Category: sales reps

  • Leveraging your CRM to the fullest

    Leveraging your CRM to the fullest

    While a lot of businesses have had CRMs for a while now, there are always new businesses that could benefit from a CRM system. Also, CRMs are always changing and evolving, so even businesses that have had them for a while could learn about some new features or benefits that they didn’t know about before.

    As with every evolving field, there is a great variety in the industry, with various companies that attempt to streamline and custom-tailor CRM systems to different industries. This can create confusion for many new businesses trying to select the right system for their company.

    In this article, we will go over the main advantages of CRMs to try to clarify what exactly is required from the system – so that you can leverage this fundamental tech to its full potential.

    Without further ado, let’s dive into our top CRM benefits for any business!

    Customer Retention

    First and foremost – few things have as significant a negative effect on a business as customer churn. High churn disrupts cash flow and reduces revenue; therefore, it is vital to maximize the retention of our customers.

    CRMs allow businesses to capture and log all customer interactions, thus enabling follow-ups, behavioural tracking, automation, and analysis of all touchpoints with clients. This directly affects the ability of a business to optimize itself to re-occurring business – encouraging engaged clients with further engagement and addressing problems quickly and efficiently, and driving customer satisfaction.  The direct result of that is an increase in the likelihood that they choose to invest back into your business.

    Increase in Sales

    Next up is another understandable ripple effect of the increased control of the sales pipeline. CRMs streamline the sales pipeline allowing sales reps to do their job more efficiently and spend more time doing what matters most – closing deals.

    Sales reps working without CRMs need to keep track of many moving parts that make their daily interactions with numerous clients. This creates a reality that distracts them from actually dealing with clients since there are so many actions required of them surrounding the sales process.

    CRMs allow for automation to take the burden of mundane tasks off of the sales rep, and enable him to focus on the task at hand.

    Marketing Optimization

    Marketing, like most things in business nowadays is based on data – CRMs provide marketers with direct access to the relevant data that is required for effective customer segmentation and understanding to better review the KPIs that the marketing team is working towards through the analysis of the actual customers that made it through the pipeline.

    Moreover, the automation that is such an integral part of many CRMs today extends in some cases into the marketing team’ allowing them to run campaigns directly through the CRM or augment existing automation software with the CRM level to further streamline the integration with the sales team.

    Automation

    One of the most advantageous parts of CRMs is the automation it allows across the board. Most CRMs today incorporate automation into most levels of the system – automated ticketing, automated mailing and customer support, automated reports, etc are industry standards today.

    We will dig into specific CRM areas that allow for dramatic improvements by utilizing automation.

    Organizational Communications

    As your business scales and grows, the number of employees will increase and the internal communication becomes complicated to manage. CRMs are used to share customer information, even remotely, thus increasing teamwork within the company.

    This allows for strategic cooperation which in effect allows for better organizational efficiency because different departments can use the fruits of other departments’ labor – driving business profitability and efficiency.

    Data

    The modern world, with the major advancement in big data analysis, enables businesses to utilize data to gain high-quality insights into their business and industry. There seems to be a major caveat that is often overlooked and that is how a business acquires, logs, and stores the relevant data to then utilize using whichever software it wishes.

    This integral part of the puzzle is often addressed with the use of CRMs since they are a focal point of most of the company’s data and are oftentimes compatible with various tools that enable the addition of whatever missing data needed to complete the picture for your specific company. Thus, creating a database from which you can extract meaningful insights into your customer behavior, marketing effectiveness, and strategic positioning of your business.

    Sales Analysis, Forecast + Customer Segmentation

    Within the sales world, the ability to predict the performance of a company’s sales team can be crucial to the general understanding of the welfare of the company. Cashflow and market position for instance are two major factors that influence decision-makers within a company and that are directly derived from a healthy sales forecast.

    This ability to analyze the customer data, evaluate the sales team performance and give valuable insights for future improvement, affects not only the sales team but also the accuracy of the sales forecast and overall quality of the leadership decision making process.

    Take away

    As I am sure you understand by now, a company’s CRM is a fundamental, powerful tool that can affect many different aspects of a company. There are many benefits to implementing such a system, yet each company is unique in its needs and therefore considering the different unique advantages of each CRM is vital to the effectiveness you hope to create in the implementation of the system.

    Every business has to take into consideration the variations that will help create a complete view and streamline operation for its unique value proposition and situation.

    I hope this has helped you gain some understanding of the advantages that such a system could potentially have for your company.

  • Hiring the Wrong Salesperson

    Hiring the Wrong Salesperson

    Hiring the wrong person for a sales position can be costly for a business. Not only do you have to spend time and money training the new hire, but you also lose out on potential revenue that could have been generated by a more qualified individual.

    This could potentially amount to a serious impact on a business’ revenue.

    In this blog post, we discuss the cost of hiring mistakes and the tools that can help you make better decisions when it comes to hiring salespersons. We will also provide some tips on how to reduce turnover and improve your sales team’s performance.

    In order to properly discuss the topic, here’s a breakdown of the costs involved (and actual damage…) when hiring the wrong person.

    • 3 months – Average time to fill sales position
    • $15k – Cost of hiring
    • 3 Months’ salary – Cost of training
    • $75k – Average first-year salary + Incentives
    • $2.1m – Average Tech sales rep yearly Quota

    Let us not forget the impact a bad sales rep can have on the company’s reputation. With their almost exclusive interaction with customers, a company’s reputation will live and die with its sales reps. An inadequate salesperson can damage a company’s reputation and thus not only impact the lost quota they failed to deliver but also cause a ripple effect on future business.

    Besides the direct impact above, the effect a bad hire can have on the company culture and productivity tends to be underrated. As we are witnessing a rise in teamwork culture, especially within Tech companies, the need for good chemistry between coworkers is more crucial than ever. One rotten apple can create a toxic “ambiance” jeopardizing corporate culture and employer brand that’s taken years to build!

    According to Harvard Business Review, bad hiring accounts for approximately 80% of employee turnover. This is a major factor in team chemistry making it even more difficult to sustain a good working rhythm within a company – directly reducing productivity and thus affecting revenue.

    As you can tell the cost of error can amount to millions…

    So what can we do about it? Investing in your Hiring Process is the starting point. The Onboarding process is even more important.

    Hiring, of course, should not be taken lightly, it is an important process that needs to be given adequate time and resources – starting with the Screening process.

    Having a well-defined screening process in place will help you sift through the initial pool of candidates and narrow down your options to a more manageable number.

    Define what criteria are important for your business and do not compromise over them, well-defined KPIs are critical for both you and the salesperson in creating a mutual understanding of what is expected from them and help you to evaluate whether they can perform.

    But what happens after they sign-up?

