How can Salesforce grow your business?

Customer relationships are the cornerstone of an organisation's growth, and you need to nurture and manage them efficiently and smartly.

Salesforce is the world’s No1 CRM platform for businesses of all sizes. Salesforce provides out-of-the-box solutions that let growing businesses implement cutting-edge technology with minimum effort and connect all of the systems that are important to them. And has been recognised by leading user review organisations and industry analysts and as the market leader in CRM technology,

Before we go deeper into what CRM technology can do for you, let us answer the basic question – Does my business need a CRM solution?

If any of these is true for you, then the right CRM solution could make your job a whole lot easier.

1.You don’t have a single source of customer information.

Does your company have customer and order information in multiple locations? If yes, then that's one glaring reason why you need a CRM.

A CRM brings together all of your customer data from sales, marketing, service and support into one place allowing you to access, track, analyse, and act on it straightaway, from anywhere. If you store customer data in spreadsheets, then not just your sales reps but anyone who interacts with your customers is at a disadvantage. When information is modified in one system, other systems do not update automatically. There is no holistic, unified view of all of your customer data such as contact information, purchase info, and communication logs.

2. You have very limited visibility of customer interactions.
Do you have a complete, single view of all customer information? If not, then you don’t have insight into what your salespeople and customer support teams are doing. It’s hard to help your sales and service teams be successful and accountable if you’re not sure what they are doing.

3. Reports are tedious and painful.
Does your team go through the arduous process of creating reports manually? If that is true, your performance-tracking capabilities are extremely limited. You should be generating reports automatically and view real time analytics of your sales team’s progress versus their targets.

4. You’re losing valuable customer data.
IF you are not sure what you’re following up on, it is going to be very hard for you to schedule follow-up interactions with customers and prospects. If your interactions across touchpoints aren’t being tracked, important details get lost through the cracks, especially if a key staff member leaves your organization.

5. It’s challenging to stay in touch on the go.
Can you sales reps quickly and easily find the information they need to close a deal when they are in the field? When they are meet prospects and come across valuable information, does the rest of your organization have access to it? Information captured in handwritten notes and on PCs is a potential gold mine. 

6. Every customer is treated the same.
Are your customers and prospects getting similar types of messages and offers from you? If that is true, you’re missing out on potential opportunities. You want the to be able to target prospects based on their industry, geography, and the value they can bring to your business to make the most of every interaction.

7. Can you scale fast?
If you company grows rapidly, can your business processes scale just as quickly as the demand? You cannot afford to let your own processes be the impediment to your success.

What can you do with Salesforce?

Focus on customer success.

Salesforce was founded on one simple principle: to help customers be more successful. This one philosophy has been the driving force behind a culture of constant innovation on the platform. Salesforce has built and fostered an entire ecosystem around customer success and packed it with a vast network of partners and independent software vendors, and a vibrant digital community.

Augment your sales, service, and marketing initiatives with solutions tailored specifically for small businesses.

Salesforce provides cutting edge tools that help small businesses find and attract new customers, earn their business, and keep them happy for life. Salesforce allows you to easily connect your existing systems so you can build more engaging relationships with your customers and grow your business faster than ever.

By virtue of being cloud-based, Salesforce has no upfront costs as compared to on-premise software. It completely eliminates the need for expensive hardware or IT support, so you can get up and running on fast. Maintenance and upgrades happen automatically on the Salesforce platform, and issues are resolved in a matter of minutes, not days or weeks. This translates to far less downtime, and lower maintenance costs, and you can spend more time on what matters most which is growing the business.

According to Salesforce, their CRM customers have seen 38% faster decision-making, a 25% jump in revenue, and a 35% increase in customer satisfaction.

Adopt the platform that grows with you

Small and medium-sized businesses need to be sure that the technology that drives their business will scale with the organisation’s growth. With Salesforce, the possibilities are endless, and you can add functionality with just a few clicks. Why would you not grow your business using a secure, and scalable platform that is surprisingly easy to customize and upgrade without any downtimes?

Salesforce is the world’s only true Customer Success Platform. With Salesforce, you can connect every part of your business and get a single, unified, 360 customer view you need to deliver success to your customers, at every stage of your growth journey.

Get access to cutting-edge technology and innovation

Not only is Salesforce focused on delivering true customer success, but also to re-define the way business is conducted across industries. Salesforce’s superior and secure cloud technology allows it to automatically roll out new features, product upgrades, and path-breaking technology to all users simultaneously, three times every year without any additional costs. With Salesforce your business can grow faster than ever.

