within the warehouse, and generate specific reports.
Barcode Scanning: Zoho Inventory is easily compatible with different kinds of barcode scanners which makes it very easy to set up a barcode system and add SKUs, serial and batch numbers, and even items to sale and purchase orders.
Integrations: You can sell your products anywhere you want with ease while integrating your Zoho CRM and Zoho Books. In addition, you can also receive payments online with PayPal and Razorpay. There are many integration options that can support your business.
Inventory Tracking: This enables you to keep a track of spare parts, saleable items and even set expiry dates with relevant serial and batch tracking features.
Reports: You can know your inventory aging, sales details, inventory valuation, and vendor payments from a wide range of Reports that can be generated, downloaded, and shared easily.

4. Zoho Subscriptions

Zoho Subscription is a cloud-based recurring billing and subscription solution that is designed to handle each aspect of a subscription-based business. It is an online subscription billing software that is innovative and helps in addressing payment failures and chasing overdue from the customers.

Subscription Billing: Regardless of whether you are offering weekly, monthly, or yearly subscription-based advice, all of these things can easily be set up for auto-billing of your customers. Some of the important features that can be added for the initial setup include the free trials, frequency of billing cycles, tax, price, expiration after some amount of billing cycles, and many more.

Processing Payments: One should always know that more is better and this goes for allowing a customer to have different ways to pay for a subscription. With the use of online subscription billing software such as Zoho Subscriptions’, it is easy to collect payments. In fact, it can be done online and offline.
Impactful APIs: With the help of Zoho Subscription API – the root of automation, it becomes possible to create workflow rules that help in automating actions that particularly cater to the business needs. This majorly includes automated email alerts, custom functions, and buttons, and tracking the subscription changes with the help of Webhooks.
Manage Multiple Subscriptions: Zoho Subscriptions helps in adding and managing different pricing plans to the products and services. This further enables you to reach out to a diverse range of potential customers. In fact, you can also get a peek into all the pricing details from a screen while allowing more people to test your products and services on a trial period.
Customized Subscription Experience: By using the Zoho Subscriptions Management, you can choose the invoice templates that you want and make them reflect your brand simultaneously. By adding a company logo and including your terms and conditions, you can customize each element of your invoice.

5. Zoho Expense

You can streamline your travel and expense management from end to end with the help of Zoho Expense. It brings the following things to the table:

Comprehensive Travel and Expense Management: You can manage all stages of your business trips, before, during, and after. You can also make bookings for travel and accommodations, set up pre-travel approvals, enable employees to report expenses on the go, simplify approvals, and reimburse on time.
Complete Spend Control: This helps in ensuring complete policy compliance by setting up different policies for branches, cost centers, and departments. You can also control business expenditures with streamlined budgets while ensuring suitable approvals before purchases with custom approval flow.
Automation and Collaboration: You do not have to spend time manually executing reporting tasks. With Zoho Expense, there is comprehensive automation that enables you and your employees to not intervene in the expense reporting process. From receipt scanning to approval, you can automate everything while also saving time.

6. Zoho Checkout

With the use of Zoho Checkout, you can collect payments online very easily. It is designed to build a custom and a branded payment page within a matter of few minutes so that you can begin accepting payments right away.

Create: you can build a secure payment page without writing even a single line of code. Zoho handles the coding and hosting part to make things simple for you.

Customize: With Zoho checkout, you can make your payment page your own. You can also fine-tune the look and feel of the page so that your customers can get a seamless brand experience.
Collect: Whether it is a one-time or a recurring transaction, you can take the hassle out of collecting payments.

Conclusion

Zoho Finance Plus is an integrated suite of financial applications that make your business thrive. It helps in managing vital components such as accounting, invoicing, subscription management, expense reporting, order and warehouse management, etc.

Encaptechno is a Zoho Partner that can allow you to manage your business efficiently and run real-time analytics at each possible stage. You can now streamline your financial operations with the implementation of Zoho Finance Plus. Reach out to get everything you need with full-fledged IT support.

How to Manage Your Financial Operations With Zoho Finance Plus? Read More »

Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementationfinance platform for business, integrated financial suite, what is zoho finance plus, zoho finance plus suite, zoho partner

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.

