Why Small Businesses Need An All-In-One CRM Software

Small businesses are thriving and there is nothing more inspiring to cheer for, than to see a small business grow and flourish among the giants. 

However, in the past, it is true that small and medium-sized businesses lacked access to business tools like easy to use CRM and MA (Marketing Automation) systems that can aid them to scale and analyze results from more complex yet streamlined business processes.
This is because even a decade in the past, CRM and MA software solutions existed only for the enterprises and therefore carried hefty price tags, difficult implementation and onboarding processes.

While these pain points continue to remain present even today, with robust enterprise-level CRM software platforms like Salesforce, nevertheless we are also seeing a growing trend nowadays with the growth of Salesforce Alternative CRM software solutions which are comprehensive platforms that combines sales, marketing, support, partnerships and even accounts (if you using a software that offers QuickBooks CRM integration) for rapid business growth.

Therefore, with the help of these technological enhancements, we are now capable of seeing solid growth for startups and small businesses using CRM for SMB, which has become finally attainable by the adoption of these software solutions in the CRM space.

In the past, software platforms were built to address the requirements of singular teams than to be functional for the entire organization as a whole.
Traditional CRM software solutions were primarily a tool for the sales teams in any organization to help the salespersons to store and manage their contact information of the leads, prospects, and customers in the CRM database .  However, this data stored in the traditional CRM solutions were mostly not shared with the other departments in the organization like marketing, operations, customer support, and accounts.
But now, as we all agree that data is king, therefore in the present times proper and interconnected access to information is critical for the success of all businesses and therefore shared knowledge is the only means for facilitating boosted performance on both individual and organizational levels.

Then, of course in the present times, we also have email marketing that plays an important role in any marketing automation strategy.
In the past, marketers could blast out an email to a list of prospects and customers, which was considered then as an effective marketing strategy.
However nowadays, this one-size-fits-all type of approach no longer exists, since modern consumers have become so desensitized to mass email marketing strategies that to generate leads and convert them effectively into paying customers, businesses need to hyper-personalize their emails by accurate segmentation of the email campaign’s contact lists.

Therefore in the present times, data is integral to reach the level of personalization that is needed today.

Hence, nowadays if startups and SMBs use a small business CRM software solution just for managing their contacts, an email marketing automation tool to take care of their outbound marketing efforts, and many more vital tools to manage social media, website tracking, email campaign optimization and signup and more they would have to look for a large scale investment in multiple different business software systems, which most SMBs would be incapable to purchase as a startup, since most of them languish for paucity of funds.

This is exactly where the concept of all-in-one CRM comes into play.

All-in-one CRM software platforms integrate all the tools that a business needs into a centralized software solution which helps in streamlining the customer experience and offer a better customer journey to the consumers.

Moreover, for purchasing an all-in-one CRM, you need to invest in just one single platform, which consequentially lowers the costs significantly, apart from opening up communications between departments and help the purchaser of the CRM harvest a good ROI which boosts profitability and hence helps in business growth.

All-in-One CRM: Driving Better Customer (and Internal) Experiences

Marketing, Sales and Customer Support all makeup part of the customer experience with a brand. Therefore, when these departments and systems are disconnected, so becomes customer experience, which is just not what consumers want in today’s digital world.

Hence businesses nowadays require a solution that will be a price-performance leader and so deliver the result they want.

The idea of developing an all-in-one easy to use CRM is that all of your marketing, sales, customer support, even accounts (if you are using all-in-one QuickBooks CRM software) and other operational facets must be integrated into an unified software environment, which will help tie each members to the same CRM database , for accessing most updated information and correct data they require to do their work more efficiently.

Here is a list of rewards that startups and small businesses find when they integrate marketing, sales, customer support, and accounts data into one singular easy to use CRM platform:

•  More holistic database
•  No double data entry
•  Enhanced data security
•  A 360-degree view of the customers
•  Less time and money spent on training and on-boarding
•  More dollars available for marketing budgets
•  Faster ROI

Conclusion

With the growth of  Salesforce Alternative CRM software platforms, which are price-performance leaders, startups and small businesses have more opportunities than they had ever before for finding rapid business growth. Since access to more advanced CRM software platforms means small businesses nowadays have a chance to compete with the big giants on a more level playing field. 

