View count of Pending Tasks by user in CRM

We just rolled out a new enhancement in your beloved ToolsonCloud CRM which gives you the capability to view the count of pending tasks against each user in your CRM account.

Here’s a sneak peek into this new update…


Need?

Sales Leaders always want to get a summarized view of the actionable of their team members. Task module is one of the important module in CRM which gives a view of the next set of actionable for each team member which might be against any lead, deal or a contact.

However, Sales leaders may find it difficult to assign tasks to their sales reps if they are not aware of the current workload of their team members. Hence it is essential to equip them with some insights to help them understand the number of pending tasks assigned to each team members.  


What’s New?

Starting today, your dashboard page will have a new dashboard element which will provide you with user wise count of the number of pending tasks in each user’s bucket.

This insight will be available under a card titled “Pending Tasks”. This element can be located just next to the existing dashboard element titled “Tasks Added Daily”.

This dashboard element shall be visible to all team members in the organization including both Admin users and team members.

Here’s how this will look like:



We hope this dashboard insight shall prove to be helpful for you to improve you sales process.

We look forward to hearing from you…


Get Sales Funnel view of Leads in CRM

Dear all, we just dispatched a new feature on ToolsonCloud CRM using which you can now get a Sales Funnel view of Leads in your beloved CRM.


Need?

In order to make consistent sales, Sales leaders are required to ensure that their leads pipeline is filled in appropriate ratios at every stage of the leads journey. Sales leaders are also cognizant of the fact that not every lead will necessarily get converted. Many leads may drop off or may not be qualified at all to be pursued further by the organization. 

Hence Sales leaders would want to track the sales funnel metrics on regular basis in order maintain a consistent flow of leads.


What’s New?

With this new update, you will be able to see a new dashboard metrics in your CRM dashboard titled “Active Leads Funnel”.

You can locate this dashboard element just next to the metrics for “Leads Added Daily”.

This metrics shall provide you with insights on the number of active leads which are currently in the pipeline at various stages.

Here is a quick peek into the Sales Funnel metrics displaying the number of Leads which are Cold, Warm or Hot.




We hope this metrics will help you gain better insights into your sales state and shall help you maintain a healthy sales pipeline for consistent sales conversion and growth.

We would love to hear back your thoughts on this…

Free CRM Trial for 14 days with Full Premium Features

Dear all,

We just went live with a new update for Toolsoncloud CRM along with some enhancements to the platform.

With this update, we have a good news to share with the users who are looking out to try ToolsonCloud CRM's Premium features for a few days before buying the subscription.



Need?

Before this update, we had 2 pricing plans:

- Free Forever Plan

- Premium Plan. 

The Free forever plan is limited to single user with a good set of usable features. Additionally we have Premium Plan which supports more than 1 users and comes loaded with advanced features such as Custom pipelines, Custom fields, Email Integration and many more.

Earlier new users were required to subscribe to Premium plan if they wanted to use Premium features, however we wanted to provide an option for the users to first try out the Premium features for free so that they can take a call whether ToolsonCloud is the right fit or not for their team.


What’s New?

From now on, if you are new to Toolsoncloud and sign up now, you will get a default access to Premium Subscription for Free for 14 days.

This shall help you try out all Pro features and get adapted to it before making the final purchase decision.


What happens once my Free trial is over?

Don’t worry! Even if your free trial is over, your data remains safe with us. 

You will be automatically moved to our Free Forever plan.

We understand that buying a CRM needs careful discussions with team members and your sales leaders. Should you feel the need to try the Pro features for a few more days, feel free to shoot out an email to our support team to extend the free trial.

That’s not yet over. If you are an existing free user who wanted to try out our Premium Features but could not try it out, then just shoot us an email to our support team to allocate a fully free 14 days free trial on your account.

We hope this would be helpful in your CRM purchase journey. Do let us know what your take on this is.


Add Call Logs in CRM to keep track of Sales calls

Hello All,

We just introduced a new Call Logging feature for all the users in the latest update of ToolsonCloud CRM.

