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Collaborate and Communicate Effectively With Zoho CRM Feeds | Encaptechno

Collaborate and Communicate Effectively With Zoho CRM Feeds

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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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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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How to Publish Applications on Zoho Marketplace - Encaptechno

How To Publish Applications On Zoho Marketplace?

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How to Publish Applications on Zoho Marketplace - Encaptechno

The Zoho Marketplace is pretty much similar to an e-commerce website for the Zoho Marketplace developers and users. It enables the developers to build and publish a remarkable Zoho Creator app and for the users, it is like a store or a gallery to choose from a wide range of applications for a number of purposes.

All a user needs is a Zoho account and a strong understanding of Zoho Creator to become a developer. The developer then has an ability to access the Zoho Developer Portal for the purpose of creating applications and for privately sharing the applications with clients, publish them in the marketplace for free or on a paid basis for all the Zoho Creator users. The consumers can install the required application and make use of it for their business needs.

The Zoho Marketplace is a platform that enables one to sell business applications to millions of Zoho users. A collection of business applications that augment the productivity of the Zoho products are known as extensions. With the help of a simple development process and a well-defined user base, one can easily build and market the extensions to the right audience.

Benefits of publishing applications on Marketplace

Benefits Zoho Marketplace

1. Advanced Developer Platform:

The Zoho Marketplace helps in high-quality custom application development. Essentially, your applications can be created according to your own style. A sandbox enabled developer platform along with helpful documents, REST APIs, tutorials, and much more is offered. This helps in developing extensions in any way you want.

2. User-Friendly Publishing:

At the time when the final extension is ready to ship out, things should be seamless. Zoho offers an optimized process that makes sure the final product reaches the customers at the earliest.

3. Connecting Customers:

It is possible to use the social network pages and forums for determining the potential use cases and the user requirements along with communicating with the present and the potential customers.

4. Marketing Assistance:

After the extension has been built, the developer is offered all the necessary support in making a marketing plan that can be tailored to the target audience.

Partnering with Zoho is extremely hassle-free and rather beneficial. Just by developing an extension and publishing it in the marketplace, one can become a technology partner. There are three steps in which this works:

  • Build: The first step is to find the product that you wish to integrate with and check out which developer resources and tools are available. After the choice has been made, you can start the process of integrating.
  • Deliver:  After you have completed building the extension, it is time to submit it finally. This is when it gets reviewed by the technical team and gets published after the vetting process is completed.
  • Earn: After getting selected, your extension is going to be open to all possible users in the marketplace. You can leverage your GTM plans for making the most of the extensive user base.

Now that we have understood all about the Zoho Marketplace, its benefits, and the process that can be followed for partnering with it, it is time to create and publish the application.

The first and most important step is to access the Zoho Developer Portal. For any developer who wishes to develop applications for the marketplace, the primary step is to access the Zoho Developer Portal. There are two tabs on this portal namely Applications and Clients. In the applications tab, developers have the option to create applications that can be shared with the customers or published in the marketplace. In the client’s tab, developers have the option to invite clients with whom the applications can be shared privately.

Creating the Application

Creating the Application

To create a good application, the developers can integrate with the Zoho Developer Portal and follow the steps mentioned below:

  1. The foremost step is to click on the create an application.
  2. It is then time to decide a final name for the application and click on create.
  3. After the completion of these steps, you will instantly be taken to the “Application details” page. This page will further have four steps:
  • The tab application details will be displaying all the information that is needed in the application.
  • It is then the time to display clients who have been invited for sharing the application.
  • The third step is to develop an application.
  • The next and final step is to publish the application on the marketplace or share the application privately with the clients.
  1. The fourth step is to click on Develop app to begin the process of building the application.
  2. After all the changes have been made in the application, it is time to click on the “Back to app details” for returning to the application details page.

