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Collaborate and Communicate Effectively With Zoho CRM Feeds | Encaptechno

Collaborate and Communicate Effectively With Zoho CRM Feeds

/ , , , , / Zoho Implementation

Collaborate and Communicate Effectively With Zoho CRM Feeds | Encaptechno
Collaboration is an extremely important aspect of businesses. When you need to finalize a deal or even negotiate on the discount price or organize an event, you collaborate with a team to achieve your goals. To make this possible, the tools that help in communication are very helpful in making sure that everything is said, understood, and timely implemented.

Any platform that allows you to get actively involved in the discussions and share your ideas can be purposeful and time-saving as well. The feature of Feeds in Zoho CRM offers one such platform where you can easily share your views and also discuss matters with team members to speed up the decision-making process.

In addition, Zoho Feeds also gives you important updates on records that you follow such as updating a record, making changes to a record, etc. With the use of Feeds in your Zoho CRM account, you can effectively do the below-mentioned things.

  • Post a message and share it with all the users in your organization.
  • Post a message in a group and share it with all members of a group as well.
  • Mention a role, user, or group in the status messages.
  • Send a direct private message to your colleagues.
  • Comment on the status messages and reply to them with private messages.
  • Follow the records automatically by creating important auto-follow rules.
  • Attach important documents to messages that are being posted.
  • Get notifications for the mentions and changes that are made to the records and the ones that you follow.

What is Zoho Feeds?


Zoho Feeds is more like a forum on Zoho CRM where any team can collaborate and communicate easily. Let’s understand Zoho Feeds with an example of the sales team. Using Zoho Feeds, the sales team can share insights on the go and keep the rest of the team updated about how they are doing while also giving each other recognition for sales accomplishments. The Zoho Feeds can allow a team to work together and accelerate the process of sales optimally.

All the status mentions, comments, direct messages, changes made to your records, deletion of records, adding notes to records, etc. can be listed. The Zoho Feeds can further be filtered based on the modules and time period as well.

You can mention other users, groups, and roles in the status messages. All users who are associated with the mentioned groups or roles can easily view the messages on their Feeds wall as well. You can follow the records that are important to you so that they can be shown automatically. You can also use the Follow button for manually following the records and creating auto-follow rules to follow other records.

Zoho Feeds helps in getting notifications within the Zoho CRM anytime when a user mentioned you in a comment or a message. In addition, the files can also be shared with other users in an organization or a specific group. You can send direct messages to the users. Any comments added for a record’s update can be added as a note for the record. In addition, notes can be added to a record that is available in Feeds as a comment.

Understanding Zoho Feeds


Understanding Zoho Feeds


All the information that you have does not necessarily need to be shared with everyone you know in your organization. It happens often that your content and information are only relevant to a specific group of people. In case you focus more on communication within a closed group, collaboration becomes much easier too.

Zoho Feeds helps you in sharing important updates while collaborating with all users in your organization. While making an important update on the Feeds tab, you can just select the required group and restrict communication in the same group.

Zoho Feeds also allows you to create a group directly from the Feeds tab by simply clicking on the Create Group icon. For instance, you just have to specify the Group Name as Product Launch and Description as Marketing Activities for the product launch.

Within the Group Source section, you can also choose the group members you wish to add. You can choose the roles, users, subordinates, and people from different groups too. When you click on the group, you can just view the group’s feeds and group members while carrying out the conversations.

This is pretty useful, particularly because you can create more groups for specific sales regions too. In case you are a part of a sales team that follows up on leads and contacts from the USA, Europe, APAC, or the UK, you can also create Groups for these regions and put ideas, suggestions, and discussions in these groups.

Create Groups


Create Groups

You can have a marketing group, finance group, sales group, team leads group, and management group. Basically, in case you wish to facilitate communication within the closed circles then it can be easy to collaborate and share information in the organization.

The groups can be created under the Zoho Feeds and any discussion that is going on within a group can be used for sharing files, status messages, etc. The groups can be easily accessed by the users of the group and you can also mention your group in messages or send private messages to the group.

Changing the Feeds Preference


Changing the Feeds Preference

Zoho Feeds is one of the best ways to keep a tab on all records that are important to you. However, in case you think that the Feeds section is becoming too cluttered with different updates then you can choose the modules that you wish to receive updates from.

