Flowlens offers your sales people, and your managers, a user-friendly and light-touch tool to win more business.
With integrated Sales, Stock, Manufacturing and Service tools, Flowlens is more than a CRM.
Watch more of Flowlens capabilities, or book a demo.
You’ll know when your business is ready for CRM when you are:
Maybe you are the owner of the business, or perhaps you’ve been tasked with selecting the CRM. In either case you’ll be aware of the pains and challenges you are trying to solve for your business. Choosing a CRM system involves identifying systems that solve as many of these challenges as possible. Remember, no software will meet your needs 100%, so be prepared to prioritise your ‘must have’ and ‘nice to have’ features.
Current pain points and objectives for CRM may include:
We’ll tackle all of these pain points in this article. So, what should you be looking for?
Before you begin your research, you need to understand your own process.
With your team, get a whiteboard or some post it notes, and write down the stages of your typical customer journey, from initial enquiry, qualification, quotes, nurturing, decision, order, and ongoing relationship touchpoints. Think about the information you capture (and in many cases duplicate) at each stage. Look for inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
No off-the-shelf system will handle 100% of your requirements or processes. Once you have a map on your process you can see how different CRM systems can handle your needs. Prioritise your requirements and score these against the systems you are evaluating.
Then, it’s important to think about what outputs and metrics your CRM should give you. What reports are essential for you to make decisions? Perhaps you want to track how many enquiries turn into closed deals, or forecast your sales for the year? Think about your “must have” metrics and ensure they’re easily available in any solution you consider.
There are many different types of CRM systems, designed to meet the needs of different businesses and circumstances. We’ve outlined 3 basic tiers below:
Each of these has positives and negatives that are worth weighing up. And depending on the size of your business and your budget, you may find an integrated system meets your needs even though a sector specific system would be ideal, but out of your budget, for example.
Ask colleagues in your sector about the systems they use. Are they effective? Do they require minimal data entry? Do they handle the needs of your sector well?
As most businesses grow, processes spring up to address basic needs. Some aren’t even aware that a process exists.
Typically these consist of basic emails, spreadsheets, documents, bits of paper and verbal communication.
These work fine when you’re a small operation, but they soon crumble as demand grows for your products/services, and as you bring on more staff. What made sense for a small team will fail as you add more customers and more people to your business.
The simple process mapping exercise outlined above is a good way to benchmark your current system.
Perhaps you want to grow faster, and bring on more sales people, or increase revenues from existing customers. How do you know how to do this without reliable reports and an agreed system that handles your processes?
Inefficiencies take many forms, it could be:
A good CRM will let you streamline these inefficiencies and should at minimum replace the vast majority of these pain points.
Confusion and misunderstandings are the most common cause of inefficiencies inside a business, and customer dissatisfaction. Many business have developed ‘silos’ around the main functions of sales, marketing, finance, operations and service.
This causes different teams to think inwardly, instead of collaboratively, which doesn’t serve the best needs of the customer.
A basic CRM will improve the communication of management and sales and enquiry teams while an integrated CRM allows the whole business to store data on a shared platform, for example.
Not only does this mean that you reduce the amount of rekeying of information, and potential for errors, you also get one ‘single version of the truth’ for your business. All customers, order, product and service information is in one place.
If you plan beyond the basics of capturing and storing customer data before choosing a CRM you might be able to see how systems can streamline your overall business process.
This will save your time and money in the long run, and make it easy to onboard new team members as your business grows.
You want to grow your business, but how can you develop your business plan without data?
CRM system can help you quantify your sales cycle, giving you valuable data to obtain funding/loans for your business, and justify spending money on sales and marketing.
If growth is a key concern you’ll want your CRM to include
Manual systems and disjointed spreadsheets make it difficult to capture and analyse this information. With the right CRM you can quantify how much it costs to get new prospects, how long it takes to convert them into customers and how long they stay.
All businesses have a duty to protect sensitive customer and personal information. The GDPR regulations are providing additional impetus for businesses to develop compliant policies and systems to track the information they store.
If you handle personal information about customers, it is important that you’ve gained their consent to store relevant information. For communication purposes who also need to know if they’ve consented to receive emails, phone calls, etc, and for what purpose.
Similarly, individuals have the ‘right to be forgotten’ meaning upon request you must delete personally identifiable data/information stored about them.
When choosing a CRM system, look at it’s features for handling GDPRs, and ensure it aligns with your company policy for data and privacy.
Do you know how effective your sales process, and your people are? Do you rely on the gut instinct of your sales people and their memory for quotes, dates and promises made to produce a sales forecast?