Invite Clients

The developers can invite clients for the purpose of sharing their applications with the clients in a safe and private way. After clicking on the “Application Details” page, the next step is to click on the back option (on the top left corner) to complete the navigation to Zoho Developer Portal. To add the clients from the Zoho Developer Portal:

  1. Begin by clicking on the Clients tab.
  2. The next step is to click on the Invite Clients tab. On the next page, you can mention the following details:
  • To: This is for mentioning the email address of the client to whom you wish to write the email. This email account should be linked with the Zoho account of the client.
  • Subject: This is for mentioning the subject of the invitation email. It is likely to be pre-populated with a subject message that can further be edited.
  • The From and Message boxes are most likely going to pre-populate and will not be edited.

Inviting the clients will be listed in the Clients tab with status as Pending in case the client has not accepted the invitation as yet. These clients can include the option of Re-invite, which can then be used to repeat the invitation.

Editing the Application

Editing the Application

The applications created by the developers are listed in the Zoho Developer Portal within the Applications tab and they can be edited whenever there is a need. For the purpose of editing an application, the developer can follow the steps given below:

  1. Click on Develop for the application that is required to be edited. You can click on Edit, after which you will be navigated to the “Application Details” page.
  2. On the “Application Details” page, the next step is to click on the Develop app so that the application gets edited.
  3. When the required changes are made in the application, click on Back to app details for returning to the “Application Details” page.

Publishing the App

Publishing the App

The app requires it to be published so that it can become possible to privately share with clients or to share them in the marketplace. To publish an application effectively, do the following:

  1. Navigate to the Zoho Developer Portal and then simply click on Publish for the required application or click on edit for the required application and right on the next page, click on Publish.
  2. This will directly take you to the “Publish Application” page. Any change that you make to the application will get listed here. You can begin by selecting the required changes and then you can click on Proceed.
  3. Next, you will navigate straight to the “Publish Details” page. For publishing the app to a client, set the “Publish to” option to the client.
  4. You can then set the “Client” option to the required client from the drop-down. Only those clients who have accepted the invitation can be listed in the dropdown. This is from where you can also invite to share the application. The developer and client should be using a similar version of Zoho Creator. For instance; if the developer is using the C4 version the client should also be using C4.
  5. Go ahead and mention the required application name. In case the app name is changed here, the new app name will get reflected on the client’s side and the old app name will get retained just like that in Zoho Developer Portal.
  6. Furthermore, the version name will also be automatically populated according to the release. For example; the first publication will contain “Version 1”, the second publication will contain “Version 2” and so on. The developers can edit the version name just as required.
  7. Within the description box only, you can describe multiple aspects of the app. For example; the changes that can be made to the version.
Conclusion:

Ever since the launch of the Zoho Marketplace, it can meet the demands of the users who wish to integrate with the third-party applications with Zoho applications, extend the Zoho applications with any additional features and automate the new processes with the custom applications.

Zoho Marketplace is contextually integrated within the supported application so the users can browse through a wide range of solutions, find the ones that can best fit the requirements, and install them without any need for leaving the application. In addition, the users can also browse and buy directly from the Zoho Marketplace only.

At present, the Zoho Marketplace provides extensions for the Zoho CRM and custom applications. It also offers a wide number of Zoho developed extensions for Zoho SalesIQ. In the future, it is expected that the Zoho Marketplace will provide more extensions as well.

If you are looking to create and publish custom applications on the Zoho Marketplace then you must collaborate with a Zoho consulting partner such as Encaptechno for high-quality guidance. They will assist you to go about the process with extraordinary precision.

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Why Do You Need To Hire A CRM Consultant

Why Do You Need To Hire A CRM Consultant?

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Is your company starting up with a new CRM system or has already adapted to a new CRM system? So, what’s your implementation strategy?   Even for companies that want to take on complete ownership of a CRM system, it can make sense to engage an external consulting party for the initial CRM implementation.

Why Do You Need To Hire A CRM Consultant

Implementing CRM into your company system can sometimes be challenging; that’s where the need for an expert consultant arises.

Why CRM?

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software is getting progressively important in today’s business world. Right from collecting customer information to managing it efficiently, CRM allows companies to administer an array of important front-office activities, including sales processes, lead acquisition and conversion, tracking of customer interactions, and marketing.