For instance, in case you wish to only see updates on progressing deals and not on leads then you can just uncheck the leads from the Feed Preference settings. This will help in blocking out all Feeds related to the important modules. The Feeds Preference settings are set up by the administrator and are also applicable to all users of the CRM organization account.

Adding Auto- Follow Rules


Adding Auto- Follow Rules

Just as the name suggests, the auto-follow rules help in automatically following records that are important. Anytime a record meets the criteria specified in the Auto Follow Rule, the record gets automatically followed by you. If you make changes to the records followed by you that are listed in the Feeds tab of Zoho CRM then you can keep a track of all activities and updates of important records.

Let’s say that you are heading the sales department in your organization and you wish to get updates on all important deals that have an opportunity of generating more than a defined amount. Rather than manually asking your team to send updates on important records, you can follow the records automatically using the Auto-Follow rules and get updates within the Feeds tab. This way, you can become well informed whenever a note is added to it, some details are added or any other activity is associated with the record.

See Any Inactive Records


See Any Inactive Records

The Zoho Feeds slider shows the number of days and is also used to set the count between 1 to 180. On the basis of selected numbers in this slider, the records that are not updated for more than the specified number of days get listed. This helps in keeping a track of all important leads that have been inactive for a period of over 6 months.

In case you wish to view the records without activities or updates for the past five days then you have to set the Feeds slider to 5. The records that have not really been updated for more than five days will get listed in this way.

View Records That You Follow


View Records That You Follow

All records that you own will be followed by you automatically. These records that you follow manually or on the basis of the auto-follow rule will get listed in the Followed By Me section. This will regularly help you get all the updates that you are interested in.

Features of Zoho Feeds

 

1. All Announcements in One Place

 

It doesn’t matter if you wish to congratulate a team for performing well on closing a deal or you wish to send a routine update about the status of a contact, you can do anything much faster while using Feeds.

All you have to do is just notify your colleagues or groups by using the @mention feature. You can mention them so that they can get the message timely. When you keep the communication inside the CRM, you will spend less time looking for the information and also have an easy time knowing what your team is working on.

2. One On One Interactions

 

Zoho Feeds also allows you to create groups where teams can collaborate with each other and work together. The teams can close big deals way more quickly by sharing insights, answering every question, and sending updates for keeping everyone on the same page.

This also allows the team to understand when each assignment is completed while acting fast. The Zoho Feeds can be used for sending private messages directly to teammates. When the interaction becomes one on one, there is no lag in getting things done at the right time.

3. Getting Notified in Real-time

 

With Zoho Feeds, it also becomes possible to stay up to date on all deals that matter the most because you can get notified when something changes with a contact that you feel responsible for.

Anytime you will see a contact in the Zoho Feeds, a detailed record of all feeds that have been mentioned in the contact will appear along with the notes. The thing is that real-time notifications can play a very important role in keeping the sales operation on the right track because you will be prompt in taking action.

4. Share Sales Documents

 

To make sure that the sales process goes on as planned, it is necessary that you and your team have the right sales collateral. In case either of the team members does not have anything then important documents can be shared on direct messages.

There is no need to switch over to the email or chat window for sending attachments. All you have to do is just drag and drop the pictures, sales collateral, presentations, and spreadsheets for adding them to your post. In this way, you will be able to send any required sales documents to your team members easily.

5. Streamline Your Page

 

Zoho Feeds gives you an option that allows you to choose what updates to follow. There is no need to clutter your page with any kind of unnecessary updates. This way, the page can become highly streamlined. 

You can instead choose the records that you want and update them by either following them manually or by setting rules for automation. When you track the big deal records and the details of a specific customer, you can also keep the conversations focused and retrieve the information that is needed just at the right time.

6. Geotagging Sales Appointments

 

Your team can be kept in the loop by checking in for meetings with locations so that the colleagues can be informed about the whereabouts of your teammates. This helps in maintaining records so that your team knows what happened at the time of interactions with your prospects.

If you have been going ahead in your sales approach on the basis of location then this is even more helpful because with geotagging, the sales team can know about your progress based on the locations. The more deals you keep closing in a location, the closer you will get towards achieving your location-based sales targets.

Conclusion

Zoho Feeds is one of the best forums where the teams of your organizations can communicate and collaborate with each other. Once your team gets used to using Zoho Feeds, all communication will become very simple and effective at the same time.