Sales-focused CRM systems offer a range of features to help you take the guess-work out of sales, and at the same time give your team tools to help them, and you, make more money!
Many CRMs support the concept of Marketing and Sales Pipelines, structuring your sales process around the key stages of your buyer journey.
If you sell bigger ticket items, or have a long sales cycle, Sales Pipeline management tools will help you stay on top of the process, and monitor sales team activities to ensure it is optimised for success.
For businesses who buy and supply materials, products or services with a shorter and more repetitive sales cycle, you need to consider a CRM that offers integrated sales quotes and order processing. This will keep all your customer enquiries, quotes and orders in one place, and reduce delays in serving customers.
You may have heard the rule of thumb that its seven times easier to sell to existing customers than to acquire new customers. So how can a CRM help you enhance your existing customer relationships.
Making it easier for customers to do business with you is paramount. Look at your current ‘after sales’ interactions with customers and figure out what information requests and processes are being followed. Is it simply handling calls, or do you need to provide service or maintenance support? These will be important factors in choosing a system, as it should help you capture customer information, respond quickly to requests, and handle service-related processes to their conclusion.
Capturing data about your response times can also provide a useful internal benchmark and powerful marketing tool. Do you know how quickly you respond to customers? How quickly you address their problem? Most companies don’t monitor this information, but it can be powerful competitive tool when winning new customers and keeping existing ones.
Most business start looking for a CRM out of frustration around reporting. It’s natural to assume a CRM system will help you get better reports, because it captures structured information.
Some CRM systems include basic reporting as standard, for others it’s an expensive upgrade, whilst some system will let you integrate with your preferred reporting tool.
Before you start, consider the key metrics that are essential for managing your business growth. These could include:
Your team will be very familiar with the current manual process they follow to manage your customers currently, as well as the terminology used. In most cases there is nothing wrong with this process, its simply the manual steps, paperwork, unnecessary repetition and errors that are not sustainable.
Basic CRMs will generally aim to improve the sales or enquiry management process.
Integrated CRMs (CRM+) can also offer modules to streamline and integrate other parts of your business your stock management, purchase order and after sales processes too.
Most businesses struggle with communication between the sales and operations functions. If this is a concern for you, consider a CRM+, which can offer Stock Management, Order Processing, Purchasing, Manufacturing and After-sales Service features.
No system will perfectly mimic your processes, unless you’re prepared to invest in bespoke software, so its important to first understand your process, and then to find a good match in a CRM.
If you’ve never had a system, budgeting for CRM can be tricky, however its is the return on investment that will truly help you justify the spend.
Your existing, clunky, error prone manual processes cost your business money. Count the minutes and hours needed to manage the process to estimate the savings a system will bring your business.
For example, if you process 50 sales orders a month, how long in admin time does it take to take a sales order from enquiry all the way to despatch? If the average wage (in the UK, at least) is £14/hour, how much does each sales order cost you in salary alone? If you could cut that time in half, by improving processes, you’re instantly saving money.
In most cases the level of duplicated effort and time wasted copying between spreadsheets, document and emails alone will justify the investment. The CRM system can make your team more productive by giving time back to find and nurture more customers, or build better relationships with existing ones.
One important thing to remember: most CRM systems are priced on a ‘per user’ basis, unless you buy a license outright. It can be tempting to pay for only the bare minimum users on a new system. However, consider the effect this has on team morale for those who haven’t been given access. Anyone customer facing has a justification to use your CRM, provided your goal is to enhance your customer satisfaction.
For most SMEs, software is a natural place to go when faced with mounting paper work and duplicating effort. The monotony of paperwork, endless spreadsheets and copying and pasting, not to mention the missed and forgotten opportunities are all a great motivator to change.
As a leader in your business, how can you ensure the success of this investment in time and software? Firstly, ask yourself a few questions…
Does your SME have the capacity to adopt a new system while keeping the wheels turning? Have you considered the habits that will need to change to adopt new software into the business? Are your people ready for this change? Are you prepared to lead from the top and demonstrate how the new software will support the business strategy and achievement of its vision?
Start with the goal in mind: What goal will unite your team on the need for change?
Ask your team to identify the activities that slow them down the most. Ask customers what frustrates them the most. Share the pain points that unite you, your team and your customers and you’ve got your shared vision.
This vision provides the catalyst for change, and team buy-in for adopting software to make things better. But remember, adopting CRM or any other system is a both a strategic and cultural decision. And culture drives from the top.
Implementing a new system is a challenge for any business. Many CRM systems are offered on an arm’s-length basis with training and support resources provided via the company website. Others provide professional assistance to help you plan, configure and implement their software.