How CRM and Digital Marketing can go Hand in Hand? Read More »

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

All You Need to Know About Zoho Creator 6.0

Abhishek Sharma / application development, customised app development, zoho creator consultant, zoho updates / Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementation

Zoho has introduced the Zoho Creator 6.0 as a unified platform that is capable of solving all the digital needs of creators. It has been made to help businesses accelerate their digital transformation and modernization efforts.

Packed with a strong and reliable arsenal of must-have low-code tools that a business might need to build agile solutions, Zoho Creator 6.0 enhances speed and innovation more easily than ever. Not just this, the Zoho updates enable the businesses to empower everyone in their workforce to collaborate and build software to help explore new business avenues, boost employee productivity, and transform the customer experience.

Customization Tools Offered By Zoho Creator 6.0

1. Multi-developer Environment

Zoho Creator offers a multi-developer environment that allows the developers to collaboratively work on projects. There are different environments for development and testing that help in improving the time to market as various teams work in parallel.

2. Serverless Cloud Function

The serverless functions of Zoho Creator allow you to execute logical blocks of code without implementing complicated server infrastructure. Along with the use of Deluge, Zoho Creator also supports Java and Node.js which increases the scope of application development for many people.

3. Artificial Intelligence

You can use artificial intelligence to build intelligent business applications with the use of Zoho Creator. The AI-driven smart import allows you to import data from anywhere, determine data relationships, and create data models on the behalf of users. The AI tasks such as predictive and sentiment analysis and keyword extraction are built-in and ready to be used on the basis of business requirements.

4. Unified Data Service

The unified data service in Zoho Creator helps in automating the API contract evaluation and authentication while also enabling business users to connect with almost any service in the world and making sure that there is a safe data transfer.

5. APIs

The APIs of Zoho Creator help in connecting with other Zoho Creator and third-party applications through the OAuth authentication. This helps in accessing data, simplifying difficult tasks, and extending the application functionality.

6. SDKs

The mobile software development kit in Zoho Creator can be used for customizing the user interface, adding unique capabilities, and improving the back-end logic of your applications. Zoho Creator offers SDK for both iOS and Android.

Low-code Application Development

The Zoho Creator 6.0 combines the robust power of application development, business intelligence and analytics, process automation, and smart integrations into one platform. It enables businesses to deliver end-to-end business solutions in an efficient manner. Moreover, it also provides a simplified development experience by extending low code capabilities to all stages of software development.

The features that C6 comes with are mentioned below.

1. Multi-Device App Creator

In the C6 version, Zoho offers an opportunity for businesses to empower everyone in an organization by building modern and data-rich applications whilst changing the manual and traditional processes. Zoho Creator comes with an intuitive visual builder and ready-made code blocks that enhance the speed of development and also help in bringing the application to life easily. The multi-device app creator enables application development in just five steps:

Quick Start: Zoho supports one-click migration from Excel, Access, Filemaker, Caspio, and more. It comes with advanced capabilities that directly pick relationships and formulae from the source.
Data Management: You can collect and manage built-in digital forms by seamlessly collecting input from users in an organized way and performing advanced data operations. The free app builder allows over 250 API calls/day and helps you put vital information from other apps too.
Intuitive Builder: The customized app development of Zoho Creator 6.0 enables drag and drop app building. You can model the application’s architecture and the logical structure of the database, create great applications, and also configure advanced workflows by just dragging and dropping code blocks in the UIs.
Automation: You can factor in the scenarios and get notified by adding conditional logic, exceptions, and business rule workflows with a simple drag and drop code block. You can also configure real-time alerts on the predefined conditions while getting up to 50 email notifications per day with the free plan.
Analytics: Zoho Creator 6.0 lets you manage performance and usage. With the prebuilt dashboarding and reporting capabilities, you can create and embed advanced visualizations in the application without integrating it with a third-party reporting application for the analytics needs.

2. Integrations Creator

The Zoho updates in C6 promises the user to gain access to around 600+ applications and services that are ready to connect and bring all the business apps together. You create contextual workflows, get emails, reports, records, and more to move across the applications automatically.

The integrations creator lets you do the following:

Bridge Applications: By using the Zoho Creator 6.0, you can bridge all your business applications in just one click. Integrations just as applications and functions in Zoho Creator follow the concept of reusability. Once you set it up properly, it is at your disposal all through the journey.
Automation: With the integration creator, you can automate the workflow with no information gaps while connecting in seconds. It allows you to integrate your business with every other application from the gallery, automate workflow and facilitate unhindered information flow.
Customization: The use of integrations creator enables you to customize without any limits. Right from off-the-shelf templates to the advanced logic using Deluge, you can deal with any business connectivity hurdles with seamlessness.
Collaboration: You can collaborate with your team, add team members to plan, strategize, and even execute the business workflows and operations.
Insights: You can collect insights and future proof your business with interactive dashboards and a centralized log. In addition, you can also analyze the business performance in real-time using metrics that help in evaluating and revamping the current processes.

3. Business Process Creator

The drag and drop blueprint builder in Zoho Creator makes it easy for anyone in an organization to map the processes and define different stages. You can take the support of a Zoho Creator consultant to understand how one should decide who is in charge of what, set conditions, and automate actions.

Zoho has added the business process creator feature to let the users achieve end-to-end process excellence with visual blueprints. The company understands that the processes form the foundation of some of the most successful businesses.

However, it can be difficult to stay on top of all the business processes and ensure that everything is working just as needed. This is where blueprints come in to help the users visualize and design all processes, and run them efficiently with great visibility. The blueprints help in the following ways:

Visually Mapping of Processes: You can create detailed and robust blueprints with the drag and drop blueprint builder and make the process simple for everyone to follow. At any given time, if someone comes in, you can easily guide them through their role.
Accountability: Zoho Creator 6.0 allows you to clearly define responsibilities including who should perform an action and when they should perform it to keep the right people accountable.
Gathering Information: You can prompt the employees to provide important information and access it at any time. They can attach important documents and add notes or any important data during the process.
Accelerate Approvals: You can configure multi level approvals for almost any process, set the required conditions, add approvers, and customize approval emails to enable your teams to get the important approvals while they are on the go.
Quick Communication: You can configure relevant notifications and send them as needed for keeping things moving. Let all your employees know what must be done and when it should be done without any delays.
Automation: After a stage is completed, you can set up actions for being executed immediately. The business process creator allows you to automate things such as sending email notifications, updating important data, pushing and pulling data from other applications you use, and even running custom scripts.

4. BI & Analytics Creator

This is a component of Zoho Creator that empowers the business teams to build a comprehensive business solution with meaningful insights on real-time information along with automating tasks on the go. What’s more, you can use Zia which is Zoho’s conversational AI assistant as it helps in getting an instant answer for all the questions while auto-generating visualizations and quick decision making.

With the BI & Analytics Creator, you can harness the power of business intelligence and analytics capabilities in Zoho Creator and transform huge amounts of data into actionable insights. It also helps in empowering the employees to view and understand data with easy visualizations along with making informed business decisions later. The BI & Analytics creator helps in the following ways:

Data Visualization: You can make the data analysis quick and easy with the intuitive drag and drop interface which helps in creating interactive reports and dashboards quickly. You can also add any number of charts, widgets, and tables for making the data easy to understand and point to any deviations or anomalies. You can use HTML for adding contextual information and images for enriching the dashboards.
Integration: With the Zoho updates of BI & Analytics creator, you can connect to any data source at a time. If you have a lot of disconnected data stuck in disparate systems, you can combine it under one roof and get comprehensive visibility into the business processes. You can upload the data from spreadsheets or online storage devices and even use APIs to extract data from MySQL servers or other databases.
Augmentation: You can make faster and better decisions using AI. Zia, the conversational AI assistant of Zoho, helps in getting instant answers for all the questions, auto-generate visualizations, and speeds up decision-making as well. As time goes ahead, Zia also learns data and business needs while helping you build key metrics with charts and reports.
Collaboration: Collaborative analytics enables you to take absolute control over all the data. You can use fine-grained access controls with specific options such as read-only, report authoring, export, read-write, and much more while sharing the reports and dashboards with your colleagues. You can also find which criteria are to be used for factors such as the role of a person and how they will use the data. The commenting feature can be used to begin conversations with peers on any reports or the dashboards.
Self-Service Portals: The reporting portals can be set up for customers and vendors. It is possible to create your own reporting portal or microsite, embed the reports, and also offer contextual insights to the vendors, business consultants, and customers. The portals can be personalized with company logos and other elements that match the brand identity and enhance the user experience with authentication.
Mobile BI: Mobile business intelligence gives a comprehensive view of the data even when you are on the go. You can allow your employees to access reports, share important information, and take action from their mobile phones. For easy access, they also favor the reports often and access them even when they are offline.