Here is the glimpse of what’s new in this update…


Need for this feature:

Often Salespersons interact with their leads over a series of phone calls. However if that particular lead is being handed over to another salesperson, then the new team member may not have the complete logs of the conversation they had with the leads or customers. Additionally if the lead volumes are high, it is highly likely that the initial sales person also might forget the details of the call over a period of time.

Moreover, maintaining the call logs shall help the Customers to be able to derive more meaningful insights for their sales teams such as Good time to call leads, Number of calls it takes to convert a lead, Number of calls it take to close a deal, Approximate time duration the Sales reps spend on each conversation, Average number of touch points required with the prospects to nurture and convert them, etc. 

Hence, there was a need from the users to be able to log their call so that they can refer them later for closing the deal and to unravel new insights from this data.


What’s New?

In this update, we have introduced a new Call logging feature for users to support the above mentioned use cases.

You can visit the Call Logs page by clicking on “Conversations” and then “Call Logs” option in the top navigation bar.



In this page, users will be able to view the existing calls logged by their team members in chronological order of calls.




In order to log a new call, you can click on the “Log a Call” button on the top right corner. you will receive a dialog box prompt to enter the Call log details such as Related Lead, Related Deal, Related Contacts, Call timings, Call Type and Call Notes as shown below.




You can add the required call details and click on “Log” button to add this call log into the CRM.

You can view the details of the call log by clicking on the records row and view the details as shown below.



You can also navigate to the related Lead, Deal or Contact from this page by clicking on the respective names displayed in this page.

You can also modify this call log by clicking on edit icon towards the left corner of the card. This will prompt you to enter the updated call details. 

You can modify the call details to resubmit the new values which will be updated in the CRM.


I hope you will like using this feature to gain more insights to improve your Sales process and productivity. 

If you have any feature suggestion to improve ToolonCloud CRM, feel free to contact us.


Create Custom Fields in CRM Deals Tracker

Dear Readers,

We just went live with a new update on ToolsonCloud CRM. 

We are pleased to announce the introduction of "Custom Fields feature in Deal Tracking module".

Here is a brief of what’s new in this release…


Need

Currently, when using Deal tracking module, users get to use the fields related to a Sales Deal. These fields are generically designed and are provided as it is by default to all customers whenever they sign up.

But there were certain advanced users who wanted to customize the Deal Module by introducing some additional fields which suits their domain specific business needs.

For. e.g. 

  • A Coaching business would like to track an additional attribute such as Educational Qualification. 
  • A Logistics related business would like to track an additional attribute such as Pickup Location, Delivery Location, etc.


What's New?

With the new update, users can now create their own custom fields and customize the Deal module in CRM to align to their sales process.

Admin users can create custom fields by visiting the “Custom Fields” section located in “Settings” page.



Users just need to provide a custom field name to get started.



Once the field is created, all team users will be able to view this new attribute or field in the “Add Deal” and “Edit Deal” forms as shown below.

 


Once the user saves any values in the custom fields, these values will be displayed in the deal’s detail page on the right side card as shown below.




This feature shall help you to quickly customize your CRM and get started as per your business needs without the need for any additional technical intervention from IT Team.

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

Advanced Filters for CRM Data segmentation

We have recently gone live with a new update on ToolsonCloud CRM with advanced data filters to enable the users to better segment and view their data.

Here is what’s new in this release…


Need

Earlier, users just had the search bar to filter the data being displayed in Leads, Deals, Contacts and Organization’s listing page.

However, with the existing search bar, users were only able to filter the data using a single keyword.

There was a need from the users for advanced filter options to help them apply filters on multiple columns simultaneously for better filtering and segmentation of data in various listing pages.


What’s New?

With this release, we have introduced a range of data segmentation filters in various pages of CRM i.e. in Leads, Deals, Contacts and Organizations listing pages.

