Business

Businesses across all industries have realized the significance of integrating a robust CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform within their business ecosystem. With a powerful CRM in place, organizations can efficiently manage their customer relationships while enjoying operational efficiency by streamlining processes. Though, cloud-based CRM like Salesforce enjoys a great adoption rate by businesses of all sizes, most of them aren’t aware of the different beneficial integrations they could make use of. One such integration that can boost organizational performance significantly includes the integration of messaging apps with CRM systems and the Smart SMS app is the perfect example of Salesforce SMS integration. What is meant by SMS CRM integration? CRM SMS integration happens when your business messaging platform and CRM system are unified via their APIs. With this integration, the two platforms can interact with one another, allowing them to share and sync data. This integration can enable organizations to: Text Customers directly from the CRM System: For doing this, users need to click on the phone number listed by the customer’s name following which a widget or a chat window will pop up. The customer’s name and the number will get populated automatically in the window allowing users to send messages immediately. Sync Contacts: With SMS CRM integration, CRM systems no longer have to function in a silo. For instance, if any sort of modification is done in the contacts and custom fields of a CRM system, the changes will automatically get updated in the messaging platform and vice-versa.  Some major messaging platforms can enter SMS into a CRM for maintaining additional records and can be useful if dashboards, reports, or machine learning capabilities are built-in within a CRM. Add SMS to your CRM workflows: Premium CRM systems like Salesforce have robust workflow features like SFA (Sales force automation), email drip campaigns, and more. With such integration, text messaging can be included in the workflows as a trigger. What Makes Smart SMS App Preferred Choice of Customers? The Smart SMS app is a robust Salesforce messaging app that is 100% built natively on the Salesforce platform. The app empowers organizations to personalize their communication, streamline workflows, and eventually improve customer service by reaching out to them quickly and with advanced features. Here are some of the unique features that this robust and easily implementable app offers. Let’s take a quick look: SMS Automation through Workflow: The sending of SMS can be automated by using a simple workflow configuration. By sending automated messages, the workflow can be simplified, which reduces the burden on the users/ sales reps resulting in an improved bottom line. Send SMS/MMS in Bulk: Users can leverage this feature to send individual or bulk SMS/MMS in a batch of 200 from ListView on button click or using SMS/MMS interface.  SMS scheduler: Sales reps can schedule the sending of messages (promotional, welcome, etc.) to customers based across different geographies and time zone. To schedule the sending of messages at a desired time and date, Sales reps would have to enter the name and the number of the intended recipient along with the date and time. At the scheduled date and time, the SMS automatically gets disbursed without the need for any manual intervention. SMS Template: This feature can be used to create, modify, and use SMS templates easily by using any of the objects and associated fields.  Final Words: An SMS CRM integrated platform can be a powerful addition to any business. By enabling teams to leverage the contacts and reach out to them in an automated fashion but with a personalized touch will help organizations to improve their customer service, as well as their bottom line significantly.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has immensely impacted the lives and livelihoods of people across the globe. Amidst dwindling economic growth, organizations are looking out for new ways to sustain themselves. One such great option is virtual selling that has helped them survive in such a crisis situation. However, online/ virtual selling demands the same level of commitment and dedication just as in offline selling. Rather virtual selling demands greater perseverance. So, how can organizations make the most of virtual selling? Listed below are some effective tips, which can ensure sure shot success: Technology Required  Irrespective of mode of selling, building strong relationships with customers holds significance for businesses. The advent of new technologies have made it more convenient for businesses to connect with their customers in a more effective and efficient way. For instance conferencing apps such as Google hangout, Zoom etc. provide a platform that allows businesses and customers to connect with each other in the most effective way.  Communication is the key: It’s rightly said that quality is always above quantity. Relationships work on this principle.  To ensure effective communication with clients, Sales reps need to work on the following: Attention works: Choices and preferences vary from person to person. Thus, personalized attention should be given to every customer so that their needs and requirements could be understood and properly catered to. Technology does work:   Technology should be leveraged to streamline and automate business processes to do away with errors and redundancy caused as a result of human intervention. Preparing for present and future We all are going through difficult times and it is difficult to predict what the future lays ahead.  Rather than having limited options at your disposal, it’s a smart move to keep yourself future ready by leveraging technology solutions such AI (Artificial intelligence), data analytics and similar other futuristic solutions. AI-backed Virtual selling makes sales rep more empathetic towards customers as customers tend to develop a sense of trust with the brands Conclusion:  In a nutshell, we can say that businesses should keep themselves prepared to sustain during uncertain and challenging times, and the best of doing so is by providing quality and prompt solutions to their customers by leveraging technology solutions that can keep them ahead of the race. About Girikon: As a reputed name in the IT space, Girikon empowers organizations to transform customer experiences through their high-end services including Salesforce consulting and Salesforce implementation.

