Email Marketing: a powerful tool to achieve your business goals.

Email Marketing

Email marketing or emailing consists of communicating through emails to a database of contacts, such as your potential customers or leads. It is considered a digital communication strategy and is a direct marketing channel.It is one of the most effective tools to reach the audience and increase sales. By sending personalized and relevant emails, we can improve engagement with our customers and build loyalty.
CRM hygiene: Why it is important and how to take care of it to boost your business results

Boost your Marketing and Sales Strategy with the best software tools.

Marketing and Sales Strategy

Boost your Marketing and Sales strategy with the best software tools. Marketing and Sales strategy with the Currently, advances in software development have transformed the world and its impact on our daily lives is remarkable. In the world of sales and marketing software, there are several categories that offer specialized tools to help companies automate, optimize, and improve their marketing and sales strategies.
CRM hygiene: Why it is important and how to take care of it to boost your business results

Mapping the customer experience: how to get a complete view of your journey.

Mapping the customer experience

A Customer Journey Map is a visual representation of the path a customer follows from the first contact with a brand to becoming a loyal customer.
In this article, we will talk about how this tool can help companies improve the experience of their customers throughout the entire purchase process. By analyzing customer emotions, thoughts, and actions at each stage of the journey, companies can identify opportunities to improve the customer experience and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. So let's dive into the world of Customer Journey Mapping and find out how it can transform the way we interact with customers!
Schedule a video call with our team of experts and get a free initial consultation that will help you understand your next steps in your inbound marketing strategy... Find out how to offer a personalized experience to your customers throughout their purchase journey .
CRM hygiene: Why it is important and how to take care of it to boost your business results

Boost your Marketing and Sales Strategy with the best software tools.

Marketing and Sales Strategy

Boost your Marketing and Sales strategy with the best software tools. Marketing and Sales strategy with the Currently, advances in software development have transformed the world and its impact on our daily lives is remarkable. In the world of sales and marketing software, there are several categories that offer specialized tools to help companies automate, optimize, and improve their marketing and sales strategies.

Mapping the customer experience: how to get a complete view of your journey.

Mapping the customer experience

A Customer Journey Map is a visual representation of the path a customer follows from the first contact with a brand to becoming a loyal customer.
In this article, we will talk about how this tool can help companies improve the experience of their customers throughout the entire purchase process. By analyzing customer emotions, thoughts, and actions at each stage of the journey, companies can identify opportunities to improve the customer experience and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. So let's dive into the world of Customer Journey Mapping and find out how it can transform the way we interact with customers!
Schedule a video call with our team of experts and get a free initial consultation that will help you understand your next steps in your inbound marketing strategy... Find out how to offer a personalized experience to your customers throughout their purchase journey .

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Tabla de Contenidos

Tabla de Contenidos

Tabla de Contenidos

Ready to take the next step?
Schedule a call with us and discover how we can help you transform your business
Has the information shared been useful to you?
Would you like to discover how we can help you?... We all learn together. At CasandraSoft we are committed to helping you
Ready to take the next step?
Schedule a call with us and discover how we can help you transform your business
Ready to take the next step?
Schedule a call with us and discover how we can help you transform your business
Has the information shared been useful to you?
Would you like to discover how we can help you?... We all learn together. At CasandraSoft we are committed to helping you
Ready to take the next step?
Schedule a call with us and discover how we can help you transform your business

CRM hygiene why it is important and how to take care of it

A team specialized in RevOps technologies can:

  1. Help Marketing, Sales and Post Sales teams raise their revenue to another level with our experience in RevOps Technologies. No more manual work!
  2. Automate your Marketing, Sales and Post Sales pipelines and workflows, tell us what you have in mind and we will take care of the rest.
  3. Integrate all your Lead Sources and tools for centralized management of Contacts, Leads, Opportunities and Clients in the CRM and we also reduce your duplicate information by 20%.
  4. In short, our team will be your ideal partner to increase conversions and improve the customer experience with automation and skill.