    This is where you need real, accurate, and comprehensive Data + Data + Data = Insights

    The more data you can log regarding your business the better the insights you will be able to draw from it and in sales, this is particularly true. Not only is it vital to know as much as possible during the hiring process, the onboarding and run-in process – the first 12 months of employment – are even more critical (and costly in case of a hiring error). This is a “blind” period during which it is extremely difficult to make an educated decision regarding your new salesperson’s performance and true potential.

    Acquiring data about your sales team daily allows you to both monitor and optimally support their productivity. Analyzing their performance with them to gain insights into how they can improve is a major part of every learning curve yet when the data is subjective and is viewed through the eyes of the salesperson it is hard to understand what went wrong and how to improve. This means that we should only rely on objective, accurate and comprehensive logging and monitoring tools, that are also automatic and do not impede sales folks’ efficiency.

    These tools are of great value for monitoring the team’s performance and revealing a bad hire early – thus significantly reducing the cost of mistakes. This monitoring can be done by analyzing the data logged by the team within the company CRM and understanding how they are performing daily.

    OK, but what data should we be monitoring? And how do we make sure the data is real, accurate and comprehensive, and most importantly – objective?

    The accurate documentation of the interaction itself with the customer is the most sought-after data for gaining meaningful insight. The integration with the business email and the CRM is of course a good start – enabling the capturing of email interactions with clients into the company system where it can be assessed. But these days it is merely an insufficient start.

    Cell phone communications with clients (voice, message, Whatsapp, etc.) provide both the salesperson and the training team with objective data regarding the quality of the conversation. Allowing the team to reflect upon the calls and determine what is required of the salesperson in order to improve their performance. Not only is this information important to the company who can train their reps efficiently and reveal “bad apples” earlier, the sales reps themselves can analyze and improve, boosting productivity across the board.

    There is a clear rise in demand towards versatile and flexible communication with customers in recent years. This rise in demand is reflected by the sales reps, with an estimated 60% of business calls made using cell phones. Furthermore, remote work models only increase the need for flexibility and cell phone use by employees.

    The acknowledgement of the importance of this documentation is not a new phenomenon. Traditionally the use of landline work-only phones enabled seamless, easy logging of all of this precious data. Yet as we have established this is no longer the case and thus obtaining and documenting these interactions has become an organizational nightmare that requires utilizing various different solutions in a cumbersome fashion.

    The difficulty of this process results in a glaring blind spot, that inhibits the companies’ ability to make use of the knowledge in both training and sifting through the salespersons as they complete their training in the company.

    How would you feel knowing that after investing all the money into the early stages you still weren’t able to get it right? Even more so, knowing there was more you could’ve done.  

    This is where solutions such as Mobile2CRM come into play. Enabling logging and capturing of voice, message, and Whatsapp into the company CRM with full transcription and even advanced summarization features. Not only does it allow accurate, objective and full logging of the data – Mobile2CRM also helps businesses gain insight with AI analysis features that create insight from blind spots.

  • Call Recording – Partial Compliance is Really Non-Compliance

    Call Recording – Partial Compliance is Really Non-Compliance

    Some events have such a dramatic impact on the world that we can split our history into “before” and “after” that event. The COVID-19 pandemic is one such historical event. While it’s certainly true that remote working was on the rise pre-pandemic, the pandemic accelerated remote working to unprecedented levels. Supported by advancements in mobile technology capabilities, remote working is now commonplace worldwide.

    However, as employees increasingly turn to cell phones to help support them in their roles, regulators are beginning to require that financial services, healthcare providers, insurers, and other sectors capture and retain call recordings made on cellular devices.

    Unfortunately, the sharp rise in personal cell phones for business use has happened so quickly that many people are unaware of where they stand concerning compliance. With this in mind, let’s look at which sectors require call recording and what that means for mobile communications.

    Which Sectors Are Required to Record Calls?

    At Mobile2CRM, we’ve conducted extensive research into which sectors require call recording today and which are likely to require it in the future. Companies in all industries must keep up to date with the changing compliance landscape to avoid falling victim to fines and reputational harm.

    Reading the information in this article, you might find that even if you’re mostly compliant, “mostly” doesn’t count and you should be taking a more effective approach. You might also find that you’re in an industry where cellular recording will be required for compliance in the very near future. Whatever the situation, it’s paramount that you prepare today to avoid the chaos when new regulations come in – no one wants regulators knocking on their door for a problem you could have avoided.

    Fundamental Compliance Across All Sectors (Consent)

    Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard the phrase “this call is being recorded for…”. This phrase is at the route of fundamental compliance – requiring consent from one or all parties that the call is being recorded. Critically, consent laws vary between regions. For example, states like Kansas only require one-party consent, while states like California, Delaware, Florida, and Illinois require all-party consent.

    It’s also important to note that implicit consent is sufficient in some areas of the world, like the US, while in other areas, it’s not. For example, in the US, simply informing someone that the call is being recorded is considered consent (consumers have the option to terminate the call if they don’t want to be recorded). However, in Europe, under GDPR, companies need to get explicit consent (the other party has to affirm they understand and are willing to proceed).

    As a result, companies dealing with European customers should update their call scripts to ensure full compliance with GDPR.

    Finance

    Buckle up! The finance sector incorporates a lot of different organizations with distinct roles in local and global economies. For example, banks and credit unions, investment houses, private equity dealers, debt collection companies, hedge funds, mortgage brokers, and many more all fall under finance. And as a rich and complex industry, finance is subject to a wealth of regulations.

    These regulations are constantly being updated to reflect the more prominent role of mobile devices in the workplace. For example, a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) who advises clients on investments and manages their portfolio is more likely to communicate with clients on their personal mobile device today than ever before. But the RIA is still registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and will therefore need to be compliant with SEC guidelines. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the changing financial compliance landscape concerning mobile communications.

    The SEC recently updated their advice to recommend that financial advisors “review their risks, practices, policies, and procedures regarding electronic messaging and to consider any improvements to their compliance programs that would help them comply with their regulatory requirements.”

    In simple words, the SEC is cracking down on the use of mobile devices by broker-dealers. Federal law requires that financial firms keep meticulous records of messages between brokers and clients to ensure compliance with anti-fraud and anti-trust laws. Unfortunately, mobile devices can tempt advisors to skirt around these laws. The SEC deems this unacceptable. We recently saw JPMorgan hit with a $200 million fine for doing this very thing – letting employees use WhatsApp to evade regulators’ reach.

    Of course. financial organizations might not be intentionally trying to avoid regulators. However, the point still stands, that mobile devices might still land you in hot water if communications aren’t captured, logged and recorded appropriately.

    Other financial regulatory bodies already have rules pertaining to call recording and are also updating their regulations to capture and retain the data related to the use of personal devices for business calls. For example, in the US, regulators like FINRA, NACHA, FDCPA, and the Dodd-Frank Act outline rules for advisors. NACHA for instance, requires that if you’re accepting ACH payments by telephone, you need to get verbal consent from the customer. Similarly, to increase transparency in the sector following the 2008 financial crash, the Dodd-Frank act requires all calls and texts with consumers to be recorded and archived.