Here's how CRM technology from Salesforce can empower you to be more connected with your customers, augment business performance, and fast track your company’s growth:

1. Find the right customers.

You have spent resources and time on attracting and generating new leads, but now what? Are they getting passed on to your sales team, and if so, are your sales reps aware which are the hottest opportunities? Time is critical for small businesses who want to grow fast. You can make the most of your marketing tools such as email, social media and marketing automation software by connecting them to Salesforce with minimum effort. Give your sales and marketing teams a unified 360 view of leads and prospects, allowing them to create and target effective and engaging campaigns to convert prospects into real customers and facilitate faster decision making.

2. Foster sustainable relationships.

Develop a deeper understanding of your customer’s business starting with a holistic view of their engagement history with your organization build a strong and lasting relationship based on trust and mutual success. Salesforce CRM can help you in the following ways:

Explore customer challenges: Find out what matters to customers such as business goals, preferences and challenges with every interaction and ensure regular follow-up action. Record notes in Salesforce so that in your next interaction you can start from exactly where you left off after a quick review.

Engage with relevancy: Once you understand a business challenges and goals of a customer, you can recommend appropriate products that are relevant to their business interests, at the right time. With Salesforce, you can keep a track of what products or services they have purchased and how they're using them, so you can push the most relevant content and information.

Scale your 1-to-1 relationships: As a small business, your customers love you for the personalised experiences you deliver; but as you grow, it becomes more and more challenging to know the details of every activity of every customer. This makes following up with them all the more daunting, especially when to follow up with them when growth kicks in. Salesforce allows you to host a vast template library of email, set up reminders, and enable phone calls from within Salesforce to help you connect with customers easily and quickly.

3. Reduce the cost of sales

New customers are a key constituent of continued growth, and they don’t come easily or cheaply. The good news is that with Salesforce CRM, you can offset customer acquisition costs through sales to your existing customer base. Salesforce comes loaded with tools and resources that provide greater visibility into the upsell, cross-sell, and renewal opportunities in your customer portfolio. With Salesforce CRM you will see an increase in repeatable sales because of the trust you’ve already established.

Salesforce CRM can help you augment business performance by:

Improving sales efficiency: Give precedence to leads and opportunities that are most likely to close based on customer interactions.

Improving sales effectiveness: Get visibility on which customers are engaged with you and determine what is the right time to reach out with an optimal response.

Increasing upsell and cross-sell opportunities: Get a 360 view of opportunities that are a good fit for deals already in progress.

Uncovering referral business: Discover untapped opportunities in existing relationships

Reducing time to close: With a 360-degree view of your customer, align your teams on the next steps to close a deal.

4. Increase employee productivity

Adopting the right technology frees up your teams from process-heavy tasks and gives them more time to do what matters most – connecting with customers. Manual tasks like searching for contact information or entering data can be automated or even eliminated from customer-centric processes. Automation across sales, service, and marketing will enable your sales reps to spend more time interacting with prospective customers and strengthen relationships with existing ones.

Give your teams the tools they need to maintain focus on selling. Salesforce CRM allows you to automate mundane repetitive tasks, so your sales team can sell smarter and faster.

5. Offer better customer service

A product is only as good as the service that comes along with it. Don't flood your prospects inbox with multiple marketing promotions that will annoy or scare them away. If you flounder after a sale, you would have wasted the time and effort that went into acquiring a valuable customer. When your teams can get access to a customer’s complete history instantly, everyone can quickly deliver personalised messages and solutions, using the right resources. Smoother interactions help build trust and facilitate repeat business.

6. Improve customer retention

360-degree visibility of all your relationships allows teams to proactively address at-risk accounts and offer new opportunities at just the right time to a satisfied customer. When you have a clear view of customer history, case history, and campaigns, you can deliver more satisfying purchases and service experiences that compel them to keep coming back for more. If you invest your time wisely today, the resulting strong customer relationships will pay rich dividends for years to come.

We at Girikon understand that great technology alone is not enough to ensure success. Our Salesforce Consultants will support you throughout your journey of digital transformation to ensure that you become a company that clients love to work with.

About Author

Indranil Chakraborty

Indranil is a technology enthusiast with over 25 years of experience in project management, operations, technology and business development. Indranil has led project teams in egovernance, business process re-engineering, product development and worked with Government and Corporate customers. Indranil truly believes in the power of technology to drive productivity and growth for teams and businesses.