WhatsApp Chat with CRM contacts without adding contact

We are excited to share the latest update of ToolsonCloud CRM. In this release, we have made certain enhancements for a better user experience of the users. Now users will be able to quickly chat with their CRM contacts on WhatsApp within a single click.

Here’s is a brief note about this Release…

 

Need?

We wanted to enhance the user experience of the users. Now a days, almost everyone uses WhatsApp and it is common for Sales persons to use WhatsApp chat for quick chat communications with their prospects and customer contacts.

Until now, In order to start a Whatsapp conversation, the CRM users were required to add the customer’s mobile number in advance on their phone to initiate a WhatsApp conversation. 

This becomes a pain point for the CRM users when they have a huge contact list to chat with…

What’s New?

Now CRM users need not go through the hassles of adding the contact on their mobile number in order to initiate a WhatsApp conversation with their prospect or contacts.

In ToolsonCloud CRM, users will now get a WhatsApp chat icon next to the Mobile number of the contact. This will be made available on detail page of the Lead, Person Contact as well as Organization Contact. 

Users can click on the WhatsApp Chat icon. They will be instantly redirected to WhatsApp. 

• WhatsApp for Web (if you are accessing on Computer) or 
• WhatsApp Mobile app (if you are accessing on Mobile phone) or 
• WhatsApp Desktop (if you have WhatsApp Desktop app installed)

You can proceed to start the chat with your contact from here on, without the need for you to manually add them to your contact before initiating a conversation.

I hope this feature will improve your experience of using ToolsonCloud CRM. Do let me know your thoughts and feedback on this…

Export CRM Tasks into CSV

We are excited to share with you the latest release of ToolsonCloud CRM. In this update we have released a new feature to Export CRM tasks into CSV. 

Read on to learn more about this update…

Need?

There was a need for a functionality for users to be able to export tasks in the CRM into a spreadsheet or excel file so that they can track the tasks offline for certain data analysis and reporting purpose.

What’s New?

With this release, now users will be able to export all the Tasks in ToolsonCloud CRM into spreadsheet in CSV file format.

In Tasks list page, users will be able to locate a new 3 dot menu option just next to the “Add Task” button. On clicking this option, users will get a dropdown menu option titled “Export to CSV”. 

On clicking on this button, system shall download a CSV file containing the list of all tasks in the CRM.

The CSV file shall contain all the important field attributes such as Task Title, Comment, Status, Priority, Date scheduled, Task owner, Date created, Linked Lead, Linked Deal, Linked Contact.

I hope you will find this feature helpful. Do let me know your thoughts…

Convert CRM Lead to a Contact

We are thrilled to be back with a new release of ToolsonCloud CRM. In this release, we have released a new feature that lets you convert a Lead to a Contact in CRM.

Read on to learn more about this update…

Need for this?

Based on our conversation with customers, there are instances where the users have added the leads and once they are converted they do not want to take the pain to create another Contact. While creating another Contact doesn’t take much of a time, but if there are lot of Leads and it is a regular process, then it becomes redundant for the user to keep entering the same form data again and again to create a Contact. 

We do have a feature to convert Lead to Deal, however a feature to convert Lead to Contact was missing until now. Hence, there was a need for a feature to allow users to quickly convert a Lead to a Contact.

What’s new?

With the latest release, users will now get an option to convert a Lead to a contact.

This option will be available as dropdown option in the 3 dot menu option in Leads detail page.

Once the user clicks on the option titled “Convert Lead to Contact”, they will get a prompt to confirm their action.

Once the user confirms, system will create a CRM contact with the same data present under the CRM Lead. Users can visit the People Contact page to view the newly added contact.

I hope this feature will help you improve your productivity. Do let us know your feedback…

Improved Sales Analytics in CRM Dashboard

We are thrilled to share with you the latest release of ToolsonCloud CRM.

In this update, we bring to you a loads of features and UI improvement updates which includes enhancements in the CRM dashboard widgets to give you more sales insights. Here is a sneak peak into this release.