If you have had no experience with implementing changes, consider that you have the resources and buy-in to ensure success. If you’re confident with software, and learning new systems, you’ll be happy to learn and configure off the shelf systems.
In either case, the process will require engagement and buy-in from the rest of your team, and will be a distraction from normal business activities.
Therefore it’s important to have
As we’ve outlined above, any new system change can be daunting, so it’s important to have an ‘early win’ to demonstrate which the change is worth the effort.
CRM systems offer many starting points, whether its tracking enquiries, sales or service requests. One successful technique worth considering can be the management of inbound Enquiries. This is logical as Enquiries typically happen at the start of the sales process and engagement with a new customer.
Most CRM systems will let you capture website enquiries directly. This has two benefits. Most company enquiry forms simply send an email to the sales or marketing manager. This is risky as emails could get overlooked on a busy day. By capturing the Enquiry in your CRM, you’re changing the behaviour to monitor enquiries and track that follow-ups happen promptly.
This simple approaches means that you team start to use the system, and learn how it works whilst actually completing a valuable task. After qualifying the Enquiry the next natural steps is to move to the next stages of the sales process, and again this can happen in the CRM.
It takes the average person 3 weeks of consistent effort to make a new habit. Many people will complain about the extra effort needed whilst still doing the day job. So it’s important to show the value to them, and the company.
However you choose to implement your CRM, make sure you’ve thought about the best way to help your team build this important new habit.
There can be a lot to consider when choosing a new CRM. There are many flavours, offering different features, payment and training options.
The first step is to understand what your business really needs from the system and look for the best fit.
As you’ve seen above the cost of NOT using a CRM can easily justify the investment. It is therefore essential to make sure you are investing in the right product, and have the right plan in place to implement it.
A realistic sales forecast can help you plan resources, and spot problems, while you still have time to do something about them. Making sales forecasting into an exact science is always going to be a challenge. There are so many variables to achieving a forecast that is reliable, reasoned and realistic.
Do you struggle to be objective when forecasting sales opportunities? Strong relationships, warm referrals, gut feeling, competitive advantages can all give you that warm fuzzy feeling about a deal, yet how often does something go wrong?
The timeline slips, your influencer leaves, the budget gets reallocated, the business gets acquired, or just too busy. Alongside this, you’re relying on your sales team to be objective, not optimistic, about the steps taken to qualify the deal.
Alongside our user-friendly lead management, task, email and interaction tracking and quotation tools, Flowlens Sales Forecast reporting help you understand the decisions your sales team make about the deals they expect to win.
Flowlens helps you define what your sales process looks like, step by step, and what makes a substantive change from one state to another. If you haven’t analysed the journey of successful sales, and the ones that go wrong, how can you make reliable predictions about future deals?
For example, here’s our sales cycle, comprising of 5 main stages. For us, first step is to qualify the need exists, and the company has a firm timeline, budget and authority to proceed. Next we use online demos and workshops with influencers and decision makers to validate how Flowlens will do the jobs they need done.
After validating the need and requirement, and reviewing the costs associated with the solution we move to proposal stage, however we don’t register a substantial step forward until we know we’ve been short-listed. A verbal or email confirmation marks the next stage, however the deal isn’t 100% until the contract is signed.
At each stage we assign a percentage value, allowing us to quantify the value of the pipeline based on probabilities, not gut feeling.
Working all these calculations out and displaying them over time is something Flowlens does for you. So you can see how your forecast is shaping up over time, and across the stages of the sales cycle.
Flowlens gives you the tools to capture lead qualification information as the deal progresses.
Create simple forms that capture essential information as you move along the cycle. This tool will keep your sales team’s focus on answering the right questions consistently and ensuring they have clear answers. If there’s no clear answer, there’s no basis for moving an opportunity along the pipeline.
Flowlens sales lead activity log tracks the changes you make to the sales stages, values and forecast date. How often has a ‘hot’ deal slipped from month to month? Help your team make more accurate predictions by testing previous decisions and learning against the latest hot prospect.
In summary, Flowlens provides user-friendly tools to support day-to-day sales activity and help your sales team work more efficiently. The tools help you manage more effectively, challenging qualification assumptions, and supporting an accurate forecast model that works for your business.
Next steps
Chat to a Flowlens rep or,
We’ll be exhibiting at the LAMMA agricultural machinery show, alongside many of the specialist manufacturers and dealers serving this thriving sector.
LAMMA takes place at the East of England Showground, January 17th and 18th.
If you’re involved in making or supplying farm machinery, selling parts and/or service, why not visit us at Stand 204, Hall 2, for a chat about how Flowlens software can take the manual effort out of your sales, supply chain, stock and production processes.