5. Robotic Process Automation

The robotic process automation feature in the Zoho updates of C6 allows businesses to automate even the most mundane and repetitive tasks such as moving files from one location to another without any human intervention. All you have to do is define a set of instructions and the bot will be carrying out the task at high speed.

Simple Deployment and Distribution Capabilities

1. Simple Deployment

Zoho Creator 6.0 allows the creators to launch their applications in an environment of their choice. This includes development, staging, and production with just one click deployment based on the readiness of an application. You can add suitable features and make changes without making disturbances in the actual application in the production. What’s more, there is no need to reinvent everything when it comes to mobile because all applications become automatically available on native iOS and Android apps.

2. Self-service Portals

You can create self-service portals for your customers, employees, business partners and help them find all the information in just one place. With the use of portals, the users can get context-specific access to all applications, find support, access resources, raise support requests, and access resources.

3. Easy App Distribution

You can use the built-in mobile distribution management available in Zoho Creator and distribute the apps to all the users including customers and partners. The apps can be distributed on devices that cover various operating systems. This admin-friendly interface makes it simple to configure corporate-owned devices and apps while automatically managing policies and configurations.

4. Multideployment

Irrespective of whether you choose to deploy the application on Zoho Cloud or any public cloud such as AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or on-premise, Zoho Creator 6.0 offers a consistent experience.

5. Centralization

You can allow your application to easily access the information needed while protecting the data with features such as role-based access controls, single sign-on, and password policies.

6. Security

Zoho Creator 6.0 also includes industry-standard security features such as data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and IP restriction for keeping the data safe in the cloud and on-premise as well.

Conclusion

Zoho Creator 6.0 comes with an update that lets you take control of the complete application life cycle from development to production. It allows holistic application development life cycle management along with helping the businesses to focus completely on the application life cycle including requirement planning, development, change and configuration management, maintenance, and governance.

You can see your application through different phases including development, staging, and production while also ensuring that you deliver quality software. The developers have the flexibility to communicate in real time, test the features specific to user roles, track suitable changes made to the codebase with version history, get notified about changes made to the app, and make sure that the app is safe before it gets rolled out.

If you wish to explore Zoho Creator 6.0 and make the most out of the benefits that it offers then get in touch with our experienced Zoho Creator consultants at Encaptechno. We will make your journey seamless, efficient, and productive.

All You Need to Know About Zoho Creator 6.0 Read More »

Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementationapplication development, customised app development, zoho creator consultant, zoho updates

How to Effectively Use Zoho Creator Customer Portal?

Abhishek Sharma / application development services, custom app development, customer portal, low code platform, Zoho Creator Certified Developer, zoho creator consultant / Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementation

Zoho has become one of the most important platforms being used by businesses all across the world. It has multiple functionalities aimed at improving the business processes within organizations. One of these functionalities is the Zoho creator customer portal which is the best way for any business or an organization to permit its clients and customers to log in important details.

The Zoho users can easily use the Zoho creator portals as opposed to creating their own security authentications and mechanisms. In fact, users also have an option to log in to their dedicated portal, submit data, and access shared applications.

The process of data sharing with people through the Zoho Creator Customer Portal is a powerful feature of a low code platform like Zoho Creator. There are so many times when we want to present some of our data to our customers with a login system. Every time we do this, our customers can collaborate easily and keep everything secure.

In this blog, we will understand how to effectively use Zoho Creator Customer Portal for our benefit.

What is Zoho Creator Customer Portal?

A customer portal is one of the best ways for an organization to enable its customers to log into their dedicated internal system while accessing restricted data. Rather than building your own authentication and security mechanisms, you can use Zoho Creator portals so that your users can sign up with your portal rather than signing up with Zoho’s account.

With the customer portal, customers can log into a dedicated portal, access applications shared with them submit data, and most importantly, they can view and edit the records. Zoho Creator customer portal offers you an opportunity to present the application with a brand identity that is personal to your organization.