A professional in RevOps technologies, in addition to gathering a series of aptitudes and attitudes to correctly carry out their work, must never forget their functions and ethics to carry them out.

When it comes to RevOps (also known as Revenue Operations) and technology, most organizations already have the required software in their technology stack to support the process, but those just starting out will likely need the help of experts in these technologies to implement them. in your organization.

There are five categories that every company must have in order to properly engage and serve their customers:

  • Software for Service
  • Software for Sales
  • Software for Marketing
  • Middleware Software
  • Intelligence Software

With this service we help you, among other things, to select the technological stack that will help your organization to obtain the maximum revenue with the best buying experience for your customers. The selection of technologies will depend on your type of company (B2C / B2B), the market segment to which it belongs, the industry and your current revenue, among other things.

We also advise and/or execute the implementation and enablement of the selected technologies. As consultants we help you solve problems and pain points in your current processes through the technology you use for any of your Marketing, Sales and Service processes.

When contracting the consulting service, you will be assigned an expert in RevOps technologies in each case and you will be billed for the hours dedicated at the end of each service.

Expert team in RevOps technologies

While consulting is a specific service with a specific objective or need of your organization, the Dedicated Expert Team will develop an entire implementation and/or improvement program for your organization.

Are you ready to change your customer experience forever? Aligning your technology stack with your customer lifecycle operational workflow is not just a quick fix; it is an investment in the overall success of your business. Aligning the technology stack increases each team member's and sales organization's visibility into past conversations and key information used to advance the prospect relationship through the conversion funnel and into their ongoing experience with the prospect. the client.

This service is based on a minimum commitment of 100 hours per month for a minimum of 3 months included in the Starter Plan. During the duration of the program we will work as an extension of your team so that the results rise to the next level.

Here are some tools in our Tech Stack:

Integration / Middleware

  1. Zapier

CMS for Sitio Web

  1. Webflow

Marketing Automation

  1. Active Campaign
  2. Salesforce
  3. Hubspot Marketing Hub

CRM

  1. Active Campaign
  2. Hubspot
  3. Salesforce

Sales Automation

  1. Outreach
  2. Hubspot Sales Hub
  3. Active Campaign
  4. Salesloft Sales
  5. Salesforce

Marketing and Sales Intelligence

  1. Zoominfo
  2. Gong
  3. Chorus
  4. Apollo.io
  5. Qualified
  6. Clearbit

Engagement and Support

  1. Hubspot Service Hub
  2. Zend Desk
  3. Salesforce Cases
  4. Totango
  5. Salesloft Engage
  6. Jira

Collaboration

  1. Slack
  2. Microsoft Teams
  3. Google Workspace
  4. Microsoft 365
  5. Zoom
  6. Google Meet
  7. Asana
  8. ClickUp
  9. Jira

The value of an external consultant

How it is explained on the Creative Design website “The external vision of an online consultant or external advisory, in many cases helps to give dynamism to the internal team and, best of all, to provide a new perspective.”

To understand the point, we must first define consultancy in this area: “A consultancy is an external service that is contracted to solve specific problems. Therefore, it consists of having the knowledge and experience of a professional in a certain field in a timely or even sustained manner.”

What can an external consultant contribute?

We can provide your Marketing team or department with the following elements:

  • Perspective
  • Analysis
  • Experience
  • Mediation

Medium/long-term strategic consulting

This type of strategic consulting service is designed to work for a fixed period of time. It is focused on professionals or companies that need a broad orientation to reorient their strategies to the new objectives. It implies working in practically all the functions that a consultant offers, and establishing a very close relationship between this professional and the company. Although working externally, in these cases the consultant becomes a key player in the business.

How do we do it?

Our work methodology applies to any of the consulting services we perform, including custom software development, website development, application development and the implementation of technological solutions for Marketing and Sales.

