This is a guest blog post by Rachael Winsor. She manages Go-To-Market and Program Development for RingCentral’s Technology Alliance Partners as a part of their Platform Product Marketing team.
Sales managers and their reps have an intimate relationship, as both of their livelihoods are tied to individual rep performance. Their goals are the most intrinsically aligned of any corporate team, and they should be using tools to improve how they work together.
When the ability to bring call data into CRMs became possible, the benefits primarily touted were increasing sales rep productivity and customer responsiveness, with the end result being growing the bottom line. Though that alone is enough for technology buyers and business owners to purchase CRMs and telephony solutions that can communicate, there are further benefits that serve to develop the rep and the sales team.
Reduce friction between the sales manager and rep.
The weekly one-on-one, or pipeline review meeting, between managers and reps can easily become a point of dread or downright unproductive. By having customer interactions automatically documented within the CRM, the time can be used for more than the manager asking, “Did you follow up with Bob,” allowing the manager to truly dive into their deals and guide them to a close.
Help sales reps help themselves.
People like to feel good at their jobs. For salespeople that means consistently exceeding quotas. There is obviously a degree of inherent talent that makes some more successful than others, but attention to pipeline management can be the difference between 88% and 101%, or better yet, 120% and 157%. An integrated solution gives the rep a tool to hold themselves accountable by giving them a way to measure their activities, and assurance that they’ve been correctly prioritizing their time each day in the office.
Boost rep confidence.
A regular practice of having all customer calls documented within the CRM also gives reps credibility to lean on, should it ever be required. When quarter-end draws near and the expected deals aren’t coming in, the rep has undeniable data that they were making their calls and doing everything within their power to bring in the sale.
When considering a CRM system for your business, the ability to integrate with your telecommunications system should be one of your technical requirements. Since you’re already paying for each individually, there can only be incremental gains by them communicating with one another. The increased productivity will be measurable when more reps are hitting their number and the company is meeting sales targets. Hopefully the integrated solution will help them do it with a smile.
Nice post however, can Zoho or RingCentral do some webinars or blogs on the actual integration and getting it all to work. I find that I am consistently having to re-log-on to Phonebridge and if the tab of my crm on my browser isnt at the forefront of my screen I then don't know that I need to log on (for the third or fourth time that day) the call log is lost. So perhaps 90% of calls are logged as the integration doesn't feel seamless and is buggy. When I have reported it and I get a follow up call later that day or day after by coincidence it all works again for a few days so I have given up. Also calls can only be logged if the numbers are saved in international format not local format and I don't know many people when you dial local businesses who convert the numbers to international format for this so it could do with some localisation. Also the RingCentral software doesn't always store the information what to do when an incoming call arrives the software 'forgets' the settings after a week or two. The idea is good but please do work on ironing the bugs out or perhaps both organisations send out an email asking for feature ideas or to report bugs?