While CRM in and of itself does a myriad of things that can benefit you, you’ll also need to tie in at least three external applications to maximize results. Since your CRM is the center spoke of all customer interaction, these three CRM integrations will help you enhance what you’re already doing.
#1. Email
I’m willing to bet you interact with leads and contacts through email fairly regularly. Each of these emails is a piece in the overall puzzle of customer service, and integrating your email with your CRM can help you stay on top of conversations, take action when needed, and refer back to past emails to jog your memory.
Look for CRM systems that offer an integration with the email client you already use, such as Gmail or Outlook.That way, whenever you send or receive an email, it also gets attached to your contact’s profile in your CRM system. If you need to scan old emails to find out what price you quoted a potential client, it’ll be there, in your contact record.
#2. Calendar
Sure, you can keep track of meetings, calls, and appointments from within your CRM. But what if you already have a calendar that you rely on? Instead of double entering all your appointments, take advantage of calendar integration with your CRM. Many CRMs come equipped with calendar plugins such as Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar.
Once you’ve set up the communication between your calendar system and your CRM, you can schedule events from either source, and they’ll both update.
#3. Website
Every day visitors flock to your website (that is, if your marketing department is doing its job!). With tools like Google Analytics, you can track valuable information on how your visitors are getting to your site and what pages they are visiting. Wouldn’t it be helpful to pull that data into your CRM?
With web tracking integration with tools such as Google Analytics, your CRM can help you leverage this valuable data.Once a visitor fills out a form on your site (such as a ‘Contact Us’ form), your CRM can automatically generate a new lead record and begin tracking pages that person visited. Once you notice a new lead reviewing the same pages several times, this is a great time to reach out and provide a customized offer for what that potential customer is interested in.
You can also track what existing customers are looking at on your site. Say Sammy has only bought men’s shoes from your online shoe store, but is now looking at baby shoes. Congratulations, Sammy! You can make some deductions that perhaps he’s expecting a new family member, and you can reach out to point him in the right direction for infant footwear or offer him a special promotion.
These three integrations can take what you’re doing to a whole new level, helping you become more intuitive and proactive when it comes to closing a sale.
Images: ”Blue CRM keyboard button/ Shutterstock.com“
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