    Beyond the US, other locales have their own compliance rules to contend with. For example, financial institutions in the UK are subject to FCA guidelines on call recording, including the SYSC 10A rule[1], which requires financial firms to take “reasonable steps” to record telephone conversations with customers and keep a copy of any electronic communications. MiFID II (an EU wide directive) also requires that firms periodically monitor transaction records and all relevant conversations relating to transactions to be compliant.

    In Canada, firms must be compliant with IIROC and be able to supervise and retrieve all business communications made on any communication device.

    We could go on, but you get the picture – the financial compliance landscape is vast and has a lot to say about capturing communications with consumers – including using cell phones. Falling short of these compliance standards can result in hefty fines.

    Healthcare

    In the US, all companies that handle protected health information (PHI) are subject to HIPAA regulations. In simple words, PHI is any medical record that can be used to identify an individual. This can include conversations between patients and medical practitioners, billing information, diagnosis code, health insurance information, etc.

    To be HIPAA compliant, healthcare providers must ensure that all PHI data is handled securely, whether that information was presented in a phone call, email, text message, or any other communication medium.

    HIPAA also stipulates several other rules around telephone calls with patients. For example, HIPAA outlines “allowable reasons” for contacting a patient via telephone, including appointments, health checkups, lab test results, and pre-operative instructions, among others[2]. And critically, companies can’t contact patients for “allowable reasons” more than three times a week. Healthcare providers are also only allowed to contact patients with their consent (consent is typically assumed if the patient provides the company with their telephone number)[3].

    Additionally, healthcare organizations have to contend with other regulatory bodies where applicable. For example, if a healthcare employee takes credit card information, they must ensure they are PCI compliant (more on this in the next section). Similarly, patients have to give consent for their call to be recorded and should be notified of any additional parties (like a manager) listening in. 

    Healthcare providers can prove HIPAA compliance by recording patient calls and other communications. How long must HIPAA compliance records be retained? For a minimum of six years. However, organizations also have to adhere to their state’s retention policies. For example, North Carolina requires that hospitals maintain patient records for 11 years from the date of discharge[4]. Implementing this today over direct cellular calls between practitioners or staff and patients, without a native cellular solution or service that captures, and retains the information is quite impossible, ergo – non-compliance.

    Call Centers

    Beyond specific industry regulations, call centers must comply with other regulatory bodies, including PCI, TCPA, TSR, and HIPAA (where patient information is involved).

    For example, all agents that accept payments must ensure they are compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). This set of requirements is designed to protect consumers’ payment card information from nefarious actors. Essentially, criminals need both the long card number and the CVV security number to make fraudulent purchases. With this in mind, PCI requires businesses to ensure that CVV numbers aren’t recorded since this poses a significant security risk.

    It’s also important to note that companies who engage in telemarketing must comply with the Do Not Call Implementation Act. This act aims to protect consumers from unwanted calls by allowing consumers to place their telephone number on the National Do-Not-Call Registry. To be compliant with this law, telemarketing companies have to verify their call lists against the National Do-Not-Call Registry.

    [1] https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f96960ac-1c0e-4ecc-a5e6-de8dcfb63ec5

    [2] https://www.hipaaguide.net/hipaa-telephone-rules/

    [3] https://www.hipaaguide.net/hipaa-telephone-rules/

    [4] https://www.hipaajournal.com/hipaa-retention-requirements/

  • Why Should You Record Mobile Sales Calls

    Why Should You Record Mobile Sales Calls

    It should come as no surprise that mobile devices are playing an increasingly prominent role in modern workplaces, and with good reason. Cell phones offer numerous benefits to organizations in the digital age. For example, they allow employees to remain in contact with the office, customers, and vendors while on the go. They also promote remote working, increase productivity, and boost sales.


    Interesting? Here’s how

    These benefits and others have led to the world we see today, where 75% of workers use their personal cell phones for work. Bring your own device (BYOD) policies are now a hallmark of modern businesses, with a whopping 83% of companies having some form of BYOD policy. And these policies create a real, measurable impact – generating around $350 in revenue per employee annually[1].

    However, while mobile devices undoubtedly improve operations, many organizations still underutilize their potential. How? By failing to record sales calls. When it comes to contact centers, most companies are aware of the critical importance of sales call recording, typically utilizing call recording platforms to drive better decision-making and ensure regulatory compliance. But far fewer organizations are using sales call recording software for mobile devices.

    Make no mistake, whether it’s a BYOD or a corporate-issued cell phone, recording sales calls is paramount. With this in mind, let’s discuss the top reasons you should record mobile sales calls in your organization.

    Improving Sales Performance

    One of the most compelling reasons to record sales calls is that it can boost sales performance, ultimately leading to more conversions and higher revenue.

    Sales call recording software allows sales reps to revisit their customer interactions and gain valuable insights. Sales reps have new conversations with prospects all day, every day. As a result, they fall into set patterns and routines, often discussing the same topics repeatedly. While sales reps will undoubtedly develop positive habits as they become more experienced and figure out what works and what doesn’t, they could also unknowingly develop negative habits. Sometimes our behavior becomes so ingrained that we don’t even realize we’re doing it. That’s where replaying sales calls come in. Reps are more likely to spot features of their interactions that can be improved by listening to sales recordings.

    During the call, sales reps are so focused on the prospect on the other end of the line that they might miss key details. Sales calls can also vary dramatically in length, with some lasting mere minutes while others, like a sales demo, lasting upwards of an hour. Calls on either end of this scale present distinct challenges for sales reps when it comes to analyzing critical details of the call. It’s easy to lose focus in a lengthy call, and short calls often go so fast that they’re over before you have time to truly process the interaction.

    Reps – and their managers –  can hone in on the specific moments of success and failure by replaying sales calls. For example, did they say something that changed the prospect’s mood? Was there a point where everything started to come together (a breakthrough)? Or fall apart?

    Recording sales calls also empowers reps to pick up on customer details they may have missed the first time around. Armed with this information, they can go into the next call with a clear idea of the prospect and their needs and offer a personalized experience. Nothing turns away a prospective customer faster than being treated like a faceless number.

    Training and Quality Assurance

    Leading on from the last point, recording sales calls allows companies to take a more scientific approach to crafting the perfect sales technique. Organizations can compare the sales calls of their highest performing reps to those of struggling agents and determine what types of interactions are the most effective. They can then use this information when training both new and seasoned sales reps.

    Monitoring sales calls is also essential for quality assurance, allowing businesses to determine customer satisfaction levels at any point in history, including the present. Of course, customer satisfaction is complex and can look different across industries. However, some key elements of high-quality calls are skilled listening, appropriate language and tone of voice, good rapport, effective questioning, and a good closeout. Companies can determine whether their rep-prospect interactions have these features with sales call analysis.