Need?

Sales leaders and professionals continually seek for ways to improve their sales performance. They achieve this by analyzing their data and by trying to uncover some important sales metrics. 

However as the sales activities happen on continuous basis, hence generating fresh reports and metrics on continuous basis becomes difficult and time consuming. 

Hence, we wanted to improvise on the dashboard widgets so that users can get some of the quick ready reckoner metrics instantly.

What’s New?

With the latest release, now users will get 4 new widgets on their CRM Dashboard. The newly introduced widgets will provide following insights:

1. Number of Leads Added

2. Number of Deals Added

3. Number of Contacts created

4. Number of Organization Added

Here’s a snapshot of the newly introduced widget

CRM Dashboard widgets

Users can instantly get these counts on their CRM dashboard without the need for them to manually go through the data to generate these numbers for their sales tracking.

I hope the users will find these useful. Do share your feedback and let us know your thoughts…

View top 5 sources of leads in CRM Dashboard

We are excited to share with you the latest release updates from ToolsonCloud CRM. In this release, we have added a new widget in your CRM dashboard to get more insights around your Leads. Read on to get a brief of this update.

Need?

We felt there is a need for users to get more insights into the various sources from where they are getting their leads. This will help them plan out their lead acquisition strategy and they can track this metrics directly from their CRM dashboard.

What’s New?

With this release, now users will be able to see a new widget in their CRM dashboard. The widget is shown below for reference.

As you can guess from the title, this widget will give the list of top 5 sources of leads added in your CRM. This widget will display the count of leads against each lead sources.

This insight will help you work on some of the questions around leads such as:

1. Where are we getting most of our leads from?
2. Is the cost of acquisition from each lead source/channel aligned with our business strategy?
3. Do I need to put any effort to rebalance the count of leads generated from each channel to increase my conversion rate or to optimize the lead acquisition cost.
4. Where do I need to put my marketing budget to see more traction from the top lead sources?

These are just sample insights for your reference as the actual questions may vary depending on your business.

We hope this enhancement will help improve your experience of using ToolsonCloud CRM.

Bulk Import Organization contacts into CRM using CSV file

We are excited to share with you a new feature which we just released recently in ToolsonCloud CRM.

In this release, we have introduced Bulk import functionality for importing Organization contacts into the CRM. Here’s is a brief about this release.

Need for this?

We had bulk import functionality for uploading Leads into ToolsonCloud CRM using a CSV file. However, users also wanted to do add a lot of Organization contacts in bulk using a spreadsheet.

What’s New?

Now, users will be able to upload bulk Organization contacts into the CRM using a CSV file.

Users will get a new option titled “Bulk Import” in Organization contact page under the option icon on the top right corner. 

On clicking on this option, user will be navigated to the Bulk Import page.

Here user will be able to find a sample CSV file which they can download and add the information associated with the Organization contacts. Each Organization should be added in a separate row.

Once the CSV file is ready, users can go ahead and upload the bulk CSV file into the Bulk Import page by selecting the option as “Organization”.

Once done, all the contacts will be uploaded into the CRM.

We hope this feature would help improve your user experience and productivity.  Let us know your feedback.

Delete Draft emails in CRM

Recently we went live with a new update on Toolsoncloud Sales CRM.

In this update, we have tried to enhance the user options available for the Email module in the CRM.

Need?

In Toolsoncloud CRM we have an email module using which users can send emails to their customers directly from the CRM without the need for leaving the application.

If users are working on an email draft, they can save the unfinished emails, which will be available under the Drafts. Later, whenever the user wants to update the draft, they can go to the Drafts page and pick the email which they want to work on again.

With increasing emails, the Draft folder may get filled with many email Drafts which are no longer required.

What's New?

With the new enhancement, users will be able to delete the draft emails which are no longer required in order to keep their draft folder cleaner.

To use this function, users need to go to Conversation > Emails > Drafts.