In each of the listing page, user will be able to locate a new Filter icon on the menu options near add buttons as shown below 


On clicking this icon, the user will be displayed a dialog prompt listing down the multiple column on which they can apply parallel filters with "AND" condition

In Leads listing page, users will now be able to filter the leads based on values in “Title”, “Label”, “Source” and “Assigned To” fields of the Leads as shown below:



In Deals listing page, users will now be able to filter the deals based on values in “Deal Name”, “Pipeline”, “Status”, “Organization” and “Assigned To” fields of the deals as shown below:



In People Contacts listing page, user will now be able to filter the People Contacts based on the values in “Name”, “Job Title”, “Organization” and “Email” fields of the Contacts as shown below:



In Organization Contacts page, the user will now be able to filter the Organizations based on the “Company Name” field as shown below:



Once the user applies any filter, system shall also display the list of filters applied on the list for reference just above the table list as shown below:


Hope you will like using these features. If you have any feedback or suggestions, do let us know.

View Sent Emails in CRM

 Dear Users,

We have recently gone live with a new feature on ToolsonCloud CRM around Email functionalities. Here is a glimpse of the new change.


Challenge:

Till now users were allowed to send emails from the CRM either from Email page or from any lead's detail page by clicking on the Email icon.

However, user were not having any way to view the past emails sent to their contacts. 

There was a need from the users to be able to view the sent emails as well. 

Hence it motivated us to build this feature for the benefit of the users.


What's New?

Now, Users can view the Sent emails as well by navigating to "Email" page and then clicking on "Sent" link in the sidebars.




Users can quickly check out the recipient, subject and date on which the email was sent earlier. 



They can also get a detailed view of the email content which was sent by clicking on the email row to open a detailed view of the sent email. 



Here, user can view the full length email body of the email along with the date on which the mail was sent to the recipients.


This feature will help the users keep track of the past interactions with their prospects and customers for future reference. This will ultimately help the Sales team members with the necessary data to initiate a meaningful conversation with their customers.


I hope you will like using this feature. 

If you have any feature suggestion in mind, do let us know.


Bulk Import Leads in CRM using CSV file

Dear Users,

We recently went live with a new update of ToolsonCloud CRM.

Here is What's new...


What's New?

Bulk Import functionality for Leads 

- Need:

There was a need from the users who receive a lot of leads in bulk on regular basis from different marketing channels such as marketplaces, social media channels, forms, paid lead service providers. They wanted to import Leads in bulk into the CRM on regular basis. 

Hence, there was a need for a Bulk Import feature to support this use case.

- Solution:

With the latest update, user can easily upload leads in bulk.

User can make use of this functionality by visiting "Settings page" and clicking on "Bulk Import Data" link on the sidebar.


In Bulk Import page, user can select the import option as "Lead" to proceed importing Leads.

They will be shown a set of easy to follow instruction to upload the file.

User will be required to download a sample CSV file. This sample file has some dummy data for reference which depicts the data format.

Users can then replace the sample file data with their own data in the same format and upload back the CSV file. This will import all the Leads into ToolsonCloud CRM.


We hope you will like using this new feature. Let us know your thoughts.

Quick Add Options, Add Sub-tasks and Meetings in CRM

Dear users, 

Hello and welcome to year 2024. Wish you happy and prosperous New Year.

In this issue, we bring to you a lot of updates and enhancement in ToolsonCloud CRM. 

Read on to learn more.


What's New?

1. Quick Add options on Navbar to Add Records from Any Page

Now, users will get a new Quick Add options at the top right corner of the navigation bar, just next to the Profile icon as shown in the below snippet.


With this option, user need not always traverse back to the different pages to create different types of records in the CRM.

For e.g. If a user is on a Deal's detail page and want to quickly create an Organization, they need not navigate all their way back to Organizations page. They can quickly create these type of records from any page within the CRM app.

In this edition, it will support Organization, Deal, Quote and Email. We plan to add more type of records in future releases.



2. Quick Add sub-tasks and sub-meetings from Lead Details page

Currently, Users can view the Tasks and Meetings linked with a Lead by navigating to the Leads Detail page. Here, users were not having an option to quickly add an additional Task or a Meeting from the same Lead details page. They were required to go to Tasks or Meetings list page.