    Lastly, if you notice customer sentiment changing, you become better prepared to take preventative measures and get everything back on track. If there’s an issue with the product, you can alert the product engineers, and if there’s an issue with marketing, the marketers.

    Improve Your Product or Service

    Cell phone sales calls are potentially packed with valuable information about what your customers want and expect from your product. By listening to these calls, product development and marketing teams gain greater insight into customers’ problems, how they use the product, and what they think needs to be improved. They can then use this information to create better products and experiences that resonate with the customer base.

    Often, products created for one purpose become co-opted for another. For example, Kleenex started as a disposable towel to remove makeup. However, when customer feedback began to roll in, they realized most people were using Kleenex tissue to blow their noses[2]. As a result, Kleenex shifted their advertising, and their sales doubled.

    Sales calls are uniquely effective in gaining customer feedback because they allow customers to speak freely. For example, other customer feedback methods, like a survey, might unconsciously drive customers down one path because the survey creator designed the questions with biases already present (assumptions of how the product is used).

    Resolve and Reduce Disputes

    Call recording can be an organization’s most robust line of defense when disputes arise. Disputes can vary in severity from essentially minor impacts (potentially losing a customer) to costly litigation. Recording your calls ensures that you’re not relying on “he said/she said” and can instead rely on hard evidence. Managers and other high-ranking decision-makers can listen to the call and decide on the best course of action to resolve the issue.

    Legal Compliance

    Ensuring regulatory compliance is one of the most critical reasons to record sales calls. Organizations risk facing hefty fines and potentially catastrophic harm to their reputation if they fall on the wrong side of the law. Luckily, by recording sales calls, legal compliance becomes much more straightforward.

    Of course, regulatory compliance varies considerably between countries and industries. For example, US federal law permits call recording with only the consent of one party, and some states also use the one-party consent policy. However, other states, like California, Florida, and Nevada (among others), require two-party consent.

    Internationally, the compliance landscape varies wildly, with some countries having no specific call recording laws and others having plenty. For example, Canada uses an “all-party” consent model where calls can only be recorded with everyone’s permission, and the purpose of the recording has to be stated. And businesses operating in Europe have to be compliant with GDPR, which also requires consent from all parties.

    Then there’s industry-specific compliance. For example, the UK’s financial regulatory body, the FCA, requires that all conversations related to financial transactions be recorded. This means that all financial institutions, including commercial and retail banks, hedge fund managers,  and investment houses, must record and archive their sales calls as proof of compliance. The same is also true for UK-based insurance and claim management companies, travel agencies, and retailers that offer credit financing to customers. Other countries have different laws.

    Companies can ensure compliance with regulatory mandates in different ways. For example, in two-party consent states, companies might use an automated message at the beginning of the call notifying the listener that the call is being recorded (and sometimes why). Alternatively, they could make this part of the sales rep’s script, asking them to gain explicit consent from the customer. A simple notice in the pre-call email might be the preferred option in other situations.

    But of course, regulatory compliance isn’t just about doing what’s required but also proving that you’re doing it. That’s where sales call recording comes in. By recording your sales calls, even those on cell phones, you can prove that you got consent from the other party. Encrypted call recordings are also legally admissible in court should you ever need to use them in a legal dispute.

    Additionally, sales agents are more likely to comply with company and legal standards when they know calls are being recorded.

    Separate Business from Private Calls

    Companies with a BYOD policy need to foster a culture of appropriate conduct around using personal devices for business calls. Reps will be keenly aware of how they should behave and avoid slipping into leisure-time habits by recording sales calls made on personal cell phones. In other words, recording sales calls keeps everyone accountable.

    Next Steps

    If your organization isn’t already recording your mobile sales calls, then there’s no better day to turn that around than today. So get in touch to find out how we can help you achieve the benefits discussed in this article.

    [1] https://www.zippia.com/advice/byod-statistics/

    [2] https://www.printwand.com/blog/9-stellar-examples-of-the-unintended-use-of-products

  • Field Services: Establishing New Standards for Sustainable Excellence

    Field Services: Establishing New Standards for Sustainable Excellence

    In a nutshell, field services are maintenance, installation, and repairs performed by professionals in the field or workplaces and at clients’ facilities and homes. This kind of activity encompasses multiple sectors like IT, transportation, infrastructure, utilities and other businesses. With digitalization in full swing, sustainable excellence is no longer an option. Let’s examine how it can be achieved today.

    Mobile2CRM for Plumber
    Gone are the days when clients used landlines to set up appointments and hoped for the best. Today’s market has become uber-competitive, with customers expecting nothing but the fastest service with zero mistakes. Also, they are often not on-premise and all communication with the business is performed via mobile. This introduces a plethora of new challenges for technicians and support teams.

    The Traditional Field Service Scene

    First and foremost, it’s important to understand the types of field services customers are expecting to be performed in the best way possible today.

    • Installations – New customers need this crucial service, which often includes a quick onboarding or training session with the technician. This meeting with the company representative is crucial in establishing brand credibility and trust with the business. There is very little margin for error at this stage. Any kind of delay or miscommunication can create an unsatisfied customer.
    • Maintenance – Companies today are putting extra emphasis on corrective and preventive maintenance because fixing broken-down equipment can prove to be costly. The latter involves capturing data from the equipment in real-time and diagnosing the problem before it escalates. This can also include periodic software updates or fine tuning to keep customers happy.
    • Internet of Things (IoT) – The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a digitalization spike. The same applies to field equipment, office machinery, and home appliances. While IoT technology is elevating productivity and performance, companies need to invest time and resources in providing adoption services. Simply put, there is a steep learning curve with IoT.

    While the aforementioned operations look great on paper, they can get complicated (or impossible to execute) with the increased use of cell phones.

    For example, a customer can make a phone call to your field service technician while he is on his way to the service location. In other cases, your support team may be working remotely (OOO) while taking calls. This means that there is no landline recording or iffy Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) recordings due to unstable connectivity. This leads to a blind spots and incomplete service/support loops.

    The end result – a no-show (or late visit) by the field service technician and a very frustrated customer due to the poor service (e.g., not showing up with the right tools). But if you think that’s all, you are mistaken. This example can further escalate when you are not available or reachable via mobile to capture and note the customer’s complaint, something that can directly impact your business performance.

    Optimize Field Services – Log and Record Cellular Business Communications

    Download the FREE Whitepaper

    Top 3 Main Challenges with Field Services

    The miscommunication problem, along with missed service and complaint calls are just “the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to field services and cellular communication mishaps. This former is bound to happen because the dispatcher is the middle-man (and often the phone number exposed to the customers) who is caught in the crossfire when mixups, depalays, and no-shows happen.

    1. Damaged Team Coordination – Once your organization has difficulties capturing, logging, and documenting all communications between your clients and your field services, repairmen, maintenance staff, and technicians, things go south fast. Lack of information and ad hoc patches can be quite a nightmare, especially when third-party (external) technicians are involved. 

