Webinar:
"How to work in CRM to make it work?"

A CRM system is not only a tool that makes life easier for employees and company management. It is also an effective platform for analyzing work, finding strengths and weaknesses in the marketing and sales strategies. How to use the system in this capacity, has been told at the webinar "How to work in CRM to make it work."

The only really working CRM is acceptable for analytical purposes, and this is when:

1. Employees know and use all the features of the system, and do not consider it as just an addition to an Excel spreadsheet.
2. Business processes in CRM correspond to the company’s real business processes: the system stays true to the reality.
3. CRM meets the company’s needs. It has an optimal level of complexity and functionality, and its basic setup is completed.
4. CRM-system reports are customized for the company and are not just generated, but regularly studied. Higher level managers consider them as the main source of information.

If these criteria are not met, the CRM system does not work. It exists in the company only on paper. Looking for growth points for the company in this case is not only inefficient, but even harmful. The big picture is distorted, so it is easy to get the wrong conclusions.

Companies that actively use the CRM system have most like long been acquainted with the necessary basic settings. Let’s reiterate them:

Simple interface.
Names of fields are understandable to employees. The number of required fields is sufficient but not excessive.

Accessibility.
The CRM system is available to employees from any device. For instance, they can view the customer base in a mobile application.

Built-in communications.
Any arising question can be discussed with the manager or other departments in a CRM chat.

Basic automation.
Setting typical tasks is automated. The user receives notifications, hints and reminders.

Calendar.
The calendar in CRM allows the employee to visualize their own workload, as well as trhat of their colleagues. The CRM calendar is integrated with the smartphone’s calendar, a meeting can be quickly made and confirmed.

Telephony integration.
CRM is integrated with telephony. Call forwarding is automatic. Conversations are being recorded.

End-to-end data search.
Search for information amongst all contacts, documents or leads is available.

Automatic reports.
For example, a KPI report to the manager at the end of each working day.

The first potential point of growth which is important for the property developer to pay attention to, is working with leads in the CRM system. What needs to be analyzed:
• conversions to a high-quality lead;
• conversions to a low-quality lead.

It is worth revising the criteria for a quality lead: do they meet the requirements of marketing now? Then it is important to focus on the rejected leads because the reason for disqualification can be a human factor. So, there may be difficulties with the processing of leads for a particular manager or for the entire team. Some employees may deliberately disqualify leads in order not to make KPI look worse.

The CRM system allows to identify the problem of a particular manager and work with them, and not with the whole team.

According to our statistics, in real estate company managers disqualify up to 80% of leads. Developers are often approached by equity holders, agents, advertising managers. Such leads need to be disqualified quickly to keep the CRM data clean, control the workload of managers, and give enough attention to promising potential customers. At the same time, heads of sales departments are able to control each rejected lead to make sure that it really poses no value. If the disqualification is incorrect, the lead can be returned to the funnel manually.
If the lead is lost, the responsibility for it lies no longer with the sales department, but with the marketing department. In this case, we set up a "resuscitation program" for clients. To do so, we launch an automatic chain of emails. The mailing content is determined by the reason for the disqualification of the lead, as well as by the information about the potential client from the card in CRM.

An important advantage of such a heating-up chain in CRM is that it fixates the client’s activity. As soon as they click on the sent link, the lead will return to work. The introduction of such link makes it psychologically easier for managers to lose deals, because they know that additional work with leads will be carried out.

The starting point for analytics that is based on CRM data is reports. It is optimal to use actionable reports, that is, inducing to action. With their help, it can be easily determined how good or bad specific steps were.

The simplest example of such analytics is working with a conversion report. This is what we most often implement to our clients. The conversion report allows to determine how many leads were received over the past day and how many of them are at each stage of the purchase funnel. If managers are lagging behind the plan, this is also immediately visible. Having studied the report, it is easier to decide what further actions should be made.

Daily data analytics from CRM is acceptable for monitoring the correct operation of the system and monitoring the implementation of the plan in real time. To facilitate the transition to reports that will in fact be used, Remark has created a set of sample reports for the developer. They are suitable for implementing basic sales department analytics and can serve as a starting point for development.

Regular work with CRM system data allows to identify problems in time. If too many leads have accumulated at the intermediate stages of the funnel, then the sales department is overloaded. But if the lead is at the intermediate stage for a long time, it is possible that managers simply enter data into CRM in an untimely manner. This situation is visible if conducting the client through all stages of the funnel is seen made in one day. Most likely, in this case all the preliminary work has not been entered into CRM, and then the information appeared in the system just for reporting purposes.

A large number of missed calls can also signal problems. There may be both a failure in the operation of telephony and errors in the settings for its integration with CRM.
An additional useful step is to determine the consumer loyalty index, the net promoter score (NPS), in the middle of the funnel, and not at its end. If research is conducted at this point, the specific problems in the process of moving the client through the funnel can be found. For instance, filling in the NPS immediately after the showing allows to determine that a particular manager has insufficiently developed the necessary skills.

Extended use of CRM capabilities allows to notice and identify problems soon after they occur, and not when the effect is already growing out of proportions. If the technology of working with the system is followed, managers can have up-to-date data for making decisions and adjusting their actions and the work of the team. This makes it possible to find the points of growth and to use them for the benefit of the company. The main thing is not to miss important details. Focus on those business processes of the company that have features and differences from the processes of competitors. Write down a list of software and services that are already in use: which ones are planned to be changed, and which ones are planned to be left. If the company has chosen a specific CRM, enunciate the critically important functionality.

It is fine not to disclose to integrators the budget for software, implementation and support, but understanding it within the company is mandatory. This will help choose a CRM in the right price range.