We built Flowlens in response to SME customers who needed an easy to use, ERP-CRM toolkit to help them grow.
Our customers may be small, but they think big. They make, refurbish, supply and service all kinds of tangible assets. From industrial plant & machinery, to ATVs, to street furniture, to intricate aerospace components, and even buildings.
We are proud of the range of industries and applications our product supports. But what’s the one thing they all have in common?
They want a platform help grow their business. They want to grow their profitability. They want to enhance their customer service.
Our customers inspire us with their vision and determination to bring their product to market. They energise us with their passion for their businesses, their products, and their customers. We provide the tools that reduce wasteful manual effort and nurture customers for long term gain.
Our customers have integrated business processes, but the old tools were disjointed, manual and inefficient.
Building a sales pipeline and converting orders. Managing production, stock and operations. Delivering timely and effective customer care. These are too often disjointed, duplicated and inefficient processes. Flowlens unites these business critical functions in one system, removing waste to create an platform for business growth.
Our customers don’t accept the inefficiencies of outdated processes and ‘silo’ thinking.
Our customers don’t accept the inefficiencies of outdated processes and ‘silo’ thinking. They demand tools that nurture leads, convert sales, deliver on promises and develop relationships. They demand reliable business performance information. They demand simplicity, because complexity slows them down.
Our customers may be SMEs, but their vision and capability is huge, and Flowlens provides the tools to achieve that vision.
If you share that drive, determination and vision, we’d be delighted to have you on board. Please shoot me a message at rich@flowlens.com or book a demo.
You might think a new CRM or ERP is the answer to your prayers for greater efficiency, profitability and customer satisfaction. And it probably is. For most SMEs, software is a natural place to go when faced with mounting paper work and duplicating effort.
As a leader in your business, how can you ensure the success of this investment in time and software?
Firstly, ask yourself a few questions…
Are you prepared to lead from the top and demonstrate how new software will support the business strategy and achievement of its vision?
What goal will unite your team on the need for change?
Ask your team to identify the activities that slow them down the most. Ask customers what frustrates them the most. Share the pain points that unite you, your team and your customers and you’ve got your shared vision.
This vision provides the catalyst for change, and team buy-in for adopting software to make things better. But remember, adopting CRM or ERP is a both a strategic and cultural decision. And culture drives from the top.
How can you adopt software and lead by example?
As the leader of a business or team, you’ve many priorities. Start small, and focus on managing your own activity. Understand how the software can make your life easier:
Variations in business processes slow you down and cause confusion for customers. Software is not a sticking plaster, but it does offer a way to standardise processes in your small business, and reduce manual effort.
Show how the tools make your life easier and unlock opportunities, and others will follow.
We’ll be exhibiting at SubCon/Advanced Manufacturing, 6-8th June at the NEC, visit us at Stand B47 where we’ll be demonstrating the latest version of our powerful, user-friendly Product Configuration and Quotation tool, which links BOM data directly to stock and production job cards.
Visit the website to register: http://www.subconshow.co.uk/
Considering a new software solution for your business? Across our team, we’ve worked on countless software implementations across SME and large companies. In every case the more you prepare, the better the outcome. Prepare and plan your procurement and project implementation with these lessons in mind.
Different people and different departments will have a different outlook on changing systems in your business. You might be ready to drive change and achieve efficiencies, but is the business behind you?
Without team buy-in, short term patience and long term adoption will suffer. The change must be something that is worthwhile in the day to day work that each person carries out.
Some people may not understand how software can enhance their own effectiveness and help the company achieve its goals, but they will be aware of how their own work could be made more efficient. Most people will happily engage in a project that will give them more time for value-added activity, and reduce repetitive chores.
With most people working within a defined function, it can be difficult for them to understand the impact their work as on others. They may even begrudge change that doesn’t impact them, but has huge benefits for customers and profitability.
Get feedback and ideas from across the team and you’ll see greater buy-in.
Most of us drive cars that are sold in various standard configurations. This standardisation makes it easier for the manufacturer to make, so it costs you less. It’s also cheaper to maintain, as your service mechanic will be familiar with the car.
We accept this simplicity in buying cars, so why not our business systems?
When considering software, we’re tempted to ask for special customisation and changes that suit particular processes that have grown up with the business? These changes cost money to define, build and maintain, and they also impact standard parts of the software, potentially preventing access to improvements the developer is making.
Consider examining your processes to reduce complexity and variability. Then figure out how the streamlined versions could be supported by existing software workflows.
This will have two benefits:
1. The software can be delivered faster ‘out of the box’, so you get a return quicker.
2. Enjoy your faster, leaner processes! (And hassle free updates to your software in the future.)
Can you eat an elephant in one bite? I thought not, then why would you try implement a new software system in one go?