    Field Technician to Dispatcher: “What’s the client’s number? Nobody’s here?!?”

    1. Poor Productivity and Lackluster Efficiency – You must not forget that the people in the field are living human beings with feelings. They need a clear schedule and clarity with their day-to-day tasks to be really productive, while being able to improve their performance to claim their work-bonuses. But running late and not showing up to places can have the opposite effect.

    Customer to Dispatcher: “What’s the technician’s number?!? He’s not here yet!!!”

    1. Real-Time Communication Issues – Even after the dots have been connected, you face the challenge of actually updating the end customers that you are stuck in traffic or having problems finding the location and sending them well-prepared. But your worker’s BYOD may be unreachable in many places due to poor connection or your worker being in transit.

    Customer to Dispatcher: “What’s the technician’s number?!? He’s not here yet!!!”

    Your workers are also probably having trouble separating business and personal calls. Carry two phones? Another ad hoc solution that seriously impacts productivity.

    To sum it up, the traditional field services model is flawed and not dynamic enough to be in sync with your CRM platform, not to mention the technicians and professionals in the field. You are basically looking at frequent service delays, increased cases of customer disputes, and elevated worker frustration. This brand damage will eventually start creating accelerated churn and hurt your bottom line.

    Related: Achieving Conversion Intelligence (CI) 

    Mobile2CRM – Revolutionizing Field Services

    It’s not all bad news. With Mobile2CRM, you can achieve sustainable excellence in the field. This revolutionary technology basically gives your field service staff a virtual business mobile profile, which runs smoothly on their personal smartphones. Even when they’re off-duty, the system keeps track of calls, logs and records them for later when your field service rep becomes available again so no call is lost.  

    How does it work? As easy as it sounds. 

    Besides the aforementioned CRM-integration, the Mobile2CRM SDK can be integrated into your field service management software – such as Dynamics 365 Field Service, Oracle Field Service Cloud, ServiceTitan, Jobber, etc.
    The rest takes care of itself, including centralized monitoring, automatically rerouting calls to active technicians, and fully customizing the field technician’s availability windows as per his or her updated work-schedule or availability.

    Simply put, there are no more field services issues caused by miscommunications, broken support loops, and reachability problems. You also enjoy:  

    • Faster (and Better) Training and Onboarding – Full Mobile2CRM integration means nothing falls between the cracks. Your field service workers, regardless of their seniority or position, are all on the same page. They can be updated in real-time and trained to perform their tasks in the best way possible. A huge productivity booster for instant performance spikes.
    • Improved Customer Satisfaction (Brand Performance) – Customer satisfaction levels improve from the moment the field services team makes the first appointment. There is no chance of not recording (or missing) the call, text, or WhatsApp communication. The customer gets his desired service with no delays and without encountering any miscommunication.
    • Improved Real Time Operational Performance – The results are also evident on the operational side of things. With this enhanced clarity and zero client disputes, you can start focusing on streamlining and prioritization, making field technicians more efficient (less working hours), and eventually also start saving on maintenance work to save investment in hardware/spare parts.

    That’s not all. With more business information and customer data being logged into your CRM, you gain the ability to create and act upon BI and AI generated insights. 

    The Bottom Line

    Separating personal and business calls on your service technicians and support teams’ smartphones with Mobile2CRM will improve your bottom line, Dramatically reduce the need for field staff to carry two handsets, reduce disputes, increase customer satisfaction, reduce churn and more.

    This CRM mobile communication enabler and service management software enhancer can help you gain the edge by elevating your support and maintenance ops, while also reducing overhead costs and creating streamlined teams with minimal expenses. 

    Log and Record Cellular Business Communications for Optimized Field Services and Sustainable Business Growth

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  • Achieving Conversion Intelligence (CI): Empowering Sales Teams and Boosting Growth

    Achieving Conversion Intelligence (CI): Empowering Sales Teams and Boosting Growth

    Conversion Intelligence (CI) is trending upward. CI involves the ongoing harvesting, analysis, and conversion of market data into intelligence to enhance decision-making, boost business core competencies, and elevate sales performance metrics. It also helps improve sales-related procedures like training and onboarding, while allowing executives to use the insights to boost productivity and cross-department collaboration. But how can you gain CI? This transformation doesn’t happen overnight and you’ll need the right technology to supplement it. Let’s dive into the specifics.

    Firstly, Conversion Intelligence (CI) is not to be confused with Business Intelligence (BI), which involves the breaking down of internal data for making better business decisions. BI is definitely a helpful thing to have, but only CI can help you “digest” data related to competitors, consumer trends, and other relevant external factors to elevate performance metrics, especially in sales.

    This article will touch on the benefits of CI and show you how it can be achieved with next-gen mobile recording tech that integrates seamlessly with your CRM.

    Top-5 Benefits of Conversion Intelligence (CI)

    Conversion Intelligence is all about being proactive with decision making and boosting visibility into sales cycles for elevated performance. Here are just a few advantages of taking the leap and injecting “intelligence” into your daily sales activities like being on phone calls, training new employees, and most importantly allowing sales executives to make better decisions.

    1. Empowerment – Sales teams have difficult jobs because they are essentially “firing in the dark”. They don’t have too much information about market trends and consumer tendencies. But Conversion Intelligence allows you to train them better to help them understand their job perfectly. They feel empowered, which is the key to success.
    2. Higher Win Rates – Not only are you getting access to actionable insights that your competitors probably don’t have, but you are also translating that into closed deals. Collecting and interpreting exclusive market data is what is making more and more companies turn to Conversion Intelligence. A real game changer that allows better closure rates.
    3. Shorter Sales Cycles – One of the biggest pain points in the modern sales setups is the elongation of sales cycles. More often than not, potential customers lose interest because of the number of touchpoints needed before closing deals. CI eliminates this pain point by exploring data and boosting deal momentum, while shortening the sales cycle significantly.
    4. Cross-Department Collaboration – The data that is collected and analyzed doesn’t just serve sales teams. Executives can take advantage of it as well. For example, the CEO can access detailed reports about sales activities and customer preferences to keep his CTO and Product Managers in the loop. Everybody is on the same page.
    5. Become a Market Leader – Everything starts adding up. Faster time to market, shorter sales cycles, and high customer satisfaction allow you to spike up your brand performance, with retention rates going up constantly. Sustainable business growth becomes a reality, especially when you are getting your hands on valuable competitions’ behavior.

    All in all, Conversion Intelligence (CI) is becoming a no-brainer, regardless of the sector you are operating in. But how do you actually get started with it?

    Related: The Key to Customer Retention and Increased Upselling – B2B and B2C

    Mobile2CRM – The Missing Conversion Intelligence Link

    Now that we have established the importance of Conversion Intelligence (CI), we need to touch on the missing link – the lack of sales mobile recording data.