As companies can streamline their operations using this software, all varied processes and responsibilities can be more integrated; it results in superior levels of sales and customer satisfaction.

Reasons to Hire a CRM Certified Consultant 

Whether your company is implementing a CRM system or already has one, you’ve possibly realized how vast an undertaking it is. From selecting which CRM platform best suits your needs to encourage employee adoption, there are various aspects that can fall short if not handled correctly. Hiring CRM consultants can help you make the most out of your CRM investment and ensure a smooth implementation process.

1. Selecting the Suitable CRM Platform

Since CRM systems support various departments with different requirements, choosing a platform that assures all of them can be difficult. So CRM Consultants can facilitate your decision-making process by helping you to identify your business needs and matching them to the different leading CRM platforms. They help you to select the best matches and evaluate its usage as per the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

2. Time and Cost Resource 

It is worth considering that internal resources will likely take more time to execute a CRM package than external consultants. A company can pay more per hour for an external CRM Consultant, but the benefit of having skilled people come in for quicker implementation. As a result, the company gets a sooner return on its investment in the new CRM system.

3. Customizing and Optimizing after Installation

Once you have installed and configured the right CRM application, you’ll want to include any extra customizations and adjustments to tackle any challenges. CRM consultants will help you out at this stage as well. After the setup, consultants inquire the customer to discover the key initiatives and problems with the solution. Then they produce a plan and an ROI and then create a multi-year plan according to your budget.

At the initial stage, many customers don’t understand that CRM can be integrated with third-party applications that can improve their platform’s functionality. The consultants will also develop custom solutions for clients based on their particular requirements. So, whether you want to unite back-office systems, insert document viewing and signing, or automate manual processes, a CRM consultant can direct you in the right direction.

4. Exposure to Best Practices

crm best practices

One of the major reasons to hire CRM consultants is their massive knowledge of a variety of CRM best practices. When you hire an external consulting team, you don’t just engage people who are technically certified in your chosen CRM system. But you hire a team of professional personnel who have come across a wide variety of real-time world business situations with many years of expertise, and who know which strategies and technical approaches work the best, and which ones don’t.

5. Information about Subtleties

Just as some restaurants that have a secret menu, some CRM retailers have unexposed, free functionalities that can be made accessible on request. Most of the professional consultants will possibly have information about some of these hidden gems.

Additionally, today’s CRM systems have such profound functionalities that it’s sometimes even harder to find out the well- known features. A CRM consultant will help you to distinguish which type of features you should give a high priority.

6. Creating Past Solutions for Similar Problems

When you employ special IT staff to implement CRM applications in your organization, they will need to spend time learning about your company’s exact business profile. When you hire an experienced consultant, It can be possible that they have encountered some similar business problems to those of your company during their preceding consulting engagements. Therefore, the consultant can then recommend the best-proven approaches to resolve those business issues within a CRM solution.

7. Pre-Developed Code

For more advanced functionality and integrations, expert consultants often have pre-developed code collections that can accelerate the speed of CRM development. If an in-house developer is new to the selected development environment of the CRM system, he or she will require developing every single line of code from scratch, or spending time researching some smart and time-saver techniques or public code samples.

8. Pre-Developed Data Migration Strategies

If you need to migrate the data from a legacy contact manager to a CRM system, a CRM consulting partner will already have experience and knowledge of transferring data from the same legacy application that relates to your existing company system. While data migration can often be a complex process, even when the understanding of a legacy application comes into practice, there can still be considerable time saving and an improved outcome from leveraging an external consulting team’s former experience.

9. Third-Party Product Recommendations 

It might be possible that a single CRM system does not have all the features you need in your organization, but they consist of hundreds of different apps you can use to function more resourcefully. Opting for the multi-company experience, a professional CRM consultant can recommend which third-party add-ons you can take into consideration. Some enhanced functionalities may include partner portal, email marketing, marketing automation, data, and app integration, or legacy system integration, which can save a significant quantity of internal research time.