In case you need any further support in knowing more about the use of Zoho Feeds, get in touch with our expert Zoho consultants for assistance. They will guide you at every step.

 

 

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Create a Better Client Centric Experience With Salesforce | Encaptechno

Create a Better Client Centric Experience With Salesforce

/ , , , , / Cloud Services, CRM Services, Salesforce

Create a Better Client Centric Experience With Salesforce | Encaptechno

In the present business landscape, it is not anymore enough to have an excellent product or service at a good price. The customer experience that a company offers is much more important than its products and services. This is something that is being understood and acknowledged by all smart business owners.

It is becoming increasingly common to see businesses use new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. These are the things that enable a better customer experience while also making sure that customer satisfaction is achieved. Businesses must figure out ways to offer the best customer experience if they wish to stay ahead of the curve and competitive.

The ability of businesses to offer amazing services before and after a transaction means that it is possible to offer improved personalization and a highly valued and connected customer experience across channels.

To make this easy, a business must adopt customer retention strategies so that there is an increased focus on becoming customer-centric. The ability to become customer-centric means putting the customer at the center of everything that is done in a business. From sales to marketing, the customer service touchpoints make a difference at every point.

Even though the definition might differ between the industries and individual companies, customer-centric businesses will all have one thing in common with each other and that is the fact that all of them are passionate about customer experience.

What Is Being Customer-Centric?

 

Keeping the customers first at every point is not a new thought. However, it must be kept in mind that the technologies that change customer behavior such as AI, IoT, Social Media, etc. are also enabling businesses to personalize interactions with customers in a completely different way.

Here, personalized interactions do not necessarily mean scaling up a generic experience with a customer’s name. Rather, it is more about creating a dynamic experience at each and every moment beginning from the initial search to every moment of the journey that comes in between. In case a customer has been able to establish a relationship with a brand this means that the customer can receive personalized recommendations based on purchasing history as scrolling is done on a website.

Context: The process of generating a better customer experience can be associated with the process of modifying a garment’s design so that it fits each customer individually. A special highlight in the way tailors work focuses on knowing each customer differently including their build, the way the garments should be, the right fabric, etc. Similarly, organizations today are shifting to selling experiences that fit the needs of the customers. This means that there is a constant modification of products and services so that the end result leads to customer satisfaction.

For example, a hotel group can use personalized information to offer the best experience to customers while anticipating the needs of this customer in advance. This information can be used to offer the right personal care kit to suggest the right food or yoga classes. It can be anything. Another example could be of an online retailer who might show similar products that the customers may have viewed on other browsers while providing direct comparisons to these products.

Importance of Being Customer-Centric

 

Importance of Being Customer-CentricOffering a personalized customer experience is considered an important step in the lead management system. In fact, customer expectations are evolving at a quick pace. The consumers in the present world are way more informed and less loyal as compared to the past generations. The customers look for different experiences that give rise to their trust and the customer will shop around anywhere to find them.

In contradiction with the past, offering services with a smile is not enough. Businesses must realize that customers want to be treated as a person and not merely a number so that eventually the business can win. With so many customers thinking that it has become easier than ever to take the business elsewhere, the pressure is on organizations to get the customer experience right.

The good news is that most customers even pay more for a great experience. This means that if businesses use the right tools then they have an opportunity to increase revenue by delighting their customers in a way that no one can.

What Is a Customer-Centric Organization Like?

 

An organization must know the importance of customer-centricity if it has to succeed. It is important to start with the customer experience and work backward with the technology. This is a lesson that successful companies have been implementing since forever while they stand out as being customer-centric companies.

Salesforce Cloud is an excellent example of a technology that can help businesses. It offers businesses a wide potential to rethink their business model. Retailing is one industry that has not started to explore what is possible. The retailing industry has understood the importance of customer-centricity for some time now but retailers lack both the technology and knowledge to connect sales, marketing, service, and commerce systems that enable a comprehensive customer view.

With technology such as Salesforce Cloud, all relevant and personalized engagements emerge as a key differentiator and retailers can finally make the investments to deliver on the promise of putting a customer at the center of everything. The key to becoming a competent customer-centric organization is starting with empathy. Otherwise, it is easy to risk not seeing the point and alienate the customers.

For example, Nike is a company that really started selling more shoes when the brand turned into a service that can help in tracking running, compete with friends and feel healthier. Nike is a brand that is a lot more than just selling shoes, it is the idea that focuses on delivering a brand promise in a meaningful way.