    Not having the ability to collect sales data can dent your Conversion Intelligence (CI) activity effectiveness. This is where most organizations are facing roadblocks today. Collecting information from sales calls, not to mention logging and recording it on an ongoing basis, are elementary basics you will need to cover to have a proper Conversion Intelligence ecosystem in place.

    Unfortunately, traditional and manual techniques in sales departments are siloed, making it virtually impossible to achieve sustainable Conversion Intelligence (CI) and enjoy it’s benefits. Another major issue is that mobile phone communications are not being recorded automatically, nor are they being integrated seamlessly into CRM platforms. A real pain point.

    But what if you could have an automated operator-agnostic solution that allows you to capture all relevant business information and integrate it with your CRM platform to work in tandem with your Conversion Intelligence tool? There is good news. Mobile2CRM allows you to achieve just that. But implementing this next-gen tech, you can set up your infrastructure before making the jump.

    Here are just a few of the highlights of the Mobile2CRM technology:

    • Unlimited Availability – With the Mobile2CRM’s next-gen proprietary software, all business/sales calls are recorded automatically to your CRM system via a dedicated business profile and number, which is available 24/7. No more missed calls or broken sales cycles. This profile and number is completely operator-agnostic and creates zero bottlenecks.
    • Fully Compliant – This advanced solution doesn’t allow the mixing of personal and business calls, as the business profile is completely isolated and segregated on the sales agent’s device with its own dialler and application. This helps safeguard personal information with no data leakages. A crucial compliance requirement (Think GDPR and CCPA).
    • Customer Satisfaction – Achieving the aforementioned goals eventually accelerates your win rate with proper sales empowerment. Your customers feel like they are not neglected, while getting answers to their questions and queries at all times – even after the deal has been closed. Take your brand performance to a whole new level.

    Related: CRM is Not the Enemy

    Conversion Intelligence Starts with Sales Empowerment

    Getting a spanking new Conversion Intelligence solution is great, but it won’t be of much benefit if you are not harvesting the relevant sales data, nor will you be able to empower your sales agents to keep them productive at all times. In order to maximize your ROI, you will need a tool like Mobile2CRM to work in tandem with your CI solution to feed it with sales information and data.

    It doesn’t matter if you have multiple sales teams working from multiple remote locations. Mobile2CRM will allow you to record mobile voice calls and SMS communications automatically and bake everything seamlessly into your sales pipelines. As a result, you see higher closure rates, fewer disputes, and little to no dependence on unreliable third-party VOiP solutions.

    Furthermore, by doing so, you will be able to empower your sales teams. They will have more clarity about their responsibilities and your expectations from them, while also gaining more insights into their performance metrics on an ongoing basis. You will be able to train them better for elevated client service ratings and improved Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) metrics.

    Implementing Conversion Intelligence starts with streamlining your sales pipeline and automating mobile call recording. Get proactive now

    Learn to Unleash the Power of Your Sales Calls and Lay the Foundation for Your Conversion Intelligence Solution Now

    Download the FREE Whitepaper

  • Gamechanger: Cellular Business Profiles Enhance Insurance Sales

    Gamechanger: Cellular Business Profiles Enhance Insurance Sales

    Gamechanger: Cellular Business Profiles Enhance Insurance Sales

    Insurance firms are facing a multitude of sales and retention roadblocks as mobile phone calls and texts become an integral part of the pipeline. Unrecorded or undocumented mobile calls, lack of call-record integration with CRM tools, technical issues with globalization trends, and compliance risks are just a few of the pain points. But what if you could have virtual business mobile profiles that are active 24/7 with automated CRM integration? Let’s take a closer look at this innovative concept and the growth potential it is unleashing worldwide.

    Simply put, Insurance agency sales are not really optimized today. More and more cellular phone calls are slipping through the cracks due to a wide range of technical and operational reasons, causing regulatory loopholes and ineffective Sales pipelines. There is also a risk of brand damage and customer churn. The Insurance industry needs to address these issues proactively.

    A Day in the Life of the Insurance Sales Team 

    Before elaborating on the solution, we must cover the five biggest pain points Insurance sales teams are facing in today’s dynamic global markets. 

    1 – “Your Number is Currently Unavailable..”

    The Insurance sales process starts getting bumpy with mobile phone communication (or lack thereof), which is the most commonly used method being used by today. Firstly, there is the problem with sales reps being unreachable due to meetings, working remotely due to COVID-19, or being in-transit (think air travel). This is also a problem with offshored sales teams.

    The Result – This directly impacts customer satisfaction levels and makes work hard for sales agents, who also can’t really track/record missed calls.

    2 – “Are You Recording Me?”

    Many companies face issues with extracting business-relevant data from their agents’ cell phones, which are also used for private calls that should never be recorded. The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend has intensified in recent years, but is now creating many privacy risks. Just imagine a sales agent losing his phone at a train station – corporate and customer data is at risk!

    The Result – Regulatory and privacy laws are everywhere. You need to make sure only business-related calls are recorded – without violating user privacy. The same applies of course to Call transcripts.

    3 – “VoIP What?”

    You have probably automated the recording of your landline calls, Web chat communications, and email threads to make everything work seamlessly with your CRM solution. The same also applies to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls, which require good internet connection and ideal network conditions on both sides to work well. More often than not, this isn’t the case.

    The Result – Digitalization is great, but with so many technical variables in play, it’s not going to replace cellular phone communication anytime soon.

    4 – “I’m Lost! These Mobile Calls Are Not Making Any Sense.”

    Unfortunately, not documenting and recording mobile calls is leading to more and more broken sales cycles. Besides the obvious frustration and confusion this causes within teams (think new agents selling to old customers), client service ratings, and customer retention metrics are impacted directly. Also, integration with CRM solutions using third-party tools is a challenge in itself.  

    The Result – “Connecting the dots” is probably the biggest difference between closing deals and not striking when the iron is hot. A huge pain point. 

    5 – “What Did You Say?”

    Communication with clients is no longer based on trust. Price quotes and proposals need to be documented to avoid unintentional confusion or malicious disputes. But with things getting done via mobile phone calls, more and more disputes are being created. This is a big headache for Insurance companies, which now have to dedicate resources to solve these issues.

    The Result – Disputes and complaints are harming brand growth and increasing customer attrition. They probably can’t be nullified, but need to be minimized.

    Mobile2CRM: Separating Business and Private Calls

    Mobile2CRM is revolutionizing the world of Insurance sales and retention by seamlessly integrating automated employee cellular call recordings into your CRM system (business calls only!). This innovative cloud-based technology is flexible and has plug-and-play functionality. It can work smoothly with multiple CRM platforms like Salesforce, Microsoft, HubSpot, ServiceNow, and more.