We love Agile, Scrum and Lean, so we try to apply their principles and practices in our process. We follow the three pillars of Scrum:

  • Transparency
  • Inspection
  • Adaptation

And we complement it with these three principles:

  1. Good collaboration, good communication.
  2. Deliver high-quality value faster and faster
  3. Experimentation and continuous improvement

This is our process

Preliminary Study and Offer

In this stage, an initial meeting is held with the client to understand their needs and begin to analyze the feasibility of the project, the budget, the areas of interest and the main requirements that the solution must meet.

We use questionnaires or interviews to collect all the information that will allow us to prepare the Preliminary Study and Offer to the client.

All this for free and without obligation. Once an agreement is reached, we start the project.

Establish an Initial Roadmap

This is the stage where together we prepare a Roadmap of the solution or solutions to be developed. For this we must schedule a workshop with key members of the team to identify technology gaps and start creating a roadmap based on their priorities, requirements and pain points.

Tech Stack Selection

Once we know your process and your needs, we will design a technological proposal tailored to your needs. This is a very important stage as selecting the wrong technologies can affect the success of the project, while selecting the right technologies can help reduce costs and implementation times.

Team Assignment

We already have an initial roadmap and technology stack, the next step is to select the best team to carry them out. For this, a match is made between the skills required for the implementation of the roadmap and our consultants. According to the contracted plan and the project budget, the team and the roles that each member will play are selected.

Kick-off and Onboarding

The kick-off is the meeting that will start the execution of the program or project where we will present the team with the client and where the communication channels, the work system, the frequency of the check-in meetings as well as our initial plan will be established.

At this stage we also need to enable our team access to new and/or existing tools. Some knowledge transfer of existing tools and processes (ex: workflows, sequences, automations, properties, documentation, etc.) may be required.

Execution

From here all the stages begin to develop iteratively and incrementally. We deliver value to the client in short frequencies of time and manage priorities based on each feedback. As part of the execution, the Roadmap and the Backlog are updated as the program progresses. The design of the solution as well as its implementation, testing, deployment, maintenance and documentation are activities inherent to this stage. From this stage we refine, plan and execute all tasks that are broken down from the roadmap into Sprints of 15 days duration.

Delivery and closing

In the event that our contract comes to an end, we will initiate a handover process for the transfer of any work in progress, the documentation generated during the execution time of the program and, if necessary, we will transfer knowledge to your team.

Testing or QA service for software applications and websites

Guarantees the execution of the different levels of tests of the system(s) to be tested.

In the case of the service offered by CasandraSoft, the specialists design the test cases and define a Test Plan to release the software product according to the defined criteria and quality attributes (required by the client and recommended by our quality specialists).

Recommended international techniques and standards are used, as well as test automation in the first levels of testing. To request information about our services Contact us.

QA testing of applications, websites and software

The term QA refers to Quality Assurance, that is, quality assurance. This can be applied to products and services that are manufactured or provided. However, quality assurance goes beyond process supervision, as one might think.

Software tests are empirical and technical investigations whose objective is to provide objective and independent information on the quality of the product to the interested party or stakeholder. There are different software development models, as well as testing models.

QA Tester (Quality Assurance) is a quality insurer. It is a professional profile oriented mainly to the measurement of the quality of the processes used to create a quality product and of the product itself (software in our case), all of them aimed at preventing errors during the product development process and detection after product development.

One of the objectives of the system testing phase is to verify that the external behavior of the software system satisfies the requirements established by the clients and future users of the system.

Model-Based QA Testing Services

We use two fundamental test models. To hire this service you must specify the model(s) you wish to hire and depending on your choice will be the cost, time, assigned specialists and work methodology. The process itself is based on an adaptation of the ISO/IEC 25000 (SquaRE) standard. It is used as a methodological basis for the evaluation of the software product. In its different stages, it establishes a framework for evaluating the quality of software products, also providing metrics and requirements for their evaluation processes.

TADS model (test as a service for development)

In this model, our specialists become part of your development team, even remotely. From the beginning of your project, the specialist or specialists are assigned depending on the magnitude of the project. They must be aware of the analysis, design and development of the project and can be summoned to participate (if not possible in person by videoconference) in the project meetings where impact issues for the testing process are discussed.