Here, users will be able to locate a new option titled "Delete" against each draft email. Upon clicking the delete button, users will be prompted with a dialog box to confirm the deletion of the draft email.

Once you confirm by clicking on the "Delete" button, the selected draft email shall be deleted. Users will no longer be able to recover the deleted email drafts (hence use this option with caution to avoid accidental deletion).

I hope this enhancement will be useful to you to help you keep your CRM clean and easy for use. Please do share your feedback.

View Call logs against a Deal and Contact in CRM

Recently we went live with a new update on Toolsoncloud CRM. In this update we have tried to improve the experience of users who are more often using Call logging module.

Here's is a sneak peak into this release...

Need?

There was a need to improve the experience of users using the Call log tracking module in the CRM.

We wanted to equip users where in they can view all the logs of the Calls made to close a particular lead.

Similarly we also wanted to equip users where in they can view all the calls made to a particular Person contact to get a view of the historical connects established with the client contact.

What's New?

With the new update, now users will be able to view all the Call logs associated with a particular deal in the respective Deal's detail page.

Similar to the Deals detail page, Users will also be able to keep track of all the Call logs associated with the Person Contact in the respective Contact's detail page.

Users can associate a Call log with a Deal or Contact using following simple steps.

• While creating a new Call log or updating an existing one, they will get a field titled "Linked Deal" and "Linked Contact".
• To associate a Deal or Contact, users just need to select the right Deal and Contact in their respective drop-down field. 
• Once the Call log is created (for new logs) or updated (for existing call logs), users can go to the details page of that particular Deal or Contact.
• Users will be able locate the list of call logs on the right sidebar with the short summary of the call logs as shown in the image below.

• If users want to view the call log details, they can click on the particular call log link in order to view the details of the call log.

I hope this enhancement will improve your experience using the platform. Do let me know your thoughts on this...

Best Practices for SaaS CRM Implementation

In order to ensure a business runs smoothly and efficiently, it is necessary that the organization invest in the latest tools and technologies which can empower their staffs in order to perform better, with more efficiency. However, there are certain things which needs to be taken care while implementing a new software within your organization. 

In this context, implementing a SaaS CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is said to significantly improve the efficiency of any business’s operations, streamlines workflows, and improve customer relationships. However, in order to make it a success and to derive maximum benefits, it’s crucial to follow the best practices during the CRM implementation process. 

Here are some of the best practices which you should follow in order to ensure a successful SaaS CRM implementation within your organization.

1. Define Clear Objectives and KPIs

The first step before delving deep into the implementation is to clearly define your objectives and the KPIs which you want to achieve using the CRM. While defining the objectives and performance metrics, you need to ensure that they align with your overall business goals in the long term. Having a crisp and clear goal defined helps in setting a clear direction for your organization and also establishes the parameters on which you will measure the success of your CRM implementation. Some of the examples of this can be Improving customer retention by 20%, improving sales conversion by 10%, etc.

2. Choose the Right CRM Solution

It is important to note that the crux of your CRM implementation lies in selecting a right CRM solution which aligns perfectly with your business. You need to evaluate a set of different CRM providers and try to compare them based on your business needs, budget, and the specific features they offer. You may not find an all in one CRM which fits completely for your business process as the business processes for every company may differ, however you can certainly find one, which ticks most of your requirements’ checklist.

 

3. Involve Key Stakeholders

Often many CRM implementation fail to derive the ROI because of lesser adoption among the employees. However if the leadership stakeholders are keen towards the implementation from the beginning, then it can certainly help in successful rollout and wider adoption. You should engage the key leadership stakeholders from every department early in the process. This will help get valuable leadership’s input on the specific needs and challenges of each department. Getting collective and collaborative feedback early on, can help with increased organization wide acceptance of the CRM system. 

