10 CRM telephony best practices to drive sales
Abe Dearmer
Apr 16, 2021
∙
8 min read
Telemarketing
Making calls to prospects is no more done via landline - telephony has become completely digital. Traditional communication processes have been taken over by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which is not just more affordable but also provides a plethora of much-needed features and services.
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has become a rapidly growing industry worldwide. According to Global Market Insights, this industry will hold over 40% of the market shares by the year 2025.
The use of VoIP services along with a Customer Relationship Management software creates an extremely efficient system for sales reps to reach prospects and customers. It is a cost-effective solution that can help convert more leads and increase sales.
Here are the CRM telephony best practices that sales teams can use to efficiently drive sales.
Pick the correct CRM for your business
Picking the right CRM is the first and foremost important aspect, as without the right fit, it will be difficult for your reps to use it efficiently. The correct CRM for your company will allow sales teams to use and leverage the needed data on your customers and prospects.
Ensuring your team has the required data is also necessary to allow access and gain insight for better customer engagement and optimised interactions. The right CRM will offer a complete view of the contact and their details, previous conversations, and more, available for the rep to use at any time.
Relevant data collection
Ensure that the CRM you choose lets you collect and access each and every bit of relevant information that your sales reps may need to carry out well-informed interactions. The relevance of data may differ across companies or industries, but there are certain kinds of data that should be collected and stored no matter what.
Make sure to collect data such as their industry, company size, job title, number of employees, past purchase behaviours, internal departments, location, annual revenue, content consumed or browsed, interests, level of seniority in the company, social media activity, and past support requests.
Having these details beforehand on the prospect or customer you are calling allows reps to engage with them on a more personal level and have a more relevant conversation.
Seamless integration
You need to make sure the CRM software you pick can be easily integrated with third-party applications without any hiccups. This can be done if it has an open API and it will allow your team to access all the required customer data from the same location for a seamless experience.
Auto-dealing functionality
Using the auto-dealing feature provided by CRMs is a great way to increase productivity and handle your leads efficiently. This can be done by first filtering the leads based on specified criteria and then using the auto-dealing feature that will place a call to each of these leads in the order selected.
Reps can easily save time by not having to go over the list constantly and clicking or dialing the number manually for each lead they want to get in touch with.
Call recording
Equipped with the right CRM and a robust telephony app, you will also have the option for call recording. This can be simply done with one click at the beginning of the call and the recording will then be automatically stored in your CRM in the contact's record.
This is extremely helpful if you want to review your conversation to remember important points or even for quality control purposes for junior reps. They are great for when training your team and can help team managers easily look for areas of improvement and fix them as needed.
Pre-recorded voicemails
Leaving voicemails is a part and parcel of making sales calls but recording one each time your lead doesn't pick up can be tiring. Using a CRM that allows you to pre-record voicemails will save your sales reps a lot of energy and time when making calls.
You can record a different voicemail for different scenarios like following-up, new leads, check-ins, and more. If a lead does not answers, all you have to do is click the relevant voicemail and drop it into their voicemail box.
Automated follow-up emails
Post-call automation features such as follow-up emails are a great way to reach out and reiterate your conversation with the customer or prospect. A good CRM will offer features to pre-draft follow-up emails and automatically send them once the sales rep has completed the call. All it takes is a single click of the mouse, and you can communicate with your clients in a timely manner.
Note-taking on calls
With all your required features integrated into the same system, it becomes easy to access every kind of data just from one location. Another benefit of a feature-rich CRM is the ability to let reps take notes while they are on a call.
Quickly jot down any important details you want to remember and the system will automatically add it to the call log for that particular contact, allowing you to pull it up when needed. This is definitely a much better process to use than randomly writing on paper and trying to find your notes at a later time!
Using call scripts
If your sales reps need to stay on track, a CRM will allow them to use on-screen scripts to help. This is great for both new and seasoned sales reps, especially when following certain steps for a particular campaign with specific talking points.
With seamless integration of your CRM and telephony functionality, reps will automatically have the script in front of them when they make a call.
Take control of the conversation
When speaking to a prospect or customer, it is important that you take control of the conversation and steer it in the direction you want instead of the other way around. Control the flow and direction so you can handle any potential pitfalls during the conversation.
Having outlined your talking points before starting the conversation can also help you in staying on track. This can be easily done with the help of required data on your customers and prospects, which is available on your screen when using the right CRM.
By leveraging the right Customer Relationship Management software and telephony integration, your sales teams will have the capability to handle more calls and reach more leads in lesser time, get massive insight and data on them, have engaging conversations, all while increasing productivity. Use the data and equip your sales reps with the needed tools to drive sales and increase efforts.
FIVE CRM offers an all-in-one, robust CRM telephony system that can help your business reach the next level of customised interactions. It comes with all the required industry-leading and advanced features, telephony capabilities, as well as efficient third-party integrations.
Contact us to know more about how we can help you execute the above CRM telephony best practices and increase your bottom line.
Michael King says...
"I can’t think of a time where a client has requested something that we weren’t able to do with FiveCRM. Unlike most systems, it has a lot of flexibility."
Managing Director, Senior Response
JAINE HUSBANDS SAYS...
“Each client, and each of their campaigns, has its own unique specifications. We essentially needed to set up mini CRMs on one platform to meet those requirements.”
Operations Director, Team Telemarketing
Why wait?
Start improving your outbound efficiency now, with the most customizable Telesales solution on the market.