As part of this model, from the moment the first requirements begin to be drawn up, the Tester QA will begin to design and install the entire test environment, promoting automation for unit tests by developers, continuous integration and automation of functional, load and stress tests.

After the detailed specification of the requirements, it will be in charge of designing the functional or acceptance test cases depending on the development methodology. At the end of deliveries, sprints, iterations, these manual tests will be executed as a final filter at the functional level. In the last phases, the non-functional test cases will be designed and executed.

This model guarantees the prevention of a large number of errors as well as the detection and correction of incidents during development, but it does not constitute a final quality certificate or evaluation.

TAES model (Tests as an evaluation service for delivery)

This model is based on defining a set of levels and types of test to validate the deliverable product or software meets the quality criteria defined in a norm or standard.

We have three assessments included in the service based on this model:

  1. Evaluation of the specification of requirements according to the IEE 830 standard (We do not certify, we only evaluate following the quality levels defined in this standard)
  2. Evaluation of the software product or component of the software product (deliverables) according to the ISO/IEC 25000 SQuaRE standard (We do not certify, we only evaluate following the quality levels defined in this standard)
  3. Evaluation of user documentation (Manuals, Guides, etc) according to the IEEE Std 1063-2001 standard (We do not certify, we only evaluate following the quality levels defined in this standard)
Agile Testing Pruebas Manuales y Automáticas

Agile Testing Manual and Automatic Testing

Types of tests by their execution

Manual tests

They are those executed by the tester manually following a previously designed test case and documenting the incidents detected.

Automatic tests

They are those executed by a tool for automatic tests that are usually in charge of registering the incidents detected and providing execution reports.

Test Approaches

White Box Testing

White box testing (also known as glass box testing or structural testing) focuses on the procedural details of software, so its design is closely tied to the source code. The test engineer chooses different input values ​​to examine each of the possible execution flows of the program and make sure that the appropriate output values ​​are returned (More on Wikipedia).

Black box tests

In software testing, knowing a specific function for which the product was designed, tests can be designed to show that said function is well performed. Said tests are carried out on the software interface, that is, on the function, acting on it as a black box, providing some inputs and studying the outputs to see if they match the expected ones (More on Wikipedia).

Classification of tests according to what they verify

Test levels

We can consider the functional testing process as a process where the lowest level is initially tested and components are gradually integrated and tested until a fully tested complete system is achieved. That is why it is said that there are different levels of tests. It starts with the unit tests, then the integration tests, then the system tests, the smoke tests, the alpha, the beta and finally the acceptance tests.

Regression tests can be considered as the execution (normally automatic) of the tests already carried out so far.

Functional testing

A functional test is a test based on the execution, review and feedback of the functionalities previously designed for the software (functional requirements). There are different types such as:

  • Unit tests
  • Component tests
  • Integration tests
  • System tests
  • Smoke tests
  • Alpha tests
  • Beta tests
  • Acceptance tests
  • Regression tests

Non-functional tests

A non-functional test is a test whose objective is the verification of a requirement that specifies criteria that can be used to judge the operation of a system (non-functional requirements) such as availability, accessibility, usability, maintainability, security, performance. We can classify non-functional tests according to the type of non-functional requirement they cover:

  • Compatibility tests
  • Security tests
  • Stress tests
  • Usability testing
  • Test of performance
  • Internationalization and localization tests
  • Scalability tests
  • Maintainability tests
  • Installability tests
  • Portability tests

At CasandraSoft we are committed to helping companies improve their productivity and reduce manual tasks in their business processes. A key tool to achieve this is Automy, a business process automation platform that we have adopted as our tool of choice.

Automy enables businesses to automate repetitive and tedious tasks such as email management, reporting, and record updates, saving valuable time and resources. Plus, the platform is easy to use and integrates with a variety of popular apps and services, like Salesforce, Slack, and Google Drive.

As Automy partners, at CasandraSoft we are highly qualified to help companies implement this tool in their business processes. We can advise on setting up automations, help improve and optimize existing processes, and provide training so your team can get the most out of Automy.