With this release, user will get a new quick Add button next to Tasks and Meetings placeholders. Using this, they can quickly add a Task or a Meeting under that particular Lead without the need to go back to Task or Meeting list pages.




What's Improved?

1. New Error messages added on missing fields

We have enhanced the field validation error messages for the users to improve the data quality of your CRM data. 

With this update, user will be prompted with appropriate error messages in different pages, if they try to submit any possible junk or invalid values while creating or updating any field in the CRM.


2. Create Tasks on past dates as well

Earlier, if users wanted to create a new Task, they were allowed to select only future dates on the "Planned Date" field. 

Based on user feedback, we got to understand that sometimes, sales team members tend to create some past Task which they had done but was not added in the CRM. They prefer to add the past task in CRM in order to keep track of the different activities which were performed to convert the Lead. 

With this release, users can now select past dates as well on "Planned Date" field while creating and updating Tasks.


Hope you will like these updates. If you have any suggestions or feature request in mind. Do get in touch.

What is Smarketing?

What is Smarketing?

Smarketing refers to the practice of aligning Sales and Marketing teams in order to achieve a common organizational objective. This helps reach a synergy between both teams which work together as one team instead of treating each other as separate departments.



Why do organizations need Smarketing?

As per conventional organization structure, Sales and Marketing are organized under different departments. Due to this, both teams tend to work in siloes. When related teams work in siloes, it leads to a lack of effective communication leading to lower overall productivity. 

If the Marketing team is not aligned with the Sales team’s requirements, then this can lead to lower conversion because of low-quality Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL). Similarly, if the Sales team is not aligned with the Marketing team’s approach then this can lead to situations such as the loss of qualified leads due to a misunderstanding of client’s requirements or leads lost due to non-timely follow-ups, etc.

This necessitates that both teams work together and align their efforts toward their common objective for the benefit of the organization, be it increasing revenue or improving branding in order to increase better brand recall in the market.


How to align Sales & Marketing?

  • Improve access to information: Teams tend to be misaligned if both of them do not have shared understanding and information. Lack of communication happens when teams do not have the appropriate information and insights needed to support each other. Organizations should bring together both teams under the same umbrella with shared information. Using smarter tools such as CRM can help teams achieve that since they can get quick access to information they need to support each other.

  • Cross-functional teams: Instead of making Sales and Marketing operate independently under separate leadership, try to bring together professionals from both teams to work in smaller teams together. If this is not possible, then leaders can try to build a matrix structure where resources tend to experience working together with cross-functional teams. This helps build better bonding with team members and they tend to align their efforts toward common goals.
  • Communicate the Vision: Leaders should constantly communicate the common objective to both teams in order to keep the Sales and Marketing aligned. Communicating the goal and letting them know the expectation goes a long way in aligning two different departments.
  • Measure and Analyze regularly: Leaders should measure and closely analyze the efforts and performance of both teams. The best practice would be to have common meetings with both teams in order to keep everyone on the same page. 
  • Use good collaboration tools: Try to use good collaboration tools which improve communication with both teams. Tools such as cloud tools like Google Docs, Google sheets, Cloud-based CRMs, Instant chat messengers, etc, can help with that.


I hope this article helped you gain a better understanding of Smarketing, its importance, and some ways to achieve that.  By the way, if you are looking for a smart CRM for your team, do check out ToolsOnCloud Sales CRM.


What is SDR - Sales Development Representative

What is an SDR?

SDR stands for Sales Development Representative. These are the folks in modern sales teams who specialize in sales prospecting. Broadly SDRs reach out to leads, qualify the leads and then pass on the qualified lead to quota-carrying sales executives who further engage with the prospect to close a deal.


What do SDRs do?

SDRs try to reach out to leads via both inbound ways as well as outbound ways. In the case of inbound, they receive Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) from the marketing team who in turn would have got it from their marketing campaigns. Then SDRs reach out to these leads to engage them in a meaningful conversation to explore their needs and try to assess if they are qualified to be pursued further. 

