How do you translate your sales strategy into a CRM tool?

Last week, Kestio spoke to you on the Koban blog about the importance of an optimized sales model for increasing the effectiveness and ROI of your sales actions.

But once you've defined this model, you still need to translate it operationally into a suitable tool for monitoring the process on a day-to-day basis. And this part of the process can seem rather abstract to people who are not used to working with a CRM.

 As you can imagine, this week we're going to be talking about CRM and, more specifically, how to translate your pre-defined business model into a tool like Koban. 

1. A CRM tool for a segmented, usable database

You've 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 centralize 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 centralize your entire database on a single platform and segment it by "status". The most common statuses are "customers", "prospects", "competitors", etc. The special feature of Koban, for example, is that you can customize your statuses according to your environment and strategy, making 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 that you feel will be commercially useful. 

• TAGS: tags can be added to each file to segment your database more precisely. Tags are like labels that you place "on the head" of your customers / prospects. For example, you could create a "business sector" or "potential" tag category. In this way, you'll be able to identify all customers whose tag is equal to "Gold" or "Bronze". Very practical for launching highly targeted and personalized sales and/or marketing actions .

2. A CRM tool to organize your business

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

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

Any self-respecting CRM allows you to create customizable action types according to your strategy. You can create as many as you like: task, phone call, e-mail, physical appointment, phone appointment, videoconference, demo, customer visit...

Koban's little extra: you assign a color to each type of action. This way, once you're in your agenda, you get a very visual rendering that gives you an idea of what your day will be like! Of course, you can also access your colleagues' diaries 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 aim is to save your sales force as much time as possible, so that they can concentrate on the most profitable customer segments. To achieve this, CRM and marketing have their part to play.

Are you interested in automation? 

SALES AUTOMATION

You've defined high-potential segments and others with less at stake, which you'll be able to easily identify thanks to your centralized, segmented database.

The aim is to let sales people take care of the most interesting segments and leave the rest to .... automation (or marketing to be more precise).

To do this, your CRM will enable you to set up automated scenarios (usually consisting of a series of pre-defined e-mails) designed to arouse your contact's interest, maintain contact without pestering, and initiate conversion.

This frees up a lot of your sales reps' time, and above all avoids cold calls, which are very often a waste of time (and therefore money). Not only do responses go straight to the assigned salesperson, but the results of your "prospecting" e-mails go straight back to the prospect's file (when he/she read the e-mail, whether he/she clicked, etc.). So, if the web surfer has shown enough interest, marketing teams can easily or automatically pass the lead on to a sales rep, who will have all its history. 

EVERYDAY AUTOMATISMS

In addition to automated scenarios, you can set up a number of time-saving automations that will help you avoid forgetting reminders or appointments. Yes, a salesperson's brain is very full, and it can happen to forget... 

To give you an example, you could set up an automatic action in the salesperson's diary at the end of each appointment, such as "send product sheet". Or schedule recurring visits to your "Gold" customers every 4 months. The time slot will be blocked in the diary, reducing the risk of forgetting or constantly rescheduling! 

LEAD SCORING

Well, now we're going to move on to a little more advanced functionalities, but they're worth their weight in gold! To explain very briefly, you can track your website (record visits to your site) and award points to each page of your site.

In this way, web users visit your pages and acquire points as they browse. The aim? To gauge his or her interest and find out if he or she is "ripe" enough to be passed on directly to the sales force. 

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

These are just a few examples of what you can do and automate in a CRM tool like Koban. They 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 with your projects, find all our methods and tools here :