10. Training Team to Use New CRM System

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Consultants will support your company employees and propose technical training and rollout plans that will make the transition easier. They will analyze and evaluate the company’s processes and workflows to make suggestions for working out ways for streamlining processes using the CRM system.

External professional CRM consultants are the best option to provide more effective end-user training than internal resources that are relatively new to the CRM solution. The proposed user training may include the knowledge and guidance of all sets of best practices that can help the users in CRM adoption.

Choosing the Right CRM Consultant

As explained above, a CRM Consultant does more than helping you and your company in choosing the right customer relationship management solution for your business. They can support you create content systems and processes, train your staff to use the new system, and recommend the best practices for future growth. Therefore, selecting the right consultant can make a significant difference in your productivity and outcome. Before you employ a consultant, it’s essential to check out a few key points to make your decision easier.

  • Total Experience in CRM Consulting
  • Expertise with Multiple CRM Platforms
  • CRM Product Development Experience
  • Specialties and Industry Focus
  • Delivery capacity
  • CRM Implementation Approach
  • Expertise in Your Niche
  • User Experience
  • Customization and Training
  • Cost-Effectiveness

So when you approach a CRM consultant, don’t forget to consider the above-stated points, so you end up with a well-experienced and professional consultant at your corner.

Also Read: Why is CRM So Important for Business Success?

Wrapping Up

Sometimes, users do not understand that when they start transiting to new CRM, requirements will also change, and new requirements will be there. And the companies fail to recognize those needs, which can lead to failure of adoption and lose out the CRM project.

As you have read, CRM implementation is a hard job to do, and you may confront a lot of organizational and technical challenges on the way. But relationships with the customers conclude the success of any business, and that means you need CRM. In most of the cases, it’s pretty logical to consider hiring a qualified external CRM consultant who can give you superior advice on selecting the best option for your custom needs and provide technical guidance on CRM implementation.

Consultants actively participate in the complete implementation process and can help you at different levels, including business process planning, choosing an appropriate configuration, and developing system integration strategies. Your consultant can provide recommendations on how you should optimize the application and ensure its security. Besides, they will also help you choose the right methods to capture, extract, and transfer your business data and analyze it.

Zoho and Salesforce are the leading CRM service providers that are serving millions of users around the world. It all depends on the specific needs of your business to conclude which platform goes well with your business. If you are looking for a highly-advanced system with an abundance of scope to scale, Salesforce Consulting Services will guide you to get the complete guidance and the basic price quote. And if you’re starting over with some fundamentals and want to save on costs, you will don’t regret contacting a Zoho Consulting Partner.

Usually, the thing that matters the most is not “Which one is better?”; but is “Finding the one that better supports your needs and budget” If you’re getting any difficulty in deciding, we’d like to help you.

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Why Is CRM So Important For Business Success?

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Customer relationship has been one of the most critical aspects of the business throughout the antiquity of business. Not only in this digital age but if we look at history, business individuals have always tried to maintain their relationship with the customers. However, today, when business growth revolves around the successful implementation of out-of-the-box IT solutions, the importance of a CRM System cannot be overstated.

CRM-Importance-in-Business-Encaptechno

Since customer relationship is an obligatory trait in business, people seek for the most superlative approach to do it effectively. If you review the success of companies using CRM, you will find that the people who use CRM have gone a step ahead of all. So, if any confusion bounds your mind, make sure to consider what is best for your company.

 

What is a CRM System?

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The acronym CRM means Customer Relationship Management. Though the term is transparent to understand by its name, not everybody is aware of doing it correctly without some supervision. Apparently, you can take the help of a CRM Implementation Consultant; otherwise, it can cost you some major blunders in your business.

CRM is an inclusive business strategy designed to boost profitability, lessen the overheads, and escalate customer reliability. CRM works on the simple philosophy to put the customers first.

When the businesses consider every action and preference of customers, they deliver a better customer experience, which in turn boosts their loyalty to your company. Modern businesses are investing in CRM because the various researches prove:

  • A single negative experience with a favorite brand will tend to lose 1 in 3 customers.
  • 86% of customers are ready to pay extra for better customer experience.
  • Companies with better customer management services are 60% more profitable than those that don’t.

 

Why is CRM Important?

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CRM software gathers all information together from various departments across the company to give a single holistic understanding of every customer in real-time.

The employees in the field of sales, marketing, and customer support who interact with customers regularly use CRM to make quick and informed decisions for everything from up-selling and cross-selling, to enhancing the quality of customer communication and approachability, to managing the sales and marketing campaigns.

When implemented effectively with the professional help of a CRM Development Company, CRM provides companies with not only insight into the opportunities to cultivate their business with each customer, but also a technique of determining their value.

There are loads of reasons that make a CRM approach important for your business, so here are a few reasons that will help you understand how CRM software can boost your business growth:

  1. Business Process Automation

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Business automation is considered as the most important benefit of CRM; it is very helpful to capture your customer’s feedback automatically. Not only captivating their response, but it will also show you the most appropriate proceeding step based on their complaints and suggestions.

CRM helps a company to streamline business processes automatically. It eliminates the chances of human errors by standardizing and automating sales, marketing, and service processes, which ultimately increases productivity, accelerates business operations, and enhances customer satisfaction.

 

  1. Better Lead Conversion Ratio

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As per reports, 79% of leads never convert into sales, and the most common reason behind this is the deficiency of lead encouragement.  So here CRM comes to your rescue; it tracks all details about customer interactions like when the customer was last contacted, what was the conclusion, the suitable product based on customer feedback, etc.

CRM gives you all the insights that can help you turn your lead into a potential customer.

 

  1. Personalized Product Configuration:

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As a single size does not fit all, the same goes for the preferences of people. Customers will probably buy personalized products or services than general ones.

CRM helps businesses to configure products for each distinct customer by enabling them to customize products as per customers’ requirements. It also takes into effect the variability based on the other factors like region, country, industry, age group, etc.

 

  1. Marketing Campaign Management

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Managing campaigns is the very first step towards prospective customers with your products. Therefore, it must be impeccable. CRM conducts customer segmentation that splits prospecting customers into minor categories sharing similar kinds of features, which could be based on many factors, such as buying patterns, geography, age, gender, or some custom rules, etc.

For marketing campaigns, customer segmentation determines the best group to target, and campaign management assists in running a campaign and analyzing data.

CRM empowers the marketing campaigns by automating the process, which will get more qualified leads than traditional campaign methods. This approach trims down the campaign cost, evaluates campaign data, and predicts the forthcoming marketing strategy.

 

  1. Improved Customer Support

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CRM helps a business to retain their current customers, gain more business from them, and seize fresh leads. You can deal better with customers’ complaints or suggestions effectively and quickly by automating customer service processes with a CRM system. Human error reduces when you streamline business processes.

CRM provides you superior traceability over the employees’ actions on customers’ queries.

 

  1. Gain Customer Loyalty

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Attaining a new customer is almost 6-7 times expensive than retaining an existing customer.

Loyal and satisfied customers will most likely buy products from you than a new customer. Additionally, they spread optimistic views about your brand. Hence, satisfied customers will help you produce more leads and grow sales. Being an inclusive way of customer service and support, CRM helps to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by building a healthier relationship with them.

  1. Cost-Effectiveness

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If you think CRM is expensive software and only big companies, then you may be wrong!

Using CRM can be a costly process for SMB, but over the passing time, efforts of CRM Firms have made it the most cost-effective way to run a business. Business process automation with CRM saves time, manual efforts, and other resources, which, in fact, reduces overhead charges.

In addition to this, you don’t even miss a selling opportunity when you’re not in the office. You can access customer data through your mobile anywhere and anytime.

 

Conclusion

Regardless of size and industry, CRM assists a company in understanding its customers and business in a better way. It delivers actionable insights about customers that improve sales and generate better revenue. When you start using a CRM system, it considerably enhances the business-customer relationship at various steps of business operations, whether it is for sales, marketing, or customer support.

It is extensively important to select the right CRM software for your business. Contact a leading CRM Consultant to help you find the most suitable one!

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Zoho CRM

Role of Zoho in handling cognitive dissonance

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If you are thinking of expanding your business, increasing the sales stats at an alarmingly amazing rate and gaining better and undefeatable brand equity, you must have definitely understood the journey a customer takes while at purchase. Well, considering that you yourself are a consumer with the need for material aspects just like your target audience, I am sure you must have understood the sort of option-based turmoil they come across. Often customers receive options to choose from among various brands for a single item that they intend to purchase. This might come across as a delight considering that they could compare two products or options and choose the one they feel suits the best. But, this might also come across as a problem for consumers. Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values.  This is exactly what most consumers suffer from, two contradictory beliefs that are capable of gaining the attraction it intends to garner.

Most companies are a prey to this factor and analyzing a customer; forcing or rather coercing them into accepting your product or service may come across as a real challenge here. With so many brands offering almost the similar products and options, trying to gain the maximum visibility, you must have understood that having the larger size of the cake is the only way to grow ahead and you have to fight it out with both the smaller picks and giants.

Don’t panic. We know the market is tough and you have a long way to go but hey! The good part is that technology knows how to take you ahead in this journey and that’s exactly what you are in search of. ZOHO is the answer to all your queries. Implementing Zoho is the only way to help stop your customers from getting distracted by brands that offer what you have or even better in a different packaging. Need more help to understand this wonder tech? Well, here’s our take on the Zoho techniques to fight your competitors in a smart way:

  1. The Automation of Sales Efforts: The heart of Zoho lies in automating routine sales efforts. From converting web visitors into hot leads and garnering data from external parties and so much more, Zoho lets you connect with your potentials from across trade shows, direct emails and seminars and workshops. Once captured in the system, these leads are matched with the right sales workforce, converting it into a real sale. Moreover, the sales processes on Zoho may be customized based on the needs of individual businesses making it an even more desirable and personalized tool.
  2. Monitor your connects: Zoho is a true CRM tool that not just lets you connect with your customers but also lets you monitor their movements, helping you understand the pattern of their purchases, the triggers that work in a particular segment. You can also forecast the revenue that you may be able to identify via Zoho tools thereby helping you create a better strategy for each segment of your market in order to remain the people’s brand that you want and must become. You remain connected with your targets, putting away any chance of contradiction.
  3. Crucial data: Zoho CRM is appreciated and adopted the most for this particular feature of it. Real-time access to handy information is essential and the tracking tool lets you see where exactly has the customer reached in the sales cycle. In short, the tool lets you analyze, track and retrieve data that can help you take the sales initiatives to a whole new level, streamlining your business efforts in order to help you achieve your targets and fulfill your mission. With Zoho, you can make smarter and profitable decisions.
  4. The Mobile Factor: Let’s face the fact. Our customers are now sourced via social media. Don’t believe it? Well, researchers have stats to prove it. Zoho takes the maximum advantage of its tracking system to analyze a potential target group, its movements, preferences, the rate of their conversion, etc. From Facebook to Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, Zoho extracts the maximum of the resources and platforms available to gain crude information. Zoho Integration with social media lets you connect with them, engage and stay associated rather than stick to a single sale and push attitude.
  5. For the smartphone generation: Zoho is all in for a smartphone generation. Dedicated editions of Zoho for Android and iOS users help these persons to control their sales activities even when on the go. This will help major decisions to be taken on the basis of quick and true data with research findings and stats to back it. You may access the most important of data from your phone and stay connected with your business no matter where you are.

The list could be stretched even further with many key market players opting in for the Zoho CRM system. If you want to take your business operations to a whole new level, you have to give Zoho a fair chance. Fight the competition and gain the maximum out of your business opportunities with Zoho.

Still, need a further detailing? We’re happy to help. Drop us a line at [email protected] and we will get back to you!

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