It’s hard enough to make a change in business whilst keeping customers happy, and orders fulfilled.
Where are the most obvious weaknesses or inefficiencies in your business? Can you implement change here first, and reduce the risk, and free up time to tackle further challenges?
Often companies do not have strong purchasing and stock management processes. This function is relatively easy to bring into a new system, iron out the kinks in parts/materials coding, supplier lists, purchasing practices and goods received.
Another area is sales order processing. Getting orders out faster, means faster time to cash, but in many businesses this involves excessive paperwork. Making it easier for your sales team to secure orders, and you’ve got a clear success story to engage the rest of the business.
You’ve probably invested heavily in your current accounting software and infrastructure, yet most software vendors have their own version built into their product.
Whether it’s a better option or not, you’ve no choice but to force upheaval on the Finance team as well as your Sales and Ops.
Modern cloud solutions are ready and able to integrate with existing software, whether it’s for accounting, marketing or any other purpose.
So now you can keep what is working, and tackle the core challenges that are really holding you back.
Your data is the lifeblood of the business. Readiness for a new software system relies on having good data to start. Look at your business KPIs and understand what data is essential to you. Most companies are spending time and money recording data that is no longer relevant or useful. Many also maintain multiple versions of the same data in different business silos.
When you think about your processes, how much legacy data collection and duplication can you remove?
Clean, consistent and relevant parts, customer, products and asset data will make your investment in software more powerful.
What will make your customer happy? Probably clear communication, fast delivery, fair pricing and a quality product.
Are your current processes optimised around your customer goals?
For example, think about capturing customer requirements in the sales process. Waste and cost often creep in because inaccurate requirements have made it all the way through to production. Worst case, you don’t find out until the wrong configuration has been delivered!
Help your Sales and Operations teams to define available products, options and upgrades. Quote only what you can deliver. Process orders based on an agreed bill of materials. Build only what has been signed off by the customer.
Start small, solve critical problems and bottlenecks: typically sales order processing, stock management and purchasing involve lots of manual effort. Address these inefficiencies and create time to address wider issues.
Don’t throw everything out and start again. Modern software can and should talk to each other. Make your existing investments work alongside new functionality.
Standard work makes money – how can you take variability out of your business and actually serve your customers better?
Keep your team on board, focus on the vision and how you will get there together.
Download our free eBook “6 Steps to Smarter Business Operations” to get more practical guidance or book a demo of Flowlens.
We’ll be exhibiting at the LAMMA agricultural machinery show, alongside many of the specialist manufacturers and dealers serving this thriving sector.
LAMMA takes place at the East of England Showground, January 16th & 17th.
If you’re involved in making or supplying farm machinery, why not visit us at Stand 218, Hall 2, for a chat about how Flowlens software can take the manual effort out of your sales, supply chain, stock and production processes.
Modern, cloud software can unleash your business potential and long term growth.
For build-to-order manufacturers who are competing for market share, there are many demands on budget. Some will have made investments in legacy systems, while some will have no ERP system at all and rely on spreadsheets.
Long term gains are clear:
Our experience shows that make-to-order companies recognise the benefits of investing in technology that supports and streamlines business processes. The most significant challenge for ERP software is to support effective collaborate across departments, processes and teams, while integrating with existing system that support the business. Effective communication across departments reduces waste, and therefore provides significant cost-savings through enhanced operational efficiency.
In the age of big data, reporting and analytics are another significant challenge for SMEs. It’s essential that data is shared across the organisation and various platforms so relevant reports and analytics can be extracted to inform better business decisions. ERP can address these issues, but many firms struggle if their data is spread across various systems and spreadsheets.
Companies that have updated to joined-up, cloud ERP have been able to reduce costs, and ensure accurate information sharing across the business. This enables sales, operations and after-sales to function efficiently and respond better to customer needs, providing a competitive edge. The benefits for SME’s are clear but what do these firms needs from an ERP software solution?
Our customer research suggests it needs to offer:
By choosing a partner that listens and understands the business and processes you can achieve significant return on investment. While projects such as ERP have a reputation for being protracted and costly, this is now becoming a thing of the past. With the right methodology and support in place, these risk are minimised while maximising the return on investment.
Flowlens provides a common sense and tailored CRM, MRP and ERP platform for build-to-order companies, that supports the customer lifecycle. We create long-term partnerships by listening and understanding your business problems and configure the platform to ensure effective change and return on investment. Customers such as Survitec Group have seen real-world return on investment such as a 40% reduction in manual administrative effort.
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