Therefore, it can be easily concluded that while startups and small businesses are still limited by available financial resources, an all-in-one CRM system is the ultimate solution for SMBs looking for improving their internal organizational processes and at the same time provide the consumers of their offerings with world-class customer experience for finding repeat business, lesser customer churn and unprecedented revenue growth. 

We have all heard the adage “The customer is always right”.
Now whether or not you agree with this saying, it is also impossible to ignore the power of the customers in this digital age that can influence both the success and failure of any business.

Therefore, whether you like it or not customer sentiment plays an important role in any business, and so it is most crucial that companies should remain aware of their customer’s opinions and experiences as they relate to your brand.

According to a recent report, 86% of consumers are ready to pay more for finding better customer service.

Therefore, to remain on the receiving end of such opportunities, you essentially need to listen to what your customers have to say.

Now, to do this the best way businesses can evaluate the requirements of their customers is through tracking customer feedbacks, which can be amassed through reviews, questionnaires, online comments from the customers and more.

A well-executed survey can, however, provide quantitative and insightful data, uncover challenges and problems, and therefore ultimately help any business gauge its improvement and/or progress over time.

Furthermore, another great benefit of carrying out a well-constructed customer feedback survey program is that it decreases customer churn, increases retention of existing customers and most importantly thereby pull customers away from your competition.
Therefore, in a gist by paying close attention to customer survey data, businesses can augment or adjust their offerings to best suit their customer’s wants and needs.

Hence to get the most accurate sense of your customer’s experience with your brand, here are a few best practices which can help you design a strong survey for your business.

• Primarily make sure that you keep the amount of questions in your feedback form at a reasonable number (not more than 5). Since when customers are bombarded with too many questions, they tend to ignore and not finish the survey.
• Offer your customers a small number of rating choices. Since providing a manageable range boosts the chances that the survey will be considered more acceptable by the customers.
  For example, a rating range o 1-5 will have a much higher success rate than a range of 1-10.
• It is best to avoid demographic data, such as income or age, as they may infringe on the privacy policies. However, if your customer survey needs these questions to be answered, make them optional, for the convenience of your surveyors.
• Another most important tip for conducting an effective survey is not to harass your customers to finish the survey. No customers like to be pressurized, which can lead to a negative outcome. Therefore sending a remainder once to your customers is enough.
  Moreover, along the same line, always make sure that you respond promptly to any negative feedbacks in the survey and offer solutions instantly, which will help to demonstrate that you really care for your customer’s opinions and feelings, and in the same line always personally thank your customers for taking time to praise your business and show them their efforts are highly appreciated for sending excellent feedbacks for your brand.
• Finally, allow your customers to express their ideas and opinions that are not included in the survey form through an empty text field at the bottom of the survey.

How to implement an effective survey?

Now that we have discussed how to create a customer survey, let us explore how we can implement this survey to find the maximum results from this activity.

It is needless to say if you know what is CRM , that one of the best tools for doing a survey of your customers is an easy to use CRM software.

Therefore integrating a customer feedback program with your CRM like Salesforce or even any other Salesforce Alternative CRM software can allow you perform the task both effortlessly and efficiently, as easy to use CRM software helps to gather customer feedbacks into one easy-to-access CRM database .

Moreover using all-in-one CRM software which is capable of catering to marketing, sales, and customer support in your organization can also help your company to take appropriate actions by directly routing any feedback that comes to the right people in the department in charge, which helps in avoiding any misplacement of the valuable data.

Takeaway

When coupled with the right easy to use CRM software customer feedbacks are most important for any business which helps in strengthening customer loyalty, boost engagements, improve brand reputation-and hopefully increase sales, as successful companies are those that seek to know more about their customers.

How to Better Know the Features and Benefits of Your MCA CRM Software

Technology solutions for business practices do not usually involve reinventing the wheel, but so to speak add enhanced and efficiency and functionalities to existing business processes to boost accuracy, speed and user experiences.