Why Do Companies Feel Held Back In Offering Customer Experiences?

 

Why Do Companies Feel Held Back In Offering Customer Experiences_
The thing that is holding companies back from cultivating great customer experience is some deep-seated problems. These problems are such that if the companies do not address them timely then they will get worse but the good thing about all of these problems is that they can be fixed.

To make sure that the companies offer the best customer experience, it is important that they work with a combination of innovation, discipline, and technology. More than anything, the companies require unwavering leadership so that business processes can be reimagined when times are painful. Doing nothing and letting the customers move to future-proof competitors can be much worse.

A problem that may get in the way of progress includes siloed front, middle, and back offices that may affect end-to-end visibility. In addition, backward-looking business intelligence affects shaping the future; the static workflows are focused on the past and find it difficult to adapt to the future; all compliance and regulatory issues serve as a problem.

These are some challenges to offer customer centricity which are also remnants of the old ways of doing business. They hold the companies back to move ahead and work smartly. While looking at these challenges and exploring new ways to adapt to the digital future, Salesforce Cloud is undoubtedly the best solution.

Customer-Centric Businesses Need a Single View of All Clients

 

Personalization is not enough if one has to become truly customer-centric. Offering customers a connected experience all across an organization is also important. Sales offer an integrated customer experience which ensures a seamless handoff between departments and striking a contextualized engagement based on early interactions.

Using Salesforce Cloud enables companies to recognize the customers wherever they engage while having a connected experience. Basically, with the support of a salesforce implementation consultant,you can win at each interaction a customer has with your organization. With siloed data being a major roadblock to connectivity, businesses are supposed to look at how they unlock the data held in multiple systems.

Moreover, the businesses also have to ensure that everyone in the organization has a single view of their customer and the role of customer experience is streamlined. If the organizations encourage employees to think about customer experience in terms of what’s better for the customer than the business then this can be a tangible step towards building a truly customer-centric culture.

Organizations go wrong when the employees work with a territorial and a myopic view of customer experience. When people say that customer experience should be owned by marketing they do not understand it goes way beyond that. It actually involves marketing, sales, and services. It does not matter who owns the customer experience more than who is implementing it and when it comes to it, everyone in an organization implements it.

In case there is any disconnection in a team then the result is disconnected metrics and customer experience. Measuring the customer experience in association with revenue and other organizations promotes alignment. All leaders must demonstrate a commitment to the long-term outcomes of customer experience even if the traditional performance indicators drop in the short term.

Customer–Centricity Begins With Trust

 

Customer Centricity Begins With Trust
Since the customer experience runs on data, building trust with all customers is important. In the past, high-profile data breaches have been in the news quite often while highlighting the poor procedures of many organizations. On the other hand, the data misuse scandals affect tons of people which has also left many people wondering how personal information is used.

Many customers think that their personal information is not secure while most others think that companies do not have their best interests at heart. Even though many people are comfortable offering personal information for better experiences, the responsibility is on businesses to be transparent about how personal information is stored, accumulated, and used. In case the businesses use this information to push irrelevant things, they will automatically lose customer trust.

The companies that are successful in earning customer trust can experience many benefits. In addition to spending more with brands they trust, the customers are also more likely to recommend these brands. However, if a company gets it wrong then the stakes are higher of losing a customer. Trusting a company makes the customers more likely to recommend that company further.

The Future is Customer-Centric

 

The Future is Customer-Centric
Organizations must focus on becoming more customer-centric if they wish to survive at the present time. Just as viewers expect recommendations while accessing a streaming service, the tailored customer experience is becoming more of a necessity to customers irrespective of the company that they engage with. The organizations that fail to get on board with this may not be around for a long time.

There is no better customer retention strategy than placing the customers at the heart of every interaction. The customer-centric businesses can create a dynamic, seamless, and uniquely personalized experience for customers that help them in achieving desired outcome and sales. The customer-driven organizations completely reset the valuable and meaningful experience with customers.

In the future, we can see more and more brands deploy the right technologies, right processes and hire the right people to connect all of their customer data while bringing a fundamental shift for companies as they reorient from being product-centric to customer-centric.

Conclusion

 

The use of the Salesforce cloud has the ability to change how business is conducted completely. The organizations can gain an ability to move faster than ever before with a wide level of customer and market-driven intelligence far beyond what was there in the past.

At the same time, customers will have many opportunities to forge the types of relationships they want with the brands they trust. There will be an easy association between the customers and brands that focus more on delivering experiences that delight customers rather than disappoint them.

This will only be possible with technologies such as Salesforce Cloud. If you wish for your company to become truly customer-centric then take the support of an expert Salesforce implementation consultant from Encaptechno who can guide you professionally. For any more queries, get in touch now.

 

 

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Maximize Your Potential As a Sales Representative With Zoho CRM _ Encaptechno

Maximize Your Potential as a Sales Representative With Zoho CRM

/ , , , , / CRM Services, Zoho CRM, Zoho Implementation

Maximize Your Potential As a Sales Representative With Zoho CRM _ Encaptechno

Most of the sales representatives are not so fond of using a CRM solution. The reason behind this is that the sales representatives enter the data manually and spend multiple hours making reports. They also claim that CRM is not so user-friendly.

The use of CRM can offer multiple features to the teams that can also be quite beneficial to the sales cycle process. The main question is how can you implement and manage the CRM system so that your sales representatives can love it and adopt it seamlessly. However, the question is how is that possible?

In this blog, we will look at the ways in which you can maximize your potential as a sales representative with the Zoho CRM.

1. Use Related Lists

 

Zoho CRM includes multiple modules that include important information about a customer’s journey. This information can be consolidated in Activities, Quotes, Invoices, Deals, etc. Now, most of the sales representatives go back and forth between these modules regularly while simultaneously working with the prospects.

This process can be made easier by introducing Related Lists. With the use of these lists, the sales representatives can view all the records associated with a parent record. This means that all the tasks, deals, products, events, invoices, etc. get displayed in the contact information of Zoho CRM.

This way, there will be no need to navigate to different modules for viewing the related data. What’s more, all the lists will have an option to form a new record within the module and link it with the parent record. For example, if you are viewing a record in a module and you wish to strike a deal with them then you can click on the + New Deal button in the related lists section for deals to create a record in the Deals module while automatically associating it with the record in Accounts module.

There are also many places where information about a customer can be easily found. For example, text files, mobile notes, etc. The use of Zoho CRM can provide you an option to integrate social media, emails, and notes as well. As a result, all the important information about a lead or a customer will be in one place.

2. Streamline and Clean 


Make sure that you do not show the modules that are not being used. It is important to understand that Zoho CRM has many features that are focused on helping various businesses. There are times when some modules may not be useful for the sales representatives or in the sales cycle process.

When you set up Profiles and Roles for your users, you do not just define a structure for a company but you also remove all the unwanted modules while making sure that all the sales representatives have information that is needed without having to search for it. By using the Roles, you can form the hierarchy of an organization and the Profile will help you determine the level of access a user can potentially have.

If you set up a Profile then you can reduce the amount of unnecessary information seen by a sales representative. Make sure that you stick to gathering relevant information only because most of the CRM applications will have many fields for storing data. However, often many fields are left completely untouched.

Seeing empty fields can make things look like the sales representative does not have the right information but this is not always the case. You can use layouts to remove any unwanted fields and make the Zoho CRM look way more concise and complete. Also, remember that the conditional layout rules are a feature in Zoho CRM where the fields show up after the criteria are fulfilled successfully.

3. Leverage CRM Mobile App 


Leverage CRM Mobile AppA CRM mobile application can be used to get an edge in the process of customer acquisition. For example, let’s say a sales representative goes for a corporate business conclave to network more. Now this person may return with a bunch of leads.

Rather than manually creating all these leads, the sales representative can quickly add all of them using a mobile CRM app. This is an excellent step in the sales pipeline that can help in adding important information to the CRM app.

Zoho has many applications of its own that can help you instantly record the attendee’s information in the CRM database. This can save the time of your sales representatives and they can also follow up right from the CRM mobile application only. Using the application also helps in setting up a workflow for sending an automated email to the lead.

4. Social Media Integration 


A sales representative has the potential to make a stronger pitch to a prospect and advance a lead to the next stage in case they have clarity about the personality and inclinations of the potential customer. To get this information, social media is one of the best ways in the present time.

The sales representatives can pursue the profiles of all the leads and also get a sense of the requirements of these leads. With the Zoho CRM social media integration, a sales representative has no problem in finding a customer’s social media profile.