Get to know Automy

One of the most flexible No-Code automation platforms for your company. An innovative solution that allows you to digitally transform any manual process.

More effectiveness, fewer errors

AUTOMY allows you to automate the monitoring and execution of operational tasks, allowing the worker to focus on activities that generate value in terms of professional development for him and his company.

Some processes that our clients automated

1- Entry of person.

2- Purchases of goods and services.

3- Automation of accounting records.

4- Follow-up of business opportunities.

5- Self-generation of contracts.

6- Compliance with the ISO standard.

7- Surrender of expenses.

8- Management of parts table.

Functions for automated processes

1- Smart reports: Design and management of BI (Business intelligence) reports with predictions and updates.

2- Internal connections: Fully configurable connections and without the need to implement code (No-Code) in the automation processes.

3- Document management: Management and generation of documents with digital signature.

4- Automation: Design of No-code Workflows with data modeling functionalities.

5- To-Do's: Tasks and pending control with multi-device SLA's (Service Level Agreements).

6- Integration with Azure AD: Authentication based on SSO (Single Sign On) with integration to AzureAD.

In summary, Automy is a key tool to improve productivity and reduce manual tasks in business processes. At CasandraSoft, as Automy partners, we are ready to help companies implement this tool and obtain the best results.

Revenue operations, also known as RevOps, is the process of aligning sales, marketing, and customer success teams to drive revenue growth. It is a critical function for any company looking to optimize their revenue streams and improve overall performance. In this post, we will discuss some of the best practices for revenue operations and the technologies that can be used to implement them in your company.

Align sales, marketing, and customer success teams

One of the most important aspects of revenue operations is aligning the efforts of these teams to ensure they are working towards a common goal. This includes developing a clear understanding of the customer journey and ensuring that each team is equipped with the right tools and processes to support it. To align these teams, companies can use technologies such as Salesforce, Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, Hubspot, Zend Desk and use them as a central platform to manage the customer data and align the efforts of the different teams.

Optimize your CRM

Your CRM is the backbone of your revenue operations, and it is essential to optimize it to ensure that your teams are working efficiently. This includes customizing the CRM to meet your specific needs, integrating it with other tools and systems that your teams use, and training your teams to use it effectively. For example, Salesforce, is a popular CRM for companies of all sizes, it allows for customization and integration with other tools such as Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, Hubspot, Active Campaign, and more.

Measure and analyze performance

To optimize revenue operations, it is essential to measure and analyze the performance of your teams. This includes tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as lead conversion rates, customer lifetime value, and more. This can be done by using data visualization and business intelligence tools that allow you to track and analyze your data in real-time, such as Tableau, Looker, and Power BI.

Implement technology to automate processes

Automation is key to streamlining revenue operations and reducing manual errors. This includes using marketing automation tools, sales productivity software, and other technologies that can help your teams work more efficiently. This can include automating tasks such as lead generation, lead nurturing, and lead scoring with tools that we have mentioned before. It can also be used to automate repetitive tasks such as data entry, data cleaning and data analysis with tools like Alteryx, Talend, and Informatica.

Get expert help

Implementing revenue operations can be challenging, and it may be helpful to have expert guidance. Our team of consultants at CasandraSoft Tech Solutions can help your company with the challenges that you may have with your sales and CRM technologies. We can help you with the implementation of Salesforce, the customization of Salesforce, the integration of Salesforce with other tools and the optimization of your Salesforce processes. We can also help you with the implementation of other marketing and sales tools such as Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, Hubspot, Active Campaign, Pipedrive, and more.

Conclusions....

In conclusion, revenue operations is a critical function for any company looking to optimize their revenue streams and improve overall performance. By aligning sales, marketing, and customer success teams, optimizing your CRM, measuring and analyzing performance, implementing technology to automate processes, and getting expert help, you can improve the efficiency of your revenue operations and drive growth for your company. With the right strategies and tools in place, you can create a revenue operations team that will help you achieve your revenue goals and drive growth for your business.

