How to translate your commercial strategy into a CRM tool?

Last week, Kestio talked to you on the Koban blog about the importance of an optimised sales model to increase the efficiency and ROI of your sales actions.

But once this model has been well defined, it still needs to be translated into an appropriate tool in order to monitor the process on a daily basis. And this part may seem rather abstract to people who are not used to working with a CRM.

 As you will have understood, this week we are going to talk about CRM and more specifically, how to translate your previously defined business model into a tool such as Koban. 

1. A CRM tool for a segmented and usable database

You have defined your customer / prospect segments very well, but now you need to be able to exploit them. To do this, you need a tool that allows you to centralise your data and then carry out a clear and precise segmentation.

That's all very well in theory, but how does it work in practice? 

• A good CRM allows you to centralise your entire database on a single platform and segment it with "statuses" . The most common statuses are "customers", "prospects", "competitors" etc... The particularity of Koban, for example, is that you can customise your statuses according to your environment and your strategy, which makes your database clearer for you and your employees.

For example, you can create categories such as "hot prospects", "cold prospects", "former customers" or any other category that you think will be commercially useful. 

• TAGS: on each record, it is possible to add tags to segment your database more precisely. Tags are like labels that you place "on the head" of your customers / prospects. For example, you can create a "sector of activity" or "potential" tag category. In this way, you will be able to identify all the customers whose tag is equal to "Gold" or "Bronze". This is very useful for launching highly targeted and personalisedsales and/or marketing actions.

2. A CRM tool to organise your business

You have your strategy, you have your segmented and usable database. Now it's time to take action!

Indeed, you have defined a list of actions according to your segments, the objective from now on is not to forget to do them...

Any self-respecting CRM allows you to create customisable action types according to your strategy. You can create as many as you want: task, phone call, email, physical meeting, phone meeting, video conference, demo, customer visit...

The little extra at Koban: you assign a colour to each type of action. This way, once in your agenda, you have a very visual rendering that gives you an idea of what your day will be like! Of course, you have access to the agenda of your colleagues if you need to make an appointment for them or assign them an action.

3. A CRM tool to save time and automate low value-added actions

We all agree on one thing, the goal is to save your salespeople as much time as possible so that they can focus on the most profitable customer segments. To do this, CRM and marketing have their role to play.

Are you interested in automation? 

SALES AUTOMATION

You have defined segments with high potential and others with lower stakes that you can easily identify thanks to your centralised and segmented database.

The aim is to let the sales people deal with the most interesting segments and leave the others to .... automation (or to marketing more precisely).

To do this, your CRM will allow you to set up automated scenarios (generally composed of a series of predefined emails) which aim to arouse the interest of your interlocutor, to maintain contact without pestering, and to engage in conversion.

This frees up a lot of time for sales people and above all avoids cold calls which are very often a waste of time (and therefore money). Not only do the responses arrive directly to the sales person concerned, but the results of your "prospecting" e-mails go directly to the prospect's file (when he read the e-mail, whether he clicked, etc.). So, if the user has shown enough interest, the marketing team can easily or automatically pass the lead on to a sales person, who will have the full history. 

THE AUTOMATISMS OF EVERYDAY LIFE

In addition to the automated scenarios, you can set up numerous automatic processes that save time and, above all, ensure that you don't forget to follow up on calls or appointments. Yes, a salesperson's brain is very full and it can happen to forget... 

To give you an example, you can put an automatic action in the salesperson's diary at the end of each meeting, such as: "send product sheet". Or you can plan recurring visits to your "Gold" customers every 4 months. The slot will be blocked in the agenda, which reduces the risk of forgetting or constantly postponing! 

LEAD SCORING

Well, now we're going to move on to some more advanced features, but they're worth it! To explain very briefly, you can track your website (record visits to your site) and assign points to each page of your site.

Thus, an Internet user will visit your pages and acquire points as they browse. The objective? To judge his interest and to know if he is "mature" enough to be passed on directly to the sales force. 

Below a defined threshold of points, the Internet user will only receive e-mails via an automated marketing scenario. On the other hand, above the defined score, the Internet user will be entrusted to a dedicated sales representative because he has shown a strong interest in your products / services!

These are just brief examples of what you can do and automate in a CRM tool like Koban. These examples illustrate the importance of supporting your business model with features like these to increase your profitability and productivity on a daily basis. 

To find out more about CRM and to help you in your projects, find all our methods and tools here: