When I began my career in sales – my first territory was about a three square mile area in downtown Chicago. Relatively easy to prospect door-to-door and turn in my call reports at the end of the week. Just sit down with a mimeographed call sheet and fill in the boxes. Very little could be learned from reading those reports. It was basically management’s way of making sure we, sales people, were out making the required number of calls every day.
Over the years – call reporting has significantly improved. From filling out call logs on paper to inputting them in via a desktop or a laptop – now even on hand held devices that allow for recording sales calls – almost instantly when the sales person leaves the call and is driving on to their next stop.
Call reporting is capable of so much more – from a management standpoint – in understanding what is going on in the sales field, what resources are needed or obstacles that need to be overcome to ensure sales success.
As CRM’s have grown in sophistication, the amount of information it can capture has too. This presents a challenge to businesses. Deciding what is relevant and what is not. Once a business determines what is relevant then they need to create strategies to leverage the information to have a positive impact on sales results.
With implementing strategies comes the need to measure results, make adjustments and create next steps. Multiple resources might be in play. Drip email campaigns, direct mail campaigns, call centers, face-to-face sales calls, trade show attendance, etc. all might be strategies being utilized.
Multiple departments might be involved; marketing, operations, customer service as well as sales could all be part of a massive strategy to impact sales. Can your company handle such a complex but necessary strategy with little effort?
They may have had the information, tried to develop the strategy and then upon implementation could not track results. The intricacies to make it all happen require a partner that has experience and resources to apply. By being a Salesforce Registered Consultant Partner and a Salesforce Product Development Partner –AppShark brings the best combination of resources, skills and experience to solve these problems for a positive outcome.
It starts with AppShark doing the due diligence of understanding just how you plan to use a CRM, then what you plan to do with all the information you capture. If the need exists to create unique apps to integrate various departments or migrate data into the CRM, we have that capability. The customization of the CRM begins after we have fully understood your needs and end results.
Once we have customized the CRM to meet your needs – the next and most important steps takes place – Implementing and training of the staff. Knowing how to use the CRM to produce the results expected is the most crucial part of any implementation. Without properly trained staff you will never obtain the results desired.
And it does not stop there - ongoing monitoring – after the implementation – is also a very important part. We have dedicated people to your business that engage with you on a regular basis to make sure that what you desired as results is actually occurring.
So if you feel that your CRM is not giving you the results you need or your strategies fall short time, after time, let AppShark help get you on the right path to success. Feel free to email me at sales@appshark.com for a free consulting session!