In addition to improving the work of your marketing and sales teams, CRM data hygiene streamlines your internal processes. Improve communication and data sharing between departments, minimize human error, and allow your internal experts to focus on revenue-generating tasks.

What is CRM?

Customer relationship management or CRM is a strategy for managing all of a company's relationships and interactions with its potential and existing customers. A CRM system helps companies stay in touch with customers, streamline processes and improve profitability.

When we talk about CRM, we usually mean a CRM system, a tool used for contact management, sales management, productivity, and much more. The goal of a CRM system is simple: improve all the interactions that support your business. In fact, CRM solutions help you deliver a great customer experience throughout their entire lifecycle, at every interaction from marketing, sales, e-commerce, and customer service.

What does CRM software do?

CRM software records customer contact information such as email, phone, website, social media profile, etc. You can also enter other information, such as recent news about company activity, as well as store details such as a customer's personal preferences regarding communications.

The CRM system organizes this information to provide you with a complete record of individuals and companies so that you can better understand their relationships over time.

CRM software improves customer relationship management by creating a comprehensive customer view by capturing their interactions with the business and displaying the information needed to have better conversations with customers.

Why is CRM important and how to use it correctly?

CRM allows a company to deepen its relationships with customers, customer service users, colleagues, partners, and suppliers.

Building good relationships and following up with leads and customers is crucial to customer acquisition and retention – this is the concept behind CRM. You can see it all in one place: a simple customizable dashboard that can show you a customer's past history with you, the status of their orders, outstanding customer service issues, and much more.

Importance of using CRM correctly

Today, many companies spend too much time manually entering data into their CRM. This, of course, generates errors and prevents your teams from spending valuable time developing their activities. Imagine your sales team, for example, spending a considerable number of hours per month manually entering data into your tools. Doesn't sound very encouraging, especially when at least 30% of sales-related activities could be automated.

Teams in any organization—marketing, sales, service, or revenue management—shouldn't accumulate manually updated spreadsheets, create decentralized reports, or collect data in disparate ways. This represents a waste of time. On the contrary, they should devote their efforts to decision-making based on reliable reports to support business growth.

In this context, a CRM platform that does not serve as a single source of reference It represents a risk for any organization. In the same way, half-automated processes report inaccurate data, and data silos do not contribute to the correct operation of the company, since decisions are made based on inaccurate data.

Unify your data system

As businesses transform, systems that worked great for a small organization start to fail. In rare cases, it is a total or catastrophic failure. However, each team develops its own, more complex processes, the data is isolated and the efficiency decreases to a certain point, in such a way that what used to work very well, today is the cause of problems.

To grow with the business, operations teams need solutions that involve them in that growth from the beginning. That solution is a CRM, of course.

Whether you're part of a core revenue management team or running operations for a single department, you need to have unified processes and tools that connect applications, organize customer data, and automate business processes. This will allow you to have an effective, aligned, and flexible organization. And, consequently, a first-class experience for the customer.

Consider revenue management teams, for example: With a unified system, the revenue management team can align around reliable numbers and more effectively predict revenue. The implementation of an operations strategy and the dismantling of information silos can generate results that are more consistent with the business objective.

But how do you know which solution is the right one? Or where to start? One of the critical components that any operations and revenue management solution must have is, without a doubt, the ability to eliminate friction in the processes.

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How do we reduce friction in processes?

One of the easiest ways is through data synchronization, which is one of the axes that simplifies the joint operation of different systems.

Most companies store data in several tools, and if these do not communicate with each other, the data is isolated, forming silos or closed compartments to which only a few people in strategic positions in the company have access. In terms of security, this may sound very good, but it is detrimental to the operation of a company, due to the friction that it produces between processes and areas when looking for the circulation of said data.

With bi-directional and real-time synchronization strategies, the data can always be synchronized in your CRM, which guarantees you continuous access to accurate and updated information.

With data integration solutions it is very easy to completely eliminate friction in your business processes since it allows the connection between applications thanks to its technological ecosystem; it also allows the databases to be synchronized all the time; And, as if that were not enough, the synchronization options are completely customizable.