Are you dealing with duplicate data?  Does your data not fall under exact match?  Are the duplicates in your data not consistent for an exact match?  Are you struggling with cleansing of different types of data duplicates?  If you have answered yes to most or all of the aforementioned questions then the solution to your problem is Fuzzy Matching. Fuzzy matching allows you to deal with the above mentioned problems easily and efficiently.  What is Data Matching? Data Matching is the process of discovering records that refer to the same data set. When records come from multiple data sets and do not have any common key identifier, we can use data matching techniques to detect duplicate records within a single dataset.  We perform the following steps: Standardize the dataset Pick unique and standard attributes Break dataset into similar sized blocks Match and Assigning weights to the matches Add it all up — get a TOTAL weight What is Fuzzy matching? Fuzzy matching allows you to identify non-exact matches of your dataset. It is the foundation of many search engine frameworks and it helps you get relevant search results even if you have a typo in your query or a different verbal tense. There are many algorithms that can be used for fuzzy searching on text, but virtually all search engine frameworks (including bleve) use primarily the Levenshtein Distance for fuzzy string matching: Levenshtein Distance: Also known as Edit Distance, it is the number of transformations (deletions, insertions, or substitutions) required to transform a source string into the target one. For example, if the target term is “book” and the source is “back”, you will need to change the first “o” to “a” and the second “o” to “c”, which will give us a Levenshtein Distance of 2. Additionally, some frameworks also support the Damerau-Levenshtein distance: Damerau-Levenshtein distance: It is an extension to Levenshtein Distance, allowing one extra operation: Transposition of two adjacent characters: Ex: TSAR to STAR Damerau-Levenshtein distance = 1 (Switching S and T positions cost only one operation) Levenshtein distance = 2 (Replace S by T and T by S) How to Use Fuzzy Matching in TALEND? Step 1: Create an Excel “Sample Data” with 2 columns “Demo Event 1” and “Demo Event 2”. Demo Event 1: This column contains the records on which we need to apply Fuzzy Logic. Demo Event 2: This column contains the records that need to be compared with the Column 1 for Fuzzy match. Step 2: In TALEND use the above Excel as input in the tfileInputExcel component and provide the same file again as input to the same component as shown in the diagram. Step 3: In the tFuzzyMAtch component choose the following configurations as shown in the below diagram.  Step 4: In the tMap we need to choose the following column to take an output. Demo_Events_1 MATCHING VALUE Step 5: Finally, you need to select an tFileOutputExcel component for the desired output.  In the final Extracted file, the Column “VALUE” shows the difference between the records and matches the records to their duplicate.  Conclusion: In a nutshell, we can say that the use of TALEND’s Fuzzy Matching helps in ensuring the data quality of any source data against a reference data source by identifying and removing any kind of duplicity created from inconsistent data. This technique is also useful for complex data matching and data duplicate analysis.  About Girikon Girikon is a reputed provider of high-quality IT services including but not limited to Salesforce consulting, Salesforce implementation and Salesforce support.

Sales Analysis Provides Logical Answers to your Question For every organization, the sales function continues to be the most important function as it plays a significant role in building trust between a customer and a business entity. Organizations usually spend enormously in sales-related activities to gain edge over their competitors. However,  sales related business decisions taken on others advice or by own “gut feeling” could be quite risky that too when a large amount of money is at stake. Sales Analysis is the process which is used to understand, identify and predict sales trend. It leverages the historic data to determine the failure/success of the previous sales drive and helps in identifying the area of improvement. With sales analysis organizations no longer need to take decisions based on their gut feelings as it provides logical answers to their sales-related queries. Importance of Sales Analytics: There are several benefits of incorporating Sales Analytics into the Sales function. Let’s take a quick look at some of them. Fill the gaps: By Analyzing their available data, organizations can figure out where they may have missed out on the opportunity of converting a prospect to a customer. This will eventually help organizations fill the gaps in the sales process, as well as the gaps in their products. Organizations should analyze their product and understand what their competitors are doing to remain competitive, what’s not working for you and how can you fill in the gaps. Increase Retention Rate: If organizations can figure out why any deal got closed, then they can keep their customers happy and build a strong relationship with them. It is important to understand the need of the customers so that organizations can upsell and cross-sell other products to the existing customers, which significantly adds to the revenue. In addition, by looking at the purchasing patterns of your existing customers you can recommend what customers can buy next, based on what these customers have bought in the past. Accurate Sales Forecasting One of the most obvious and important feature of Sales Analysis is the ability to predict the future sales based on the available data. Unlike setting up goals based on the “gut feeling”, historic data gives you an accurate, realistic picture of how much your organization should be able to earn within a specified time period. Competitor Sales Analysis In industries like automobiles, sales made by all the organizations are made available on the public platforms. Organizations can use their competitor’s data to see which product of their competitor is selling the most. They can even get the answer to the question like where and why a particular competitor’s product is selling the most. Based on their analysis they can revamp their product lineup, product pricing, introduce new product etc. Future Decision Making Organizations can even make future decisions like whether an organization need to introduce new products or discontinue any existing product. It even help organizations effectively manage inventory, marketing activities, sales offer roll-out time, manufacturing process etc. More efficient Marketing Sales Analysis helps organizations identify market opportunities and trends to support product marketing. If an organization is planning to launch a new product then it is very important to know the answer of below questions When should the product be launched? Q2. Where should the organization launch the product? Q3. How should it be marketed? Q4. Who is the target audience? All the above questions