    Integration is just the tip of the iceberg. This tech is helping automate the capturing and documenting of meta-data, call recordings (including transcription), and text messages. Everything is automatically blended into your sales pipeline for optimal results. Needless to mention, this also allows sales managers to improve their training and onboarding procedures, especially with teams working remotely today.

    So how does this work?

    The principle is as mentioned earlier – Separating business and private calls without requiring SIM-card switching or buying additional handsets. The secret sauce lies in the proprietary Mobile2CRM software, tech that adds a virtual business profile to your agents’ phones. This profile’s mobile number can be reached for calls, texts, and WhatsApp chats – regardless of the geolocation.

    These virtual business profiles are completely operator-agnostic and provide a 24/7 solution for Insurance sales teams. With Mobile2CRM, you can have multiple international or local cellular numbers working simultaneously on one handset without requiring unreliable and unstable VoIP technology support, while being compliant at all times due to the siloed approach.  

    Related: Unleash the Power of Cellular Business Calls

    This enhanced reachability and integration capability is helping Insurance companies enhance relationships with customers, while also maximizing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) metrics across the board. With so many online reviews and social media emerging as a decision factor, you must maximize customer satisfaction at all times to achieve sustainable growth.

    Call recording, documentation, and analysis is the key to scaling up today:

    • Fixing Broken Sales Cycles – Mobile2CRM’s technology is helping Insurance companies steer clear of VoIP and operator-dependent solutions that can’t provide complete reachability, nor can they patch up the missing link – cellular phone recording, documentation, and integration into the Sales and Retention pipeline.
    •  Customer Satisfaction – Clients can now reach sales representatives and executives (when needed) at any time and get answers to their questions. They can also get faster service when they call to close deals. This availability and reachability is a key factor in getting a high client service rating, something that is also boosted when there are fewer disputes.
    • Optimal Security and Compliance – With privacy regulations like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in full effect, you need separate private and business calls to record only the latter. Collecting private information without prior consent is a huge no-no today. Compliance is no longer an option.

    Mobile2CRM’s unique solution helps create metrics and benchmarks to optimize sales performance. Data can also be used for AI-based BI systems. 

    Streamlining the Insurance Sales Pipeline with Mobile2CRM

    Virtual business profiles, powered by Mobile2CRM’s tech, are helping eliminate blind spots in the Insurance sales process by recording everything automatically and creating actionable insights based on client behavior. Even out-of-office hours calls are documented to improve engagement and meet regulatory obligations. Simply put, this cloud-based tool is the future of sales.

    SUCCESS STORY

    A leading Insurance agency recently used Mobile2CRM to boost sales and enhance employee efficiency.

    LEARN MORE

  • Deals Keep Disappearing Into the Wind? Here’s a Simple Trick That Can Boost Your Closure Rate By 30% Or More.

    Deals Keep Disappearing Into the Wind? Here’s a Simple Trick That Can Boost Your Closure Rate By 30% Or More.

    When prospects say that they “need time think it over”, this can mean two things: (1) they are not interested at all and want to brush the sales rep off (this happens a lot if that prospect does not match the Ideal Customer Profile), or (2) the potential customer is interested, but has reservations about the product or service. If the latter applies, the sales rep needs to further encourage and nurture that potential customer. That prospect might have concerns about the usefulness of the product or service, think that it is the same as competitive offerings that are cheaper, or worry that it will not meet his or her specific needs. A potential customer might raise several objections, which means that the sales rep has to follow up each and every time to convert this potential prospect into a paying customer. If the prospect cannot be convinced, the sale will be lost.

     

    So what does the sales rep need to do to prevent the sale from falling through? Well, the sales rep needs to “cuddle” the potential customer. In other words, communicate frequently with the prospect to keep the conversation going. The sales rep must answer any questions that the potential customer has in near real-time, keeping the prospect from getting cold, providing more information as quickly as possible, sending relevant presentations or use cases to show how the product or service can benefit the prospect, etc. Since the potential customer needs to be convinced, time is of the essence. The “you snooze, you lose” principle applies!

     

    This puts a strain on the salespeople, since they must be reachable at all times. Needless to say, this is not really possible when telephone calls take place via the corporate switchboard or the company’s call center. To demonstrate this, here’s a common scenario that can put a deal-in-process to death – a prospect who previously asked to “think about it” comes up with a few more questions, or simply wants to close the deal.  They call the salesperson’s landline and get no answer since he’s out of office. Next, they call the corporate hotline who refers them to another salesperson or to the call center. By the time they reach someone who can help them they need to go through everything they already went through with their previous rep, get annoyed or lose interest. In both cases, the prospect will not turn into a paying customer.

     

    As mentioned above, the sales reps must be the prospect’s “buddy”, and always be available, giving that prospect the feeling that they really care, which mandates that they give their cellphone number to prospects with the magic words “call me anytime, I am here for you”. This keeps the communication channels open to answer any questions and address any concerns to overcome objections and close the deal.

     

    To be reachable at all times (or at least have the missed calls logged, documented and flagged) and to keep the communication channels open, the salespeople must be able to use their mobile phones to respond to any call, chat, and text messages. To keep track of the sales process and trace its progress, all these mobile communications must be logged, documented and recorded in the company’s CRM and other systems. This is mandatory regardless of whether the sales reps use their company-issued or BYOD smartphones for these sales calls, text messages, and chats.

     

    But this raises another question: how can the company separate business from private calls on their reps’ smartphones? After all, even if recording business communications is a must, recording private conversation by corporate means is an absolute no-no. That’s where a mobile to CRM type of a solution comes into play. For example, this Mobile2CRMTM solution solves this problem, since it enables adding an additional business-related cellular number on the sales rep’s own cell phone and connects it to the relevant corporate resources such as the CRM and call recording system. This provides a premium cellular relationship with the potential customer, while the sales rep’s personal cellular communications remains private. This solution only captures business-related communications and interactions conducted on the cellphone keeping the personal conversations private, which also complies with the applicable privacy laws.

  • Work-life balance comes at a price. That’s why we need smart work-life integration

    Work-life balance comes at a price. That’s why we need smart work-life integration

    For decades, employees have been struggling to balance their work and private lives. Factors that contributed to a bad work-life balance were more responsibilities at work and / or at home, longer work hours, and having children, to name a few. Having a good work-life balance results in less stress, lower burnout rates, and an increased sense of well-being. During the last decade, employers have come to realize that providing environments that support work-life balance for their employees not only benefits the well-being of their workforce, but also results in lower absence and churn rates since employees would be more loyal and productive. Employers and HR departments implemented various strategies to promote the work-life balance concept, including telecommuting and flexible work hours (flex working).

    At first glance, this approach seems to make sense and worked well in some cases. For instance, the Australian Telework Advisory Committee (ATAC) found in 2012 that telework reduced OPEX (rent, maintenance, parking, travel, etc.), increased efficiency, made the workforce more inclusive (adding rural areas-based and disabled workers), and made employees happier with their work. However, in many cases, it also had a reverse effect. To enable employees to work from home or flexible hours, the line between private and work life became blurry. Work and non-work activities started to overlap, especially with the use of digital tools such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. As a result, it became hard for employees to set boundaries, stick to work hours, and prioritize activities. 