There is no need to open up new tabs and search for things manually. Moreover, the responses that are received from a company’s sales representative can make customers feel that the company always takes care and addresses the requirements of the customers.

5. Automate Work 


The sales representatives can also configure the workflow rules for making the Zoho CRM function in the way that is needed. A sales workflow includes acquiring new leads, sending emails, converting leads into deals, negotiating, and closing the deal.

This process can be used to reduce any mundane or repetitive work for the sales representatives. For example, in case the deal advances to the next step in the sales process, a follow-up task can be created for the deal owner stating that they must add a note in this record and summarize the main takeaways of the conversation with the sales prospect.

The workflows can be easily set up for sending an email, creating tasks, updating the fields, etc. In addition, you can also easily schedule an action to take place at a later time. For example, for creating a task, you can remind the sales representative to send a follow-up email after the field in the deal record.

6. Using Zoho CRM Template and Macros 


Using the CRM is a lot about making the system work for you. You can send many emails in different time zones, update the inventory, and do much more by using the Zoho CRM template and macros.

These are some of the repetitive tasks most businesses have to endure anyway and this is where a Zoho CRM template and macros come in. You will also find that your workloads get greatly reduced. The process of creating a template can save a lot of effort that would otherwise go in manually constructing an email.

You can set up a Macro that lets you send emails at specific periods without having to send them yourself. For instance, you can set up a Macro for sending an email when the deal is closed or when an activity is completed successfully.

7. Use Zoho’s Gamification Features 


Use Zoho’s Gamification Features
The Zoho CRM’s gamification features can be helpful in bringing out the competitive spirit of your sales representatives. These features are a fun way of adding a motivating spirit to the sales pipeline and meet the sales quota.

Zoho CRM offers Gamescope for setting up challenges and also rewards your team with trophies and badges. You can choose your team to convert the most leads they can win in a single day. The sales representative who manages to convert a fixed number can win a trophy.

Other than completing the everyday sales tasks, the gamification features of Zoho CRM also have a long-term value. They can be used to calculate the bonuses for the sales representatives based on their performance in all the games they participated in last year. This also boosts their morale so that they never get tired from their work.

8. Use Zoho Feeds 


If a business has to realize its complete potential then it has to be run forward by a cohesive team that can coordinate its work with a final aim to increase the revenue. This also involves the ones who are high up on the ladder too.

A serious problem that comes in most companies is a lack of constant communication between different levels or even among peers in the organization. There must be a culture of open communication in the company so that anyone from the company finds it easy to get in touch with anyone in the team. This improves coordination and ease of work as well.

There can be an increased collaboration and easy communication with the implementation of an effective policy. This can empower the collective effort made by the team members and also affect the sales process constructively. The use of Zoho Feeds is an excellent way to increase collaboration.

All the sales representatives have access to the Feeds section and any post made by a user can be visible to almost everyone in the organization. The users can post, comment, and add attachments as well. In case you do not want all the employees to see your post then you can make the post visible to the selected users only.

In addition, another effective method is to create Groups with specific users. In case you wish to make a post in the group, only the users in the group will be able to view it. These are some of the functions that can make the open communication policy in the company much more effective.

9. Customize the Homepage 


The Zoho CRM Homepage has the ability to give you a comprehensive overview of the sales aspect of your work. The Zoho CRM also lets you customize your homepage effectively.

It is possible to have dashboards such as Pipeline By Stage, Events, Tasks, Calls, Leads By Source, etc. Any normal homepage will not contain these dashboards but using the Zoho CRM, you can customize the homepage as per your requirements so that the sales cycle process becomes easy.

Conclusion

 

Zoho CRM has been made in a way that can help to maximize the potential of a sales cycle process. It has so many features that can be used to make the process of sales extremely productive and fruitful. Implement Zoho CRM today and see it for yourself.

In case you need any further support with the implementation and use of Zoho CRM for the sales cycle process then please feel free to get in touch with us.

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Future of CRM in the Gaming Industry | Encaptechno

Future of CRM in the Gaming Industry

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Future of CRM in the Gaming Industry | Encaptechno

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

Generating Loyalty | CRM Best Practices in Gaming

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

Community | CRM Best Practices in Gaming

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

Future of CRM in the Gaming Industry


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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

 

 

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