You can manage and configure various characteristics of the customer portal and the characteristics are as follows:

Customers: The customers are considered as the most important users of the customer portal. You can add customers independently or import the customers in bulk. Just after the customers are added, they will be sent an invitation requesting that they can register for the customer portal.
Permissions: The permissions can be issued by the admin to all users of the portal.
Email Notifications: The email notifications allow the admin of the customer portal to communicate easily with the users of the portal. It is possible to customize different types of emails that the customer portal is sending to the users.
Portal Pages: The portal pages are for displaying information to the user of the customer portal when they want to log in, sign up or even reset a password.
Custom Domain: The custom domain allows the admins to host customer portal on their own domain rather than the default Zoho Creator domain.
Portal Types: The portal types are different types of accesses that get granted to the customer portal. They can be public, private or restricted.
Title and Logo: The title and logo can be displayed when the customer portal is opened in a browser.

Enhanced Way to Communicate With Customers

In case you are a business that is looking to improve ways for interacting with the customers while also offering the user-friendliness of application then the customer portal offers many ways in which you can increase the business organization development and customer satisfaction. Other than this, you will also be improving your business measures without breaking your business bank because of the portal’s cost.

The thing to understand here is that in case you do not still have Zoho’s customer portal then you are probably missing out on many opportunities of enhancing your business with stronger customer relationships.

Use Cases For Better Understanding

In case you have a financial management firm that needs clients to complete paperwork online, an institution that offers its own online application, a shop that processes orders and sells products on the internet, then you must understand the process of developing, creating, and safeguarding sites.

You must also understand that the information should be safely stored. When the customers fill any kind of form on the internet, they want the information to be safe and simple. The onus lies upon you to keep the information of your customers safe.

Development of a site that provides all of these features may seem like a time-consuming task. Owning a business does not leave you with any time to create a portal like that. In addition, it is also possible that you may already have an application that enables your customers to submit such data. But the fact is that the technology changes quickly and ensuring that your application has the ability to reflect changing business needs is important.

The custom portal of a low code development platform such as Zoho Creator ensures that your application has all the features. It helps in implementing simple design and development features that have actually made the application development services of Zoho Creator so important. With the customer portal, you can share important data with your customers while also enabling them to submit data and edit various records. All this data gets stored in one place and is restricted from any unauthorized access.

Regardless of the kind of business you are in, the customer portal offers you an opportunity to create a portal that fits the needs of your organization. On the portal, you can easily create forms that customers can fill and save.

Vital Information is Secured

An organization that has not been able to turn to online applications for collecting and storing important data can rely on Zoho completely. The good thing is that Zoho acknowledges and understands the security concerns might be a primary issue for this thing.

Many times, customers are also hesitant to make an online change because they do not understand what will become of the data that is provided online. They also don’t know where the tax records and credit card information will end. For them, the internet may seem like an empty place, a place where all information may be lost.

This kind of fear is entirely understandable, but the fact is that in case you do not make a switch, you will be left behind competitors. The Zoho Creator customer portal makes it possible for a customer to see right where the data is being stored. The portal also uses better security measures so that the customers get restricted access to private data.

What matters is that you have a distinct ability to control the users who can access records that are stored in the portal. Based on the kind of permissions you offer, you can have control over who accesses forms and records, who can view and edit them, and which users can import data to the portal. All of these measures are put into place just so that unauthorized users can access information easily.

Customer Satisfaction in a Cost-effective Way

The customer portal makes data easy to collect and access for both you and your customers. Regardless of the number of customers you have, the customer portal will cover all of them.

It is of utmost importance to understand the difference between users and customers when it is about Zoho Creator’s Customer Portal. The users are the ones who are in the organization, the people who use the application for things like workflow management and form creation.

In contrast, the customers are external because they are the ones who will be taking the benefit of the customer portal for keeping records or purchases. Zoho does not even charge a fee per customer. When you get more customers, the business thrives automatically. The Zoho Creator Customer Portal can help you in managing the data as the number of customers keeps growing.

