For those of us who fit a certain profile, keeping our CRM in good working order helps ensure that we’re taking advantage of everything the system has to offer and maximizing the value we get out of it.
Here are seven simple things you can do to make sure your system is neat and tidy when the new year gets under way:
2. For those of us who fit a certain profile, keeping our CRM in good
working order helps ensure that we’re taking advantage of
everything the system has to offer and maximizing the value we get
out of it.
3. Here are seven simple things you can do to make sure your system
is neat and tidy when the new year gets under way:
4. 1
CLEAN UP PAST DUE
TASKS
Why It’s Useful: Just about every CRM user out there has at
least a few tasks that they never got to, didn’t mark as
complete, or just plain forgot about. Going through these will
eliminate clutter, bring you current on your daily workload, and
might just provide a few hidden treasures along the way.
5. 2
CLOSE LOST
OPPORTUNITIES
Why It’s Useful: Yeah, the guy who said he’d call you back in
6 months to order still might–but probably not. If you have a
handful of open opportunities that you’ve been keeping tucked
away in your long-term forecasting pipeline that don’t have
any real chance of being won, now’s a good time to close
them out.
6. 3
LOG CUSTOMER & PROSPECT
EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE
Why It’s Useful: If you’re one those who doesn’t religiously
log all your customer or prospect email correspondence with
the matching record in CRM, now’s a good time to do that.
Keeping conversations up to date in CRM helps prevent
having to dig through countless email threads to remember
what’s been discussed previously.
7. 4
LINK PROSPECT SOCIAL
PROFILES TO CRM
Why It’s Useful: A lot of CRM solutions allow you to search
for and link prospect social media profiles to their records in
your CRM system. By connecting accounts like LinkedIn and
Twitter, you gain valuable information about those prospects
and help keep their information in the CRM system current at
the same time.
8. 5
UPDATE CONTACT
RECORDS
Why It’s Useful: If you have contacts in your customer
account records that have changed jobs, titles, or both, now is
a good time to update their information. Rather than delete
contacts that are no longer with a company–and lose all the
communication history in CRM–update their name or title with
something like ‘NLWC’, for No Longer With Company.
9. 6
REFRESH YOUR REPORTS
Why It’s Useful: Once you’ve done some or all of the things
listed above, it might be a good idea to refresh and update
any reports you have that are built on that data. If your reports
are set to display information within a certain date range,
make sure you remember to change the dates to include the
current quarter, or even push them out to next year if
applicable.
10. 7
UPDATE YOUR EMAIL
TEMPLATES
Why It’s Useful: Email templates are often the workhorses of
many a sales and marketing team. Whether your email
templates reside in your CRM system or within your email
client, now is a good time to update old information, links, and
images to bring them current. If you send emails with links to
blog posts, this is an opportunity to update the links and
include your company’s most recent articles.
12. If you’ve done some or all of the things mentioned above, your CRM
system should feel well-tuned and ready to roll for the upcoming
year.
13. Keeping your reports, contacts, and prospect records up to date will
pay dividends down the road, and updating your battle-tested email
templates keeps them looking fresh for the upcoming sales and
marketing initiatives that are right around the corner.
14. We hope you enjoyed this presentation. Visit CRM Switch for
additional CRM articles, comparison reports, and buying guides.
