In the highly competitive – and rapidly evolving – world of customer relationship management, the ability to shrewdly and accurately weigh the merits of new technological capabilities has become critical to a solution’s success. Here’s the rule of thumb that I’ve developed for evaluating CRM tool additions: convenience is absolutely everything. Convenience means efficiency, and efficiency translates into sales. Technologies that eliminate CRM pain points, delays, or any of those moments when the business representative doesn’t have the tools or information that they need directly in front of them (or at least available with a click) – these are the tools to look for.
It’s fair to say that this evaluation can sometimes be trickier than it sounds – a promising, feature-rich tool can turn out to be a bad fit when put into practice. Complementary CRM technologies are arriving faster than ever, but the wrong ones will actually waste more of your employees’ time and your business’s resources than they will save. That’s why it is so vital to make careful assessments and recognize those technological capabilities that truly suit your business, those that will, in the end, serve as engines of growth rather than frustration.
There is one area in particular where experience allows me to wholeheartedly recommend modern technologies that achieve more efficient CRM: solutions that facilitate web-based phone calls. Whether your business involves the selling of products or services and conducting a high volume of sales calls – or simply requires a reliable support center – almost every company has a need for efficient call management technology as part of their CRM operations. While setting up a call center remains prohibitively challenging for many businesses (both from a management and a cost standpoint), advancements in click-to-call solutions are an area where technology is able to provide an efficient and sizeable value.
Click-to-call provides a number of benefits that directly (or nearly directly) enhance a business’s profitability and growth:
First, by quite simply making it faster for a representative to handle a call, they can take more calls more effectively, and that time saved is money saved. Click-to-call further spares your reps from the time wasted by searching for names and numbers and then dialing them; instead, making a successful call is just a matter of a few clicks on a screen.
Second, this technology has saved on costs versus using an outside call service provider. Click-to-call is entirely web-based, and thus lets a business avoid the costs of using traditional telephone services.
Finally, click-to-call solutions use all of their advantages as a digital technology to offer insights that can shape broader CRM strategy. Calls can be tracked, and call recordings can be reviewed in order to inform improved practices and help reps hone their on-call skills and tactics. Executed well, these improvements will lead to more successful calls, and more profit and growth for the business.
It’s worth remembering that the purpose of CRM technology is to make your life easier. The right tools put customer data and other needed information in the right places to make your team and your business more efficient, leading to better results. Click-to-call platforms fit these criteria, providing value by making customer calls fast and easy to conduct. Ultimately, these technology solutions benefit a business by making CRM not only more effective, but easier to perform at a high level.
Marijus Andrijauskas is CEO at Teamgate, an inbound sales CRM solution for fast growth service businesses.