MCA CRM is a vulnerable tool that allows Merchant Cash Advance businesses to communicate with and serve the requirements of their customers. 

The purpose of easy to use Merchant Cash Advance CRM is to engage customers and create meaningful relationship with the customers, create lasting dialogues that enhances understanding of the customer base and increase their loyalty for your business growth. 

MCA CRM systems can help to measure and track marketing campaigns and perform detailed customer analysis, which expands beyond the core sales and marketing areas to incorporate support and finance data (especially for MCA CRM software) that provides a complete view of individual customers and even of the wider customer base. 

Apart from developing and maintaining customer relationship, most MCA CRM has three robust functionalities which include:

 • Sales Force Automation (SFA)

 • Data warehousing

 • Opportunity management

SFA can automate tracking of customer account histories, implement sales analysis, and coordinate sales, marketing and retail outlets borrowing from alternate financing businesses. 

Data warehousing of MCA CRM software allows users to follow trends, aggregate transaction information and determine value and KPIs by uncovering data from the CRM database. 

Opportunity management aids cash advance businesses manage unpredictable demand and growth through a forecasting model that integrates sales projection with sales histories. 

Therefore, a robust MCA CRM software like ConvergeHub increases customer satisfaction while at the same time reduces the number of actions needed for managing the customers. 

As mentioned even before, integration is the key for proper implementation and adoption of any CRM software. 

This means, your easy to use CRM must be able to work seamlessly with your present and existing business software platforms. 

For example, most MCA CRM software integrates with accounting packages like QuickBooks for leveraging the power and functionalities of QuickBooks CRM software like ConvergeHub that offers QuickBooks CRM integration free. 

An effective CRM solution should inevitably increase sales without increasing overhead. If you find your CRM solution adds complexity without any benefits, you may be using a system that is not right for your business. 

But do not give up. The best CRM solution is there for every business - it may take some customization and tweaking, but the benefits it can provide far outweigh the time it takes to calibrate a CRM system to fit your needs.

Now choosing the right MCA CRM for your alternative financing business depends mostly on the size of your organization. 

For example startups and small businesses usually does best with customized CRM solutions that are scalable and meets the requirements of their organizations without adding extraneous feature that bog the system and also most essentially your workflow as it happens when SMBs opt for CRM solutions like Salesforce and prefer not to use Salesforce alternative CRM software platforms that are specially developed for small businesses. 

Takeaway

Therefore to conclude, the key benefits of implementing the right MCA CRM for your Cash Advance business include customer loyalty that enhances the security of your future revenues. 

That means, implementing the right MCA CRM solution like ConvergeHub for your alternative financing business lets you simultaneously save resources and time while it helps to increase your customer base and ROI. 

How Easy To Use CRM Can Make You an Ace in Influencer Marketing

How many times have you denied accepting ads on websites, while browsing through social media or visiting blogs?

If you are like many others on the internet, you must have done this more times than you can possibly count, which in turn raises an obvious issue for sales teams and brands as to how they can deliver effective and relevant ads to their target audiences if the audiences do not want to see them. 

Now, working with influencer marketing amplifies your social media and digital marketing efforts, since when influencer marketing campaigns are done with easy to use CRM software platforms, it helps in boosting brand awareness and garner consumer trust within relevant communities. 

What Is Influencer Marketing?

Influence marketing is a strategy that utilizes well-acknowledged public figures in your industry (not limited to endorsements by celebrities) to acquire the attention of consumers towards your offerings and thereby influence their buying decisions within your target markets. 

For achieving success with influencer marketing, you can use social media marketing, digital marketing and content marketing using marketing automation or Sales Force Automation (SFA) in your cloud based CRM software. 

Is Influencer Marketing the Future of Marketing? 

Influencers work through several channels using various digital marketing sites, blog posts, and social media websites and use their individual relationships and contacts with their audience to share their personal recommendations in order to change the behavior of the consumers. 

Easy to use CRM software like ConvergeHub can help to streamline your interactions with the influencers, as well as maximize your efforts in marketing as a whole. 

