Everyday life for an SME manager or sales representative consists of juggling customer information using Excel spreadsheets.
This includes:
- Keeping track of leads and deals.
- Monitoring success stories and failures.
- Keeping tight control of the sales process.
At the end of the day, executing these tasks simultaneously can be challenging to manage.
These have been used for years as a primary tool to assist in the execution of these tasks.
However, they have become cumbersome and carry risks of generating data errors.
That’s why switching from an Excel spreadsheet to CRM software is no longer something that should be considered, but something your sales team needs.
For this reason, we are going to talk about 9 key reasons why using CRM software will benefit your business compared to traditional methods.
Should Excel be Completely Replaced by CRM Software?
Usually, for many small and medium-sized companies, Excel represents the first tool to manage a customer database.
Due to its simplicity and the fact that most people in the field can handle it quickly without the need for induction, it is widely used.
While it is true that Excel sheets can help us perform calculations, analyze data, and sort relevant information, today’s business demands are not limited to these tasks.
Now, companies are obliged to:
- Provide quality and personalized customer experience.
- Optimize brand image.
- Automate sales processes.
- Respond quickly to potential customers through various communication channels such as social networks, mail, and telephony.
- Understand the preferences of the target audience.
- And much more.
As such, these requirements cannot be met simply by using Excel spreadsheets.
When it comes to optimizing customer relationship management, such spreadsheets can be limiting.
That’s why many SMEs are incorporating CRM software to effectively achieve their business goals.
In fact, this type of software is experiencing growth in the market and is expected to reach over $80 billion in revenue by 2025.
In addition, one of the key factors behind the growth of CRM is accessibility.
Companies want to access customer data in real time using mobile solutions and cloud solutions.
9 Reasons to Switch from Excel Spreadsheets to a CRM Software
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Improve Collaboration in Work Teams
Excel spreadsheets are convenient and very useful when starting a customer database management.
However, as your business expands and attracts more and more potential customers, your follow-up capacity must increase.
In turn, your sales team will grow, and before long you will find that updating and tracking all the data will become impossible.
You may even lose vital customer information because tasks are being performed manually.
Additionally, it will be a challenge for several agents at the same time to work in alignment with the most relevant customers because tasks are being performed manually.
How can you transform this situation?
Identify an enterprise ERP that allows you to:
- Simplify workflows.
- Automate all tasks.
- Increase collaboration among sales team members.
Choose one where you can instantly post comments on a given assignment to give clear instructions and other agents can respond.
Also, you can take advantage if the CRM software has the functionality to place mentions to inform, give advice, or collaborate on a specific task.
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Optimize Time Management
Did you know that 71% of sales reps say they spend a lot of time manually entering customer data?
If you feel identified, you will know that most of the time should be invested in selling.
In this aspect, Excel spreadsheets can waste a huge amount of time and decrease your productivity.
It will also slow down your company’s growth and prevent you from building customer loyalty.
How can you change this?
Implement a sales CRM that reduces the time spent on manual tasks and that can automatically add all the information you need.
Potential customer information that may be on your website, social networks, and chats, can be easily collected and stored with the help of a CRM.
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Increase your Level of Automation
Currently, sales agents report that at least 50% of their time is wasted on non-productive prospecting.
In this regard, Excel spreadsheets are extremely limited in terms of automation.
For example, the cloud solutions offered by Google Sheets can provide certain options for automation, but it does not guarantee the digital security of data.
In addition, information cannot be shared quickly or easily with other team members.
Knowing that time is money, creating automated workflows will save you time and make smoother communication with your prospect.
What can you do?
Use CRM software that provides automation in all essential actions inherent to the sales process.
Especially, if it offers you to trigger automatic actions and create customized flows for your prospects, customers, and agents, as they progress through the sales stages.
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Track Actions in Real-time
This statistic speaks for itself: Studies show that 35% to 50% of sales go to the rep who responded first to the prospect.
Sure, spreadsheets help you collect data for the purpose of having a customer database, but it’s not the most modern or ideal.
How can you positively change this situation?
Identify and implement a sales CRM software capable of showing you all the information you need to act in real-time.
Also, one that has the ability to track interactions across multiple touchpoints.
In this way, your sales team can view all relevant data related to all sales opportunities at the same time.
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Easily Scale Sales Opportunities
As mentioned earlier, as your business and teams grow, work processes will mature and become more complex.
All of this means that both the volume and speed of data to be entered and retained in spreadsheets will increase.
And from a manual interface, it will not be possible to scale sales opportunities.
A scalable, robust CRM can handle the scale and complexity as your organization grows.
Especially if you manage thousands of leads.
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Increase the Security of your Data
Spreadsheets are easily copied, shared, and difficult to protect from a cybersecurity point of view.
In fact, it is sometimes difficult to know who has modified them and data can be manipulated.
Another drawback of spreadsheets is that they can be easily deleted and may be impossible to recover.
By not having minimally acceptable levels of digital security, a gap opens up where anyone can steal confidential data.
One CRM system that sets adequate parameters for data protection is Vtiger CRM.
It provides for a specialized security team to discover and address vulnerabilities within the system using patches.
Additionally, Vtiger performs daily backups of the databases and files you have stored.
This backup is stored on a separate server for added protection in case of hardware failure.
If a hardware failure occurs, access to data and services is restored in as little as 8 hours.
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Implement a Centralized Customer View
Using daily spreadsheets to track customer data is an arduous task for a single team.
From Excel, it is almost impossible to share the sheet with other teams.
It is also not easy to get an up-to-date and complete history of all interactions with potential and current customers.
In this sense, Vtiger CRM is designed to provide all teams with a single view of the customer.
This tool guarantees you a centralized view with multiple applications and screens for a 360-degree understanding, where you will find:
- Records related to contacts, cases, events, and negotiations.
- The situations and factors that cause customer defection.
- Customer micro-segmentation.
- And much more.
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Use Artificial Intelligence
Did you know that 46% of small and medium-sized businesses currently use AI in their sales and marketing departments?
CRM software like Vtiger has AI engines that monitor and analyze large amounts of long-term data.
Additionally, it can establish optimal routes from previous data and helps accelerate sales and provide the best customer support.
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Facilitate Configuration and Administration
Accessing and editing spreadsheets from multiple devices can be limiting when the number of leads increases rapidly.
In this sense, Vtiger CRM is easy to configure and manage from multiple devices, making it easier and faster to respond to customers whenever they need it.
Do you Want to Modernize your Sales Team with a CRM?
Keeping up with current technological and economic changes can be challenging for SMB sales teams. However, you don’t have to face this situation alone.
At GB Advisors, we can help you integrate this and other technological solutions to automate your processes and attract more potential customers.
We offer you personalized attention with the installation and configuration of any software.
You will also receive advice from our group of experts. They will guide you step by step to make these tools work properly and help you achieve your goals.
Contact us today and receive a free consultation!
