Your CRM can remove procedural bottlenecks and alleviate organisational pain points to grow your bottom line. However, like any good tool, it can also hinder productivity if you’re unaware of how to extract the most value from its capabilities.

After a few simple adjustments, your employees will be more productive, and your organisation will be better positioned to create more lasting and meaningful connections with your customers.

Tip #1: Increase Engagement to Increase Profit

It should be no surprise that disengaged customers either do business with you less if they continue doing business with you at all. Fortunately, the Salesforce CRM enables tracking of several metrics you can use to measure engagement. By tracking customers’ known pain points and listening for new ones, your company will be better prepared to remedy issues that could negatively impact your entire client base.

Analyse customer complaints to find trends. Accounts that experience frequent technical issues and general complaints can be flagged by your CRM after setting the appropriate triggers. One study found that a mere 5% increase in retention could lead to as much as a 95% increase in profits. If avoiding negative feedback wasn’t enough, the financial incentives should encourage any company to enhance its tracking and salvage at-risk relationships.

Tip #2: Use Templates

Don’t waste time recreating email templates for common correspondence. Templates provide a consistent tone and add a level of professionalism. Although you should personalise your actual words to the client, the design and format of the email shouldn’t change between each representative.

Templates are especially helpful for running promotions and getting the most out of your autoresponder. With promotions, you have more leeway with canned content, but don’t forget to address the individual customer by their name.

Tip #3: Goes by Name

Calls that begin with, “Only my mother calls me that,” don’t tend to end well. Not everyone goes by their formal name. Show them you’re paying attention, and get in the habit of addressing them correctly. Your CRM provides a feature to include the client’s preferred name so your sales reps can more quickly establish rapport.

Additionally, don’t forget to include any professional prefixes such as Doctor or Colonel. The more information you have available at a glance, the easier it is to connect with your customers and bring them deeper into your funnel.

Tip #4: Add a Hobby Note

Connecting with your customers on a personal level isn’t easy. Once you’ve done it, don’t forget it. Add a checkbox in your Salesforce CRM for a few common hobbies: golf, football, etc. When it comes up in conversation, make a note on the lead so everyone who touches the account can quickly establish similar levels of rapport.

For big-ticket prospects, decision makers across your organisation can start planning a tee time to close the big account. Even if off-site client meetings are outside the purvue of your sales process, the rapport built using those nuggets of insight can pay dividends.

Tip #5: Eliminate Low-Value Accounts

Pareto’s Principle loosely states that 80% of the money comes from 20% of the work. As you fine-tune your tracking, you’ll become more adept at quantifying how much it costs your organisation for each dollar earned by clients.

Drop the clients that cost you more in time than what you earn from their business. Cultivate deeper relationships with your best accounts and spend more time attracting similar clients with insight gleaned from their data. When evaluating time spent servicing clients, take care to remove any inefficiencies stemming from your organisation. Bottlenecks in the process may result in dissatisfaction that’s shared across multiple clients.

Tip #6: Improve Departmental Communication

Ask your sales and marketing teams what information helps them the most. Then, make sure both departments have access to relevant prospect information. Often, one department may have suggestions that will make the other’s job easier, and almost always the increased communication leads to greater productivity and an increase in sales.

Taking advantage of simple features within the Salesforce CRM will enable you to shorten your sales cycle, focus on your best clients, and show your clients that you’re a polished professional organisation. The more you leverage the built-in features and SalesFix services in Salesforce CRM, the more revenue growth you’ll see.