CRM for prospecting and business development

CRM is the best tool for systematic prospecting and business development. It’s the basic sales and prospecting tool for every company and every sales representative.

Serious follow-up without nagging

A salesperson who pushes too hard gets hated, and that’s not the way to do business. On the other hand, a serious salesperson who asks the customer when is the best time to call back is appreciated and considered professional. In a CRM, the follow-up date is key, and the salesperson’s first task in the morning is to check which customers he or she is due to call during the day and week.

Prospecting with a CRM allows you to choose your customers

When customers come to see you, it’s hard to put a filter on it: they come to ask you for services, to ask questions. Statistically, most of them are medium-sized or small customers, often the ones who cause the most problems. Prospecting allows you to choose the biggest and most profitable customers. CRM lets you classify them by category of interest. These categories are based on estimated sales or potential.

Soliciting with CRM lets you take on the competition

Your salespeople are hunters: the best prospects are often your competitors’ best customers, so you can choose them and call them systematically at the times and on the services that are weak points for your competitors. CRM enables you to plan the best times to follow up and the best angles of attack, or who to call who are unhappy with your competitor’s services.

Personalize your approach

The worst thing for a salesperson is to call without following up on the last call, having forgotten what he or she said, that the customer remembers the conversation better than he or she does.

It’s important to note small details during the call, such as the following sentences from the customer:

• I must leave you now, as I have to pick up my daughters from school.
• It’s not the right time to meet you, as I’m off on vacation to the island of Granada.
• Autumn is hunting month, remind me in December

Of course, you take note of the customer’s comments, and you can come back to him later and ask him if his trip to Granada went well, if the hunting was good, where he went, and so on.

In short, you make the difference with your competitors and those who call up lists without noting anything.

Call more customers

CRM is also the best way to prospect and develop business, because it lets you call and meet more customers. In sales you can’t win every time, it’s all about numbers and statistics, your aim to make the best calls possible, but also to make as many as possible.

Ideally, your competitors don’t use CRM, which means they have to spend 20 minutes finding the right customer to call when you’ve called 10 in the same time, or other salespeople use complicated systems that require 10 minutes of data entry for each call, even if the customer isn’t there.

Better still, a CRM like ActionClient integrates telephony for calls from cell phones to facilitate and maximize the number of calls, meaning that all you have to do is click on the customer’s number to contact them.

A good CRM is there to provide you with a tool, not you with the CRM tool!

Find your customers quickly and easily

Good salespeople need to be able to find their customers quickly, based on four main criteria:

• The name of your organization
• Personal name
• The ideal recall date
• Geographical area

You don’t need more than that, except in special cases. Customer Action CRM allows you to do this, and also to enter criteria specific to your business if required.

Jean-Pierre Mercier

In conclusion

A good CRM is there to help you, it’s at your service, you’re not at its service, choose the best CRM for you.