4. Develop a Detailed Implementation Plan

If you are a large organization, then certainly the CRM implementation will take a while before it is fully rolled out. You need to create a comprehensive implementation plan that outlines the major tasks, milestones, and timelines associated. This plan should include data migration, system configuration, user training, and testing phases. A well-structured implementation will help plan out the rollout in a smooth manner and shall ensure least possible business disruption during the transition period.

5. Ensure Data Quality and Governance

Data is the backbone of any CRM system. As it is rightly said, a CRM is as good as its Data. Howsoever costly CRM software you buy, if the data quality is not maintained, the users will never be able to derive its true value and ROI. You need to ensure that the data being migrated and fed into the CRM is accurate, complete, and up-to-date. Implement regular data governance policies to maintain data quality and consistency. Promote this among your staff to regularly update the CRM data and ensure to keep it clean to ensure data sanity. 

6. Provide Comprehensive Training

Many CRM users fail to make the best out of their CRM because of lack of appropriate skills and training required to use the CRM. This ultimately affects the user adoption which is an important KPI for a successful CRM implementation. To ensure better CRM adoption, organizations need to ensure that comprehensive training is provided to all users to ensure they understand how to use the system effectively. As some CRM providers keep adding new features and enhancements to the system, it is also important to keep team aware of the latest releases and feature updates.

8. Monitor and Evaluate Performance

After implementation is completed, you need to continuously monitor the performance of the CRM system and the KPIs which you defined in the beginning. Go through the defined performance metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of your CRM implementation and identify areas for improvement. This will help you uncover the gaps which you might need to work as part of continuous improvement efforts.

By following these best practices, you can surely ensure a smoother and successful SaaS CRM implementation that will drive business growth and help enhance customer relationships.

Quick filters for meetings scheduled in upcoming days or weeks

Hello all, we just dispatched a new enhancement update for Toolsoncloud CRM with a new filter for Meetings module in the CRM. 

Here's a brief of this new enhancement

Need?

Uptill now, users were able to create new meetings and view all of them categorized under two tabs - one for upcoming meetings and one for past meetings.

We thought, users would be interested to get a quick glance of some commonly used time periods such as meetings scheduled today, tomorrow or during upcoming week.

What's New?

With this update, users can get quick view of the meeting scheduled for today, tomorrow as well as upcoming week, in addition to the earlier existing tabs for all past and all upcoming meetings.

Users can view the meetings segregated under the header by navigating to the Meetings list page from the CRM navigation bar on the top.

Here, users can locate 5 pills on the top left side of the content pane of the Meetings list page.

The pills will be organized as:

• Upcoming
• Today
• Tomorrow
• This Week
• Past

Users can click on "Today" pill to view all meetings which are scheduled in the next 24 hours from now.

Users can click on "Tomorrow" pill to view all the meetings which are scheduled for tomorrow (from 24 hours to 48 hours from now).

Users can click on "This Week" pill to view all the meetings scheduled within upcoming 7 days from now. 

The function of "Upcoming" and "Past" pill will remain AS-IS, i.e users will be able to view all the meetings which are upcoming and are passed respectively.

 

I hope you will find these enhancements useful. Please do share your thoughts to help improve the app.

Creative ways to offer discounts in Sales

If you are looking for some creative ways to offer discounts as part of your Sales promotion, then you are at the right place. Read on to explore some of the creative ways to offer discounts in your business.

1. Tiered Discounts

This is a discounting approach where you can set up multiple discount slabs or levels at different purchase values. An example for this is shown below:

a) 10% off if the customer buys for more than $50

b) 15% off if the customer buys for more than $100

c) 20% off if the customer buys for more than $200

This tiered discount gives a more perceived value to the customers at higher price points, hence they tend to purchase for higher order value. This helps you increase your sales revenue. If your unit economics is set correctly then, you will not lose much even if you offer a larger discount at higher bill amounts as the fixed cost gets reduced.

