The supply chain is a globalized business.
With customers scattered around the world, it became harder to manage a supply chain company. Managers are overwhelmed with managing data from all customers and all other business processes. Sales teams spend most of their time preparing, reviewing, and sending quotes and estimates. All the chaos they operate in stagnates their business. Their employees channel their energy in redundant, repetitive tasks.
The process goes on until they decide to invest in a CRM.
CRM is a cloud-based software that automates marketing, sales, and customer service tasks. It is designed to help businesses build stronger connections with current and potential customers.
CRM is a powerful tool for supply chain businesses. It helps them manage quotes, leads, and clients in an efficient way. Dive in below to read four main benefits of using CRM for supply chain companies.
1. Save and organize quotes and customer contacts in one place.
If you manage a supply chain business, you probably have hundreds of contacts. They come from different time zones, cultures, and backgrounds. You send quotes and estimates to your customers daily, which makes the organizing process even more difficult.
Managing relationships with all of them becomes a nightmare as you need to switch from emails to spreadsheets to meeting notes. Your sales team spends most of their energy creating and managing quotes, leaving them less time to work on productive tasks.
All this hell goes away with CRM software. CRM allows you to store and retrieve all the data for each of your prospects and customers. All the quotes received and approved by the client are saved in one place. This functionality creates the opportunity to foster better relationships with clients as well as turn prospects into clients.
2. Access all the information you need about your business anywhere, anytime.
The beauty of cloud-based software: you can access it at any time.
CRM helps supply chain companies run their global business thanks to the mobility it has. In the office or at home, you will access the company data you need at that time.
Supply chain managers travel a lot to meet and deal with new customers. CRM mobile access helps them retrieve the customer data they need to prep before the meeting.
3. Boost your sales by managing leads efficiently.
CRM is not helpful only with storing and retrieving your customer data. The return on investment from CRM software is the knowledge you collect on your customer and other business processes. With the CRM tool, you can gather information like:
- How many of your leads are converting to customers?
- Which territory is converting the most leads?
- What is the sales quotes closing ratio?
- What are your leads demographics and purchasing behavior?
With performance data such as these, your team will be able to identify quality leads. In this way, your company’s efficiency will increase as they will focus more on interacting with them and generate more sales.
4. Make data-driven decisions by generating reports and projections
CRM software continuously generates data for your customers and organization. From sales to marketing and customer service, CRM helps you build a knowledge base around your supply chain business.
Such information comes in handy as CRM has the functionality to generate reports and projects in various areas of your business. In a matter of a few clicks, you can filter, select, and create graphs regarding your leads, campaign performance, customer relationships, and all other business processes. It also helps you generate sales projects for the coming weeks and months, based on the data it has for the current revenues and sales behaviors.
With reports and projections created in less time and effort, you don’t need to make educated guesses for your business. With access at any time, you can consult these reports and projects and make data-driven decisions for your supply chain company.
Final Thoughts
CRM is an essential tool for supply chain businesses of all sizes. With software like this, supply chain companies can manage their global businesses with less effort and resources. They benefit from CRM’s numerous functionalities by fostering better relationships with their customers and boosting their sales.