Setting-Up of Customer Portal

In order to set up a customer portal, take the following steps:

The first step is to click on the option of Customer Portal under the Users and Control section given on the Settings page.
In case you haven’t yet confirmed your primary email address for the Creator account, you will get a message that says, “Click Proceed to Account for confirming your email address.”
On the next page, click on the Configure Portal button.
When you do this, the portal URL page will appear. On this page, you can choose to host the customer portal on Zoho’s default domain or on a custom domain.
For hosting the customer portal on the default domain, select the Default URL option on the portal URL page. This will make the Portal Type appear again. On this page, the access type for the customer portal can be easily selected from the three options that are available including Public, Private, and Restricted.
The Portal Permission page is going to appear wherein the permission for the user can be selected from the two options called Customer and Custom.
The Custom option helps in creating a new customized permission set for the users accessing the customer portal. Right when the custom option gets selected, the Custom Permission tab appears. You can configure the name and permissions and click Add so that the portal page can be set up.
The option of Customer helps in creating a customer portal for the users. The portal will now be set up and the changes will appear on the Customer Portal page.
For hosting the customer portal on the custom domain, it is important to upgrade the account so that you can set up the customer portal on the custom domain.
You can now enter the domain URL and click on Next
When the portal page is created successfully, it is now important to verify the custom domain URL and the domain verification can be done by:

Click Verify Now below the domain URL. When you go to the Domain Verification tab, you can create a CNAME for your domain.

Create a TXT record for the domain. In case you have not created a CNAME for the site and if you have the needed permissions, you can easily upload files on your site.
Next, click Verify. After successful verification, the Domain Verification pane will get closed and you will see a pop-up with the message that says Domain verified successfully.

Conclusion

Zoho Creator is the best way to ensure that an application fits all your business needs completely. However, businesses need expert assistance while working with Zoho Creator and Zoho Creator Customer Portal. If you have that business then take comfort in the fact that you do not have to go through the process alone.

At Encaptecho, you will find a Zoho Creator Certified developer who can help you at each step in your journey of making the best use of the Zoho Creator Customer Portal. The developer will be familiar with all the best practices needed for seamlessly integrating your software’s data into the new application.

How to Effectively Use Zoho Creator Customer Portal? Read More »

Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementationapplication development services, custom app development, customer portal, low code platform, Zoho Creator Certified Developer, zoho creator consultant

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.

How to Maintain a Clean CRM Database? Read More »

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.

Future of CRM in the Gaming Industry Read More »

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

PRODUCTS

Zoho One

Zoho Book

Zoho Creator

Zoho CRM

Zoho Bigin

Zoho Workspace

SERVICES

Zoho Partner Services

Zoho Implementation

Zoho Support

Zoho Consulting

Zoho Integration

Zoho ChatGPT Integration

SOLUTIONS

Salesforce

AWS Cloud

Cyber Security

Vryno

Azure

Digital Marketing

Zoho

Filter Records Using Advanced Filters

Using Advanced Filters Effectively

1. Explore All Unused Leads

2. Discover All Records For Conversions

3. Track Sales Activities

4. Filter Contacts Based on Deal Stages

Tracking Records Based on Campaign Responses

1. Time Tracking Filters

2. Act on Insights Discovered

Filter Records With Visitor Tracking Information

1. Following Up With Contacts

2. Tracking Leads Based on Time

3. Tracking Leads Based on Email Address

4. Browser Compatibility

Conclusion

What is Zoho DataPrep?

1. Cleansing and Improving Data Quality

2. Transforming Data

3. Data Lineage

4. Data Catalog

5. End to end data Pipelines

1. Advanced Analytics

2. Data Warehousing

3. Machine Learning

4. Business Processes/Migration

1. Connecting to Multiple Sources

2. Improving Data Quality

3. Transform and Enrich Data

4. Automating Workflows

5. Catalog Data

6. Safe Data Sharing

7. Security and Compliance

Zoho DataPrep In Sum

Conclusion

1. Measuring Productivity

2. Inventory Management

3. Transfer Important Data

4. Importing Data

5. Syncing Contacts

6. Saving Time and Energy

Conclusion

Why Integrate CRM with Google Analytics?

Benefits of CRM Integration with Google Analytics

1. Improved Monitoring

2. Analysing Ad Performance in Detail

3. Cost Per Lead Metrics

4. Analyzing Reaction on Content

5. Tracking Revenue From All Sources

6. Cross-functional Insights

Conclusion

What is Zoho Finance Plus?

Zoho Finance Plus – An Integrated Suite of Apps

Apps Included in Zoho Finance Plus

1. Zoho Invoice

2. Zoho Books

3. Zoho Inventory

4. Zoho Subscriptions

5. Zoho Expense