can be answered by using sales analysis. By having answers to all the above question, organizations can launch their product at the right time and can target the right audience, which will help them have a good sales number. Type of Analysis Sales Analysis could be done in many different ways based on the available data with the organization. Common types of Sales Analysis performed are mentioned below: Product-wise Analysis Organizations can use product-wise analysis to identify which product is selling most and during which time of the year. For example, winter clothes are sold most between November – January whereas summer clothes are sold most between May – September. Based on this analysis, organization can manage the new product launch date, inventory etc. Forecast vs Achievement analysis With the help of Forecast Analysis, organizations can see whether they are able to meet their monthly/weekly/quarterly targets or not. They can even identify how much they should be looking for in the month/week/quarter. Based on their analysis they can make required changes in order to meet the desired organizational targets. Periodic Analysis Periodic sales analysis are the ones which help organizations compare two or more different time period sales. Organizations can analyze the data and see which decisions of the organization has helped them in boosting up the sales and which decisions have led to dip in sales. Conclusion To sum up, Sales Analysis is something which will help you identify the gaps not just in the organization’s sales process but even in other areas as well, like gaps in product, release of the product etc. It even provides a logical solution to fill the gaps in order to increase the sales and reduce the losses. It enables organizations to take decision based on the facts rather than on their “gut feeling”. On being leveraged appropriately, Sales Analytics can help organizations deal with all the roadblocks, which they might encounter during their Sales journey. About Girikon As a global provider of end-to-end IT services, Girikon boasts of a team of certified, and experienced Salesforce consultants, administrators and developers who have the knack for catering to the customer requirement in the most efficient way.

A new crisis Covid-19 has hit us suddenly and while it seems that the earth we are living in has stopped spinning and life around us is stuck, there is a ray of light that we are alive and not buckling down. Part of the reason I am saying so, is because you are reading this blog and we are still connected through the internet. We are ALIVE & will OVERCOME the challenges to get back  to normalcy like before. In this ever-evolving business landscape, the need of the hour is to be Agile in order to stay ahead of the competitors. If we fail to adapt ourselves as per the changing dynamics, we face the risk of being left out or await Lady luck to smile on us. Let’s cite the example of a product – the demad for which experiences a constant shift in different circumstances. So, how do businesses keep up with such changing demads?  The best way to deal with the challenge is to change the price of the product according to the demand. Seasonal fluctuation in demand also affect the business.To deal with this situation, we can offer seasonal pricing.Offering seasonal pricing means charging different pricing for the same product in different seasons. This is where Calendarize Pricing functionality comes into picture. What is Calendarize Pricing? Calendarize Pricing is the feature through which we can change the price of the product for a certain interval of time as per the business requirement. It is an automated process in which, once we set(either increase or decrease) the price of the product for a particular time period, it will automatically show the changed effective price for that time period.  Why do we need calendarize pricing? Today’s market is driven by customers and their requirements keep on changing. So, to deal with this changing environment,businesses should have access to solutions that can  scaled to fulfil the changing market requirements. It’s good to have a feature like ‘Calendarize Pricing’ especially for business that have global presence. People across different geographies have different requirement. For instance, a product finding wide acceptance and demand in a particular geographical region might not find equal demand or acceptance in other regions or geography. Calendarize pricing functionality is tailor developed in a way that allows users to set the pricing on different levels basis current market requirement.. Factors influencing the market There are many factors that influence the market and its demand. Listed below are few of the many factors that influence the market and the demand for a particular product: Inflation Recession Competition in the market More demand Different region Market always depends on the economic health of the country. Inflation and Recession are the two reflectors of this economic health.While moderate inflation is good for the economy, recession brings the economy to a standstill. Factors Influencing Pricing Decisions: As we can see in the picture, there are various internal factors like Cost, Company Objectives, Organisational Factors, Marketing Mix and Product Differentiation that influence the product pricing. For example if a company is expanding its business and entering into a new country, it would keep the price of the product low to capture the market. External Factors like Competition, Demand, Suppliers, Economical Conditions, Consumers, Government regulations etc. have a huge impact on deciding the price of a product. For instance, if we have tough competition in the market we will have to reduce the price of the product to gain the market and if the demand is high, we can sell the product at higher price and vice-e-versa. Advantages of Calendarize Pricing: Same product can have a different price for a different time period. Same product can have different price for the same event in different regions. Same price-book can be used for different regions As we don’t need to change the price-book, it saves effort and money. Easy management of price according to demand and supply. Applicable to any sales cycle but not restricted to any event vertical. Conclusion In today’s ever-evolving business landscape, change is the only constant. The only way to remain competitive is to keep evolving as per the changing market conditions. The same applies for a product, the demand of which is dependent on different market conditions. To sustain in a dynamic business environment, pricing of the product should be changed as per the existing market condition, geographical location and product demand.      The Calendarize Pricing functionality can be a handy solution for organizations looking to successfully deal with the current crisis, as well as the post epidemic situation.  About Girikon Girikon – a reputed name in the IT space offers businesses across different industries with wide array of end-to-end Salesforce implementation, Salesforce support and Salesforce consulting services.