So, so that your business data can go from one place to another without any friction caused by a process, it is important that you develop automation strategies that allow you to consult the data in real-time.

In this way, your decisions will no longer depend on potentially outdated data. To guarantee that your data is automatically updated in your single source of reference (your CRM), it is best to change the way you treat the data.

Data hygiene should be a priority for your company

Data quality is not only related to technology: to a large extent, the cleanliness or hygiene of the databases guarantees said quality. This consists of the cleaning, maintenance, and continuous review measures of the databases, which are the computer heritage of your company.

Some advantages of data hygiene are:

  • Guarantees the company's investment in technology: by having accurate and updated data you have a wider margin for an optimal return on investment. Keep in mind that it will cost you $1 to clean a record when it has just been entered into your CRM; $10 to clean it up afterward and $100 to do nothing (since you will have lost revenue).
  • Optimize the resources of each department: give your marketing, sales, service, and other operations teams all the information they need to give the best experience and achieve the highest productivity.
  • Reduce business process times: for example, your agents won't have to verify data repeatedly, which will allow them to resolve for more customers, help them close a deal, or give them more personalized service.
  • Strengthen the decision processes in the company: your directors, managers, and other decision-makers will have the base of the precise information to guide the course of the business.

If a company cannot guarantee the quality of the data, the teams cannot have visibility or access to the statistics of the activity carried out by the collaborators for subsequent decision-making, risk analysis, and improvement measures.

Ways Poor CRM Hygiene Affects Your Sales Team:

  1. Bad sales data means reps can't focus on creating good experiences for prospects.
  • Sales need to be able to clearly see each step of a prospect's journey. If they can't see it, how else can they deliver a good experience? That's why it's important for all departments in an organization to consider the buyer's journey.
  1. Bad sales data discourages reps from continuing to maintain good CRM data hygiene.
  • Lack of trust in CRM is a self-fulfilling prophecy: when reps know they won't get value from it, they won't continue to add value by updating CRM.
  1. Bad sales data waste reps' valuable sales time.
  • Bad news: Sales reps don't spend a lot of time selling — just 28 percent, according to Salesforce.

And a quarter of reps say frequent CRM updates take time away from selling. It's not just because they're busy updating the platform, but they're also answering questions from other stakeholders who want up-to-date information.

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How can the different functions of a company benefit from the use of CRM?

While the importance of CRM has traditionally been linked to being a sales and marketing tool, some of the biggest gains can be made in other areas, such as customer service, HR, and more. HH., supply chain, and partner management.

Here's how different functions of a business can benefit from using CRM:

  • Sales teams can use CRM to better understand the sales process.
  • Sales managers can access reliable information about the progress of each team member in meeting their sales goals, for example, and view the performance of sales teams, products, and campaigns at a glance. individual level.
  • Sales reps benefit from reduced administrative work, a deeper understanding of their customers, and the opportunity to spend more time selling and less time entering data.
  • Marketing teams can use CRM to make forecasting easier and more accurate.
  • They can gain clear visibility into each opportunity or lead, and map out the entire customer experience from inquiry to sale, giving them a better understanding of the ongoing sales process or potential future jobs.
  • It is also possible to include information about customers' social media activity: what they like and dislike, as well as their feelings about certain brands and companies.
  • Customer service teams can effectively control conversations across different channels.
  • A customer might raise an issue on a channel, say Twitter or Facebook, but then switch to email, phone, or live chat to resolve it privately.
  • Without a common platform for customer interactions, communications can get lost in the volume of information, resulting in an unsatisfactory response to a valued customer.
  • Supply chain, procurement, and partner management teams can better manage relationships.
  • They can keep track of meetings with vendors and partners, record requests made, add helpful notes, schedule follow-ups, and stay on top of planned next steps.
  • Reporting allows companies to compare supplier efficiencies and manage the entire supply chain more effectively.
  • The HR team H H. You can use CRM