    Employers, on the other hand, found out that not all employees have the same work-life balance goals. HR departments were tasked with finding out what the objectives of each employee were and how the company could help to determine them, such as working remotely a couple of days per week or changing their daily work schedule. Overall, companies struggled to combine policy, support for the individual employee, and cultural change (David Clutterbuck, April 2003). 

    Fast-forwarding to 2020, the work-life balance changed almost overnight when the COVID-19 pandemic made its presence felt around the world. Suddenly, all non-essential workers started to work from home (WFH) during consecutive lockdowns. The availability of information and communication technologies made it possible for them to perform the tasks normally done in the workplace.  Although some employees preferred WFH to keep a better work-life balance, some employers were concerned that productivity would decline in a time when many companies are struggling to survive.

    In the time of Covid-19, coordinating work and family demands by setting boundaries to maintain a physical, temporal and psychological equilibrium has become even more difficult. This conflict between work and personal life demands has magnified emotional exhaustion. It has become possible to keep these domains separate from each other. That’s why we have seen a shift from work-life balance to work-life integration. By integrating work and non-work activities, spending time and energy to conduct these activities in parallel has become manageable. But to integrate these different domains, employees must be able to manage the time, location, and quantity of work. A flexible work arrangement will integrate work and life and enable the balance between them.

    Technology has a positive impact on work-life integration, making it easier to manage work and private life by creating an in-office culture while working from home to boost productivity.

    Technology helps employees work smarter by connecting them with their team across borders and collaborating on projects. The right digital tools do not only have a positive impact on the work itself, but also increase output and boosts revenues for the company. These digital tools must therefore be smartly deployed to make the work environment seamless across spaces. This must also enable employees to find new ways to separate their business from their private life and communications. This means that the company must support phone communications as well as corporate resources by deploying digital tools to automate operations and adapt to the current situation, including access to the corporate CRM, call recording, and other systems.

    With no time to prepare or plan (hardly any organization had factored a global pandemic into its business continuity planning), organizations had to provide these digital tools almost overnight in March 2020, putting technology interfaces in place to support working from home while deploying policies, practices, and processes to ensure work-life integration. Companies had to deploy a different set of IT capabilities for collaboration (chat, voice, virtual meetings, screen-sharing, teleconferencing, etc.) and for access to the corporate network using remote access services. More importantly, the digital tools must also allow for establishing a work schedule/routine had to that avoids blending home time and work time.  

    However, with remote workers using their own or company-issued laptops and smartphones, separating private and business calls and messaging interactions has become an issue, not in the least due to the stringent privacy laws. For example, recording business communications and entering them into the CRM or call recording system is a challenge since the employees use their devices – including their cell phones – outside of the corporate network and telephone system. To address this issue, a solution such as mobile2CRM is called for. Such a solution only captures – records and stores – business-related or service/support-related conversations in the CRM and call recording systems for later references and more analysis using more sophisticated AI-based BI systems for example without any privacy violation issues regardless of whether the employee uses a company-issued or they use their own BYOD phone. It is a powerful digital tool for solidifying work-life integration, benefitting both employers and employees.

    For example, a major financing firm was faced with its support center staff working from home. Calls still needed to be recorded, even on BYOD cell phones and tablets, while complying with employee privacy regulations. The firm used Mobile2CRM to protect its staff’s privacy by introducing a virtual business profile that included a virtual number, messaging app, and SMS on the cellphones of the support staff. This enabled them to record and later access the customer call recordings using their own cellphone. In addition, this functionality provided analysis and performance improvement tools, such as reports and call recording data. Apart from optimizing performance and increasing effectiveness, it also gave peace of mind that no personal information would be captured and recorded by the firm.

    To make working from home, on the road, or any other out-of-office location effective and to support work-life integration, a solution that keeps business and private cellular communication completely separate is a must.  The solution allows employees to better integrate their work and private lives while resting assured that their privacy is protected.

  • CRM is Not the Enemy – This is How to Boost CRM Adoption by Salespeople

    CRM is Not the Enemy – This is How to Boost CRM Adoption by Salespeople

    How to boost CRM adoption by Salespeople

    When you talk to sales reps about CRM, you will often hear: “Yeah, it’s great for management, but I don’t see how it can benefit me.” Some will even go further and point out that recording everything related to their job in the CRM system is time-consuming and comes at the expense of valuable prospecting time. Coming from the “trenches”, we understand their perspective very well and would like to offer some new view points

    Selling is not just a numbers game; there is a need for constative follow-up and on-going learning from the most successful salespeople. Let’s first have a closer look at what sales reps do to close deals. For one, they interact with potential and existing customers to follow up on leads and close new deals. This involves sending and receiving emails, making and receiving phone calls, setting up appointments, and making notes for follow-up. They also send out information, price quotes, and contracts. They are keeping track of meeting their KPIs and sales targets, and staying on budget. They also need to report on potential and closed deals, and their pipeline progress. That’s enough to make anyone’s head spin.

    That’s where CRM comes in. A CRM system reduces the time they need to spend on mundane tasks, so that they can concentrate on what they truly like to do (and are good at!) – making sales. A CRM makes it easy for a sales rep to retrieve prospect and customer data and to create, classify, organize, and optimize sales collateral at a central place that can be accessed in the office, but also remotely when WFH.

    A hurdle in making CRM sales rep-friendly is the use of a smartphone when being on the road or working from home. When sales reps are using their own (BYOD) or a company cellphone, the business-related calls and phone messages are normally not recorded and documented in the CRM system, which forces them to rely on their memory, scribbled notes, and time-consuming reports. To make their lives (and that of their managers) easier, a mobile-to-CRM solution is called for. Such a solution only records and stores sales-related conversations in the CRM for analysis without any privacy issues regardless if you, as a sales rep, use a company-issued or your own BYOD phone. Recording calls empowers the sales rep with growth opportunities as the data can be analyzed, and valuable lessons can be learned. 

    With the pandemic reaching a second and even third wave forcing governments to take lockdown measures, working from home (WFH) remains the new normal. Sales reps are now using their smartphones to make remote sales, since face-to-face meetings and business trips are much less common. During such calls, a lot of sales information is exchanged that should be recorded for follow-up. That’s also where a mobile-to-CRM solution makes a difference by automatically recording, tracking, documenting, and integrating business-related cellular calls, SMS records, and other forms of business communications, while respecting the privacy of the sales reps (and whoever else in their household is borrowing their cell phone to make a quick call).

    So, if you are a sales rep, it’s good to know that CRM is your friend and that can indeed make your life easier!

    Want to know more about how Mobile2CRM can help your sales reps too?

    Contact us at [email protected]