2. Loyalty Programs

In this approach, you run loyalty programs which benefits your existing loyal customer base. Here, you run marketing campaigns for your existing customers by rewarding them with exclusive discounts or cash back or offers. This helps you to drive repeat sales from your existing customer base. As your existing customer base is already familiar with your brand and already values you, they will willingly come back again, provided they are offered good products and service (and discounts in this context).

3. Product Bundle deals

In this approach, you try to bundle together certain related complementary products which your customer might be buying along with the primary products. Here, you make the bundled purchase favorable by offering certain promotional discounts in order to make the deal enticing for the customers. For. e.g. if your primary product is Mobile, you might make a bundled offer by providing mobile accessories like Screen Guards, Ear buds, Mobile covers at a discounted price. This will help you increase the ticket size of the purchase and shall help you with faster inventory turnaround.

4. Referral Discounts

In this technique, you create referral marketing campaigns by offering some value to the existing customers for referring their friends. This helps with word of mouth marketing for your business. Additionally the referred customers are always easy to convert as your existing loyal customer would have already endorsed your products and services to them, thus making your life easier. In this approach, you need to offer some discounts or promotions for your existing customers to encourage word of mouth marketing. For e.g. you can offer referral discounts for both newly referred customer and the existing customer.

5. Flash Sales Coupons

From time to time, you can offer flash sales coupons where you can offer a time bound promotional discount. This will help build a sense of urgency as well as popularity among your customer base who would want to make use of such promotional events from time to time. For e.g. Month end stock clearance product sales at discounted price or Happy hour discounted price on non-busy days.

I hope you will like using any of these discounting ideas as part of your next sales promotion campaign. Having said that, remember that the best sales promotion technique would be the one which aligns with your brand as well as your customer preferences. Hence, you need to carefully run some A/B marketing experiments on a subset of customers in order to understand and get useful insights.

How to automate sales workflows in CRM

If you are looking for ways to automate your sales process workflows in CRM, then you are at the right place. With increasing competition in sales, it is essential that your sales team delivers the best results. It is only possible when the team has the right sales tools and technologies at place to work with better productivity. Automating sales workflows in your CRM can significantly boost efficiency of your team and help reduce manual and time consuming efforts.

Here is a detailed guide you can follow in order to start automating workflows in your CRM system.

1. Identify Processes

Before you automate any workflow in CRM, you need to identify what needs to be automated. There can be a range of processes which you want to automate, however sooner you may realize that either some of them are not-feasible to be automated or some of them end up not giving the required ROI on the effort spent automating the workflows. Hence, this steps is crucial step in your sales automation journey. Start with collecting the list of sales tasks which your team spend the most time upon. Next, try to identify which all tasks are redundant and repetitive in nature. 

2. Check Automation Feasibility

Once this is done, the next step is to assess the technical feasibility of automating the task in your CRM system. Your CRM system should support your use case, otherwise you may be required to contact your CRM service provider in order to help you with add-on features or customizations. 

3. Decide Automation Priority

Once you have identified this, try to assign an order of priority in which you want to automate the processes. The priority can be set basis Business urgency or potential ROI to be generated post automation or based on the expected time savings for the sales staff.

4. Create Workflows in CRM system

Once you have identified the priority, you can start creating workflows in your CRM system for the processes which needs to be automated on first priority. Depending upon your CRM vendor, your CRM should allow you to create workflows by defining the automation trigger points and the corresponding action which should happen. An example workflow trigger point can be the time when a new lead is added, and an action which should happen can be a welcome introductory email sent to the new lead or creation of tasks in the CRM for follow up activities, etc.

5. Test, Iterate and Refine

Last but not the least! Teams should try to test the implementation automation, and iteratively refine up the automation. CRM workflow automation is not a one-time effort as it may appear to be, it should be adopted with an innovation mindset, where in teams should constantly try to identify the redundant and repeatable tasks in their day to day activities and try to automate them in order to improve business efficiency.

By the way, if you are yet to try out a CRM software for your business. Do check out ToolsonCloud Sales CRM Software. It’s Free!