Similarly, in the case of the outbound way, they try to reach leads by researching potential leads and reaching out to them via cold outreach. SDRs use their industry domain knowledge to understand the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) of the company’s products & services. This further helps them to filter out and prioritize the leads matching their ICP. 

SDRs try to reach out to prospects via multiple channels such as emails or phones. They become the face of the organization and try to introduce the organization to the prospect during their initial conversation. During their conversation, they try to build a relationship with the prospect and also try to understand their long-term and short-term needs to identify if they are the right fit to pursue them further or not.

If the prospect’s requirements fit the organization’s offerings then SDRs try to suggest suitable products and services which can fulfill their requirements. They try to build a long-term relationship with the prospect so that it will provide a base for the SDRs to reach out to them for future opportunities as well. Once the prospect is interested in the products and services of the organization and would like to engage in further discussions, then the prospect is passed on to the quota-carrying sales executives who take it further for deal closure. 




How does an SDR help the Organization?

  • Having dedicated SDRs helps to standardize the sales process of the organization. This way a dedicated amount of effort is spent every day on sales prospecting activities. This keeps the sales pipeline steady by maintaining the ratio of leads in various stages of the sales funnel. 
  • In many conventional organizations, sales team members are given twin responsibilities of prospecting as well as closing. But in this approach, sometimes sales executives tend to focus more on closing the existing active deal in hand instead of spending more time on nurturing the leads who are at the top of the sales funnel. This may lead to many leads dropping off from the top of the funnel since they were not given appropriate attention during their initial purchase journey. 
  • Having SDRs on the sales team gives a clear predictable insights on the future sales expected since sales leaders can get clear visibility of the sales expected in future months based on the steady pipeline and conversion metrics data.
  • SDRs tend to specialize in the task of doing research about their leads and following up with them. This helps to improve the quality of leads flowing down the sales funnels thereby increasing the chance of deal closure for the sales executives. This in turn helps in faster revenue growth and also leads to higher productivity of sales executives who can focus more on closing deals faster. 


CRM forms an integral part of the work of SDRs and Sales Executives during this process. With the help of CRM, SDRs can keep track of all the leads, maintain track of their conversation history as well as add important notes. This in turn helps the sales executives close deals faster so that they don’t redo discovery calls with the clients again and can close deals more efficiently. 

If you wanna try out Sales CRM for your team, then do check out ToolsonCloud Sales CRM today.


What is Upselling?

What is Upselling?

Upselling is a selling technique where the seller tries to sell or pitch a higher-value product that is similar to the product which the customer intends to purchase at the moment. This increases the value of the transactions and helps improve the average revenue per transaction. 

This is usually done by proposing a higher version of the product or a similar product with more features compared to the current product under consideration for purchase. The seller tries to drive the customer to understand the value of the higher-priced products so that they purchase them. 



An example of Upselling

Let us take the same Laptop purchase example discussed in our last post on Cross-selling.

Assume that you went to purchase a Laptop from an electronics store. The seller asked about your need for buying the laptop. You explained to him that you need it for your work. The seller tries to understand your context deeper by trying to delve deeper. He inquires about the type of work you would do. He gets to know that you are a Software Engineer and would require a higher-end version of the laptop in the future for better performance. 

Then the seller tries to propose to you to buy an enhanced version of the laptop with more features and capabilities compared to the one which you had initially planned. He tries to explain to you the features of the higher-priced laptop and the value which you may get buying it. You find the discussion convincing enough to purchase the higher-value laptop and finally purchase it. 

This way the seller was able to improve his revenue of the transaction and you as a customer were also able to derive a better deal in terms of value.


How does Upselling help?

  • Upselling helps to increase the revenue of the organization
  • Upselling helps the customer to get more value out of his purchase transaction. Customers usually agree to purchase the higher version of the product keeping their context and future in mind. Many customers buy high-value products by foreseeing the future Return on Investment (RoI).
  • Upselling also helps the seller build a better relationship with their customers.
  • Upselling is usually easier compared to another selling technique of Cross-selling. This is because customers are more likely to purchase a similar yet high-value and high-priced product compared to buying an add-on product which happens in the case of cross-selling.