CRM to automate the sales department

According to the study, 75% of managers say that using a CRM system helps them sell more than when they work without the program. But why? Largely because CRM automates the customer experience. Let's understand what automation is and how to automate sales work with CRM.

What is sales automation

Sales automation is the organization of work with clients, when many monotonous processes are automatically performed with the help of a special program. Thanks to this, employees do not waste time on routine tasks and can devote more energy to clients and transactions. In addition, when the program takes over part of your work, the human factor is eliminated: the machine will not make mistakes and will not make typos. Also, don`t forget that you can always turn to crm software for movers.

For sales departments, CRM is such a program. What processes does the CRM system automate and how does it help to simplify the work?

So, almost all CRM allows you to automate the setting of tasks under certain conditions (came the request from the site - the manager has a task to "Call the client"). But the most advanced systems can automate almost any process at every stage of the transaction:

• CRM will capture the request from the site and assign a responsible person;
• will set him/her the task of contacting the client;
• calculate the cost of services and automatically issue an invoice;
• send an SMS to the client about the status of the order;
• if the amount of the transaction exceeds a certain threshold, it will change the status of the client to VIP and appoint a sales manager responsible, etc.

This list could go on for a long time - up to the fact that CRM itself tracks the end date of the contract and reminds the manager to extend it, that is, to make a repeat sale. Thanks to these simple functions you not only save time - you also earn more

What can be automated in the sales department

Filling out documents and letters

Drawing up contracts, invoices, and commercial offers takes a lot of time and nerves. One mistake or typo and almost all the work has to be done all over again. You can prepare documents and letters in CRM in one click! To do this, you only need to create templates once and put special labels in them, instead of which the program will automatically insert individual data on each client and deal.

Setting tasks for employees

In order not to forget a single detail, set up the CRM so that it reminds you and your employees about various tasks: send an email, call back, invoice. Automatic task setting is also indispensable if your employees often forget to call customers back.

Another example. The customer is regularly late with payment. Then you set up the CRM so that a week before the service expires, the manager is automatically tasked to call the client and invoice them for a new payment.

You can easily set up automatic tasks for any dates: the program will remind you of the expiry of the contract, the customer's birthday or the fact that you haven't had contact with the customer for a long time.

You can automate anything. The main thing is to first create an appropriate script in the settings:

Sending SMS to customers

This is a convenient automation for informing the client about the ordered services and products. For example, a client of a beauty salon on the eve of his visit can automatically send an SMS: "We remind you that tomorrow at 12:00 we are waiting for you for a haircut at X salon".

Such a script in the CRM is "tied" to a specific date: you set up the program to send a message with a certain content a certain number of days/hours before the scheduled event.

The same way you can notify your customers about the order status. A certain stage of a transaction will be a prerequisite for sending a message. The SMS text can be personalized: CRM will add the client's name, product name, city, etc. to the message.

Sending letters to customers

Not only SMS, but also email are automatically sent from the CRM.

For example, when creating an order in the system, an agreement is automatically sent to the client. And the program finds the necessary template by itself, substitutes the client's name, company name and other data into it. The text of the contract is inserted directly into the message body.

This is how you set up automatic sending of the contract using a template when creating an order in S2 CRM.

Changing the status of a request and a deal, a certain date (for example, 1 week after the last contact with the customer), etc. can also be a condition of sending the letter.

The system can also be integrated with the service email-mailing and a couple of clicks to unload the customer base there from the CRM. With this integration, it's easy to create a mailing list, send useful materials, case studies, welcome letters, divide customers into different segments and set up separate email chains for each. For example, if a customer refused to buy a product because of a high price, you can add them to a mailing list with promotions and special offers.

In addition, integration with an email newsletter service allows you to compose personalized emails in a couple of clicks. For example, when transferring customers to the mailing service, you can check the "Job title" field. Then, all transferred contacts will have their positions indicated. In the future you will be able to create a newsletter only for company owners or only for heads of sales departments, etc. with a couple of clicks.

Creating a conditional request

Whereas previously requests from clients could only come in over the phone, now they also come in from the website, mail, and social networks. Ideally, an employee should process them and record them in one place. But in fact managers record requests on a sticker, in a notebook, in Excel or nowhere at all, and then forget about them. And the company loses customers.

To prevent this, you can integrate CRM with email, IP-telephony, website, social networks. Then the program will automatically capture requests from different channels, immediately create a client's card with information about him, and set the task manager. For example, here's how it works with the site.

Automatic cost calculation

Thanks to the CRM system, the manager no longer has to do the calculations himself and call the client back to call the amount of the deal. The program itself will calculate it while you are on the phone with the client. All you have to do is set up a formula for calculating the cost of your services in the CRM-system in advance.

Change of the person responsible for the client/transaction

Often when working with a client, it is necessary to replace the responsible employee at a certain stage of the sales funnel. For example, in such cases:

• Your sales department is divided into cold-callers and experienced salespeople. First, the first ones work on the applications, and, for example, when moving to the product demonstration stage, the deal is passed on to the second ones.
• If the manager changes the status of the deal to "There is a problem", then the sales manager is assigned to be in charge, in order to resolve the conflict and not to lose the client.
• If the transaction amount is above a certain level, then a more experienced manager is assigned. In this case we are talking about a VIP-client, and he needs a more responsible approach.

Of course, you can manually change the person in charge - just verbally transfer the client to another specialist. But then, if problems arise, you may not find the ends: who exactly did not call the client and forgot to remind him of the payment? Who should be punished? Much easier to entrust the software to change the manager in charge. It will automatically indicate the new employee in the transaction card, and the manager will always know who is in charge of each client.