Here are 5 ways your easy to use CRM software can work in tandem with your influencer marketing strategies to elevate the sales process of B2B and B2C organizations alike:

1. Build Better Relationships

Instead of concentrating just on sales, focus on building a favorable relationship with your target audiences. 

This is because creating relationships with your focused audience by cultivating a community for your offerings aids to add value to their life or facilitate their business growth. 

Therefore, build thought leadership-based interactions and community among members of your target audience who can be your potential customers. 

Next, using easy to use CRM tools to listen and try to find the influencers within those communities that are a good match for your brand and creating engagements around the areas you desire to participate in.

2. Send Effective Group Outreach at Scale

At ConvergeHub our goal is to make it easier for you to send personalized messages at scale. 

Therefore, once you have selected a targeted group of individuals, write a message to the prospective influencers of your brand on the list and wait for them to open their emails before you start following up with influencers who are engaged with your brand. 

3. Tune into Social Insights

From an SEO perspective, influencer marketing campaigns help to create more user-generated content for your brand, which provides your business with a huge advantage, as user-generated contents account for more than 25 percent of search results of some of the world’s most successful brands. 

Hence, working with influencers not only help to boost your brand’s visibility on social networking platforms but it also puts your brand in front of the target audience on a more meaningful level and even amplifies your business website’s ranking within the search engines that help in drawing more eyes towards your offerings. 

While building your influence marketing strategies do not let the conversations end after just one interaction. 

Therefore, respond to people’s comments, questions on social platforms, and feedbacks on social websites to let your audience know that you are listening to their needs. 

Tapping into the social insights of your easy to use CRM software solution provides you to better understand who is having a conversation in the areas your company is interested in, and help create a positive impression on the potential customers of your brand. 

4. Schedule Follow Up Reminders

It has been statistically proved that most individuals are capable of maintaining relationships with approximately 150 persons in the lives effortlessly. 

However, once you are using easy to use CRM software, you can maintain as many relationships as possible with key people who are important to your brand. 

Sending “stay-in-touch” reminders at regular intervals helps to make sure that you are connecting with your influencers in time. 

Closing Thought

Hence in a gist, using easy to use CRM helps in building a natural relationship with the right influencers for your business, whereby both parties can reap their benefits for years to come. 

Therefore influence marketing is more of an art than a science, where the potential gains of running a successful influencer marketing campaign are capable of launching your business into the stratosphere, using easy to use CRM technology to keep pace with your influencer marketing strategies for rapid business growth .

Is ConvergeHub a Viable Salesforce Alternative Small Business CRM Software

Salesforce CRM is excellent and robust SaaS CRM software that is a cloud based, however, there are several businesses that are not contended using Salesforce CRM and therefore look for Salesforce Alternative in the CRM space as the truth lies in the fact that:

SALESFORCE IS JUST NOT FOR EVERYONE!

The main reasons why many organizations (especially small businesses and startups) seek Salesforce Alternative CRM software are:

• Easy adoption

• Simple learning curve

• Lower prices

• More options for customization

• Ease of use

Now let us be frank in telling you that if you do not know what is CRM , and you think that all CRM software platforms are identical, you need to seriously consider your decision once more. 

Remember, CRM software solutions are not simple software applications that you can change every year. This is because, given the high cost and efforts that are needed for adopting a CRM, you just cannot change it frequently. 

Well, we understand your problem and understand what you might be wondering.

Where do you begin!

Therefore, to answer this vital question, here are a few most important and critical elements to successful CRM adoption as you look for Salesforce Alternatives in the marketplace.

Your CRM software should grow along with you

As every business is different and unique, and moreover the size of organization varies greatly from one another, hence the traditional and useless one-size-fits-all strategy is not the proper approach while implementing a CRM system. 

Therefore, before selecting your Salesforce Alternative CRM platform, you must most necessarily decide on how many people will use the software solution in your office. Since it is a vital needed that you must choose a CRM system that answers to the requirements of your business and can be customized for that purpose easily. 

Always remember while purchasing your CRM software, the Salesforce Alternative CRM that you wish to purchase do have the capacity to expand and is scalable enough like ConvergeHub (the best Salesforce Alternative CRM) to accommodate your future needs. 

