How Sage CRM Can Help Your Business Make Money

Solution

So how can your company justify investing in a CRM system at a time whencost-cutting measures are being implemented across all companies and industries?During a recession, a company’s business model must be resilient enough tomaintain profitability. Cutting costs alone provides temporary relief but ifrevenue generating initiatives do not come to fruition, diminished resourcescan lead to further revenue declines. Therefore an inward assessment of acompany’s operational efficiency is key to business survival during a downturn.CRM is no longer viewed as a discretionary spend area; it is now an operationaland financial imperative for all SMBs. Investing in a CRM system will not onlyautomate your business processes but will enable you to make more money by empoweringyour sales team with a pool of knowledge thereby increasing sales revenues andidentifying and cultivating customers who keep your business profitable.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Quite simply,by choosing to sit back and do nothing, you have no real visibility on how yourbusiness is performing and you’re leaving the path clear for your competitionto get ahead. The right CRM solution enablesyour sales team to be more efficient and sell more, providing you with visibilityacross the sales team's efforts and on business activity in general.

Without apowerful CRM system, your company does not have a central place to recordinformation. Not only does the collection of that information help the salesperson to make money by closing the sale, it also enables management to analysereal-time sales forecasts. Customised workflows enhance your company’s abilityto close more sales in a shorter period of time leading to an increase in salesrevenue. Supporting important business decisions can also be challengingwithout full visibility on the business and customer information. Customerretention is the key to growing your business. Marketers state that it costs 5to 10 times as much to acquire a profitable customer than it does to retainone. 

Sage CRM across your Organisation

Thebenefits of Sage CRM extend to all departments and roles across yourorganisation. Integrated with back-end financials, Sage CRM provides you with a 360 degreeview of your customer breaking down departmental silos, connecting your front-and back-office and providing total visibility and control right across yourbusiness.

Businesses are operating in a new agewhere the customer is demanding more value for money and choosing theproducts/services they need wisely. Companies need to tailor a valuableproposition to them and engage with them to understand their needs. But how doyou know who they are and what they actually want? Sage CRM provides you with adeep understanding of your customers needs allowing you to create a bespokemessage to them through a channel that resonates the most with them.

With CRM, sales teams can focus on leads which are most likely to be converted and reduce time spent on administrative tasks such as creating sales pipelines, reports, quotes or proposals

ImplementingSage CRM can not only help your sales teams focus their efforts but can alsohelp you manage their performance through real-time pipeline analysis. Thismeans that your sales team are producing more revenue per sales hour. Throughsophisticated analysis and profiling, sales teams are equipped to cross- andup-sell your products and effectively identify sales opportunities which existwithin your customer database. Automated workflow eliminates unnecessarypaperwork and ensures that sales staff follows company-specific opportunitymilestones. This means that sales can be progressed as quickly and asefficiently as possible.

Mobile/offline solutions provide salesteams with access to information and services allowing them to do their jobseffectively and make the business money regardless of their location device orconnection their own customer base. The extensive and powerful reportingfeatures in CRM provides confidence that sales staff are working allowingmanagement to take corrective action when it is needed rather than after theevent.

In recessionary times, only thosecompanies whose marketing messaging and activity is targeted, compelling andtimely will survive and grow. Sage CRM can improve lead quality and ensurehigher conversion rates by sales through its effective segmenting and profilingtools. Reporting can help track source of leads and assess opportunities andhelp focus on prospects that are more likely to purchase, increasing ROI andmaximising the marketing budget and spend.

Having a detailed knowledge of yourbusiness performance and a deep understanding of your customers is critical forsenior management. Sage CRM provides extensive central control over operationsand budgets, helping senior management to control these areas more effectively.Integrated with back-end financials, Sage CRM can provide a complete view ofthe business and a streamlined end-to-end business management. This holistic approach to business puts the customer at the centreof the organization where staff can view all customer interactions andactivities building a platform for quality customer service. This consolidatedview of your customer provides your company with the opportunity to cultivate amore meaningful relationship with your customers and enables you to make moremoney from them over the long-term. 

Conclusion and Recommendations

You can’t control the economy and howthe recession unfolds, but you can prepare your business processes and becomemore efficient. By implementing Sage CRM, your company will realise real andquantifiable improvements in operational efficiency, driving new growth and revenuestreams for your business. With Sage CRM, your business will have greaterinsight and understanding of your customers, helping you to concentrate yoursales efforts on those customers and prospects who are most likely to buy –enabling you to make more money even in this tough economic climate.