It must be simple 

You need to stop and re-strategize if you are thinking about purchasing a CRM that provides all and every function that has been developed over the years to perform on a CRM system. 

Always remember, an overqualified CRM software platform, much like Salesforce is sure to churn out over-complicated analysis, bells and whistles, and results. 

Moreover purchasing a CRM with excess idle functionalities and modules also results in investing more money in getting your staffs trained and used for proper adoption of the CRM tool.  

Therefore, while selecting your Salesforce Alternative CRM focus only on those functionalities that you presently need, since speaking candidly, the lesser the functionalities the better is the CRM for startups and small businesses. 

However, it does not imply that you need to compromise on the eminence of the software since Salesforce Alternative CRM software platforms like ConvergeHub offers its users an uncomplicated easy to use CRM solution that has all the functionalities that are needed for the growth and scalability of small businesses. 

Consider reading reviews

Deciding on a Salesforce Alternative CRM can be really difficult at times since there are several Salesforce Alternative CRM software solutions those that call them the best in the CRM marketplace. 

Therefore, use Free Trial Sign Up after checking on the reviews of different CRM solutions and then compare them with each other for deciding on the best CRM for your company.  

You can easily find the reputation and score of any CRM system by checking on the reviews of the SaaS software in social media networking, magazines, and technology blogging websites. 

Avail professional support

Although you might know what is a CRM software, even then you need to consider availing professional support as you may end up being confused at times while selecting your Salesforce Alternative CRM. 

Never purchase a CRM based on your instincts

CRM consultants not only aid you in choosing the right easy to use CRM for your business that is easy to adopt and scalable like ConvergeHub, but they most often provide support while installation, training, and adoption of the new software and help your employees to understand the hidden shortcuts and key functionalities of the CRM platform. 

Conclusion

Never rush into buying CRM software just because your business needs it. 

Always remember if your business is working until now, a few more days will never hurt your businesses’ workflow as much as buying a wrong Salesforce alternative CRM would do for your business.  

Therefore, invest your time, research and find the best small business CRM software for your organization and buy the one that pays off once it is implemented.

4 Human Touchpoints of Sales with Customer Relationship Management

By now we all must know what is CRM software and what it stands for.

We all are aware that easy to use CRM software platform helps sales organizations to keep track of their customers and thereafter manage the leads as it moves through the sales pipeline, which ultimately makes sales more effective and easy for the sales reps in your company.

Now, while best small business CRM software and many other Salesforce Alternative CRM solution technologies along with Salesforce CRM help in continuing to make this sales process easier, there is practically as-of-now no way to make the human-touch completely automated that is needed to provide an effective sales.

Hence, in every single step of your sales process, it is necessary that you should establish a direct contact to educate your purchasers, inform them of your offerings and most importantly establish trust with the buyers of your products and services.

Therefore, in this article let us dig out what are the precise things that you should be performing to ensure that your sales reps are hitting each of these crucial touch-points, help your buyers to guide them towards a decision, and finally deepen your relationship with potential buyers of your offering in your CRM database on the way.

1. The Potential Customer Makes Contact

The very primary touch-point in this list is the very first opportunity that you find to create a connection with your prospective customer during their initial contact with your brand.

At this juncture, mostly the purchaser visits your business website and shows interest in your offerings. For example, they may fill up a form for downloading a free EBook or may even contact your sales and marketing reps directly with any questions that they have in their minds. 

Hence this is the most opportune moment that your sales reps can find to speak with the prospects about their needs and create a good impression on their minds since it is your job now is to figure out what your prospects are exactly looking for and how your offerings can help them to solve their pain-points effortlessly.

Now, if you have decided to follow up directly, try to identify the answers for these following questions listed below:

• Why did the prospects come to your website?
• How did the prospects found your website?
• What the reasons that made them reach out by filling up your web-to-lead form?
• What exactly are their pain-points?

It is only by understands the answers to these questions, you can decide if your offerings and solutions are a right fit to the buyers and thereafter suggest a way you can help.

Moreover, at this point, you can also direct the prospects of your brand to other helpful resources of your company such as case studies, blog posts, videos and FAQs,

You may also request the prospect at this stage if they want to sign-up for your email list if they did not already do it when they availed your free offer.

Finally, it is most significant that you have to remain available when the prospect has any question and wants to talk to someone in your sales teams. Therefore, your sales reps need to remains available on all possible channels like phone, email and live chat and for this, you must include all your contact information in your email signature so that the prospects can find out your contact info easily.

2. The Buyer Is Evaluating Your Solution

The place for second touch point with your buyer is once the purchaser of your offerings understands how your product or service can address their pain-points, which makes your prospects advance to the mid-to-late stages in the sales funnel of your easy to use CRM software, where they are likely to start evaluating your offerings against similar options in the marketplace.

Therefore, in the stage what can you do to persuade your prospects into choosing your brand? What more information do they require in order to arrive at a decision?

Although all selling situations may differ from one another, nevertheless the key decision making factors remains the same which ultimately boil down to:

• Does your offering(s) meet your purchaser’s needs?
• Does your offering make financial sense to the buyers?
• Will buying from your brand make them more successful than purchasing from others?

To answer questions “Does your offering(s) meet your purchaser’s needs?” you can:

• Set up a product demo or a call with your buyers.
• Invite the prospect to a webinar.
• Invite them to sign up for a free trial or use a test account, since they can never know how good your solutions is unless they use it.

To provide an answer to this question “Does your offering make financial sense to the buyers?” your sales reps can put together a personalized plan that can fit the prospective buyer’s pockets, which will aid them in finding the exact cost of your proposed solution and others mentioned in the plan.

Finally, to answer the last question “Will buying from your brand make them more successful than purchasing from others?” your sales reps can easily place confidence in the prospect’s decisions to buy by:

• Sending case studies.
• Providing positive testimonials by other existing customers.
• Refer them to customers who will speak positivity on behalf of your support services and your offering(s).

Once this is done, you may need to provide your prospective customers with a little ‘prod and nudge’ in order to make them decide fast on choosing your offering by continuing to create follow-ups via email or phone.

You can also create and send limited time-bound offers at this stage as a last-ditch effort to secure your sale.

3. After the prospect has bought your solution

Congratulations! You have won the sale and now the prospective buyer has turned to a customer of your brand.

However, this does not mean that your sales process has come to an end, and you should focus on qualifying your very next prospective lead.  This is because; you must always remember that retaining your existing and more importantly the new customers should be your next step in nurturing the buyer relationship, since acquiring new customers cost 25 times more than retaining the existing ones.

Hence it is vitally important to provide maximum effort to keep your customers happy and build a long-lasting business relationship with them which you can do by:

• Thanking the buyer.
• Provide fast delivery.
• Help the buyer set up your solution.
• Send use cases.
• Reach out regularly to see if they require help.
• Make sure your sales and support reps are available easily.

Moreover, by sending surveys using MA (Marketing Automation) integrated into most best small business CRM software platform, you can also find answers to questions such as:

•    How satisfied your customers are using your offerings?
•    How satisfied your customers are with your support activities?
•    How difficult or easy they are finding your products/services to use?
•    What unforeseen issues are they experiencing with your brand?

4. Continuing the Relationship

The ultimate customer relationship touch-point in the sale cycle and the customer’s journey with your brand is continuing your relationship to move forward over time.
Remember, one of the greatest reasons for customer churn or for customers leaving your brand is because they believe that your organization does not care about them anymore.

Therefore, what can you do to keep your existing customers happy and engaged for the days to come?

Here are some additional ideas listed below that you can apply (apart from the ideas that are mentioned above):

• Create a loyalty program.
• Set up a referral program.
• Send your existing customers freebies.
• Perform up-sell or cross-sell to your existing customers on your other products/services.
  (Existing customers mostly spends an average of more than 67% than new customers, which provides excellent up-selling opportunities.)

Conclusion

Therefore, although easy to use CRM software makes the lives of sales and support reps easier, it is still equally important to consistently uphold the human-touch that customers need that can help in increasing the effectiveness of your sales process and also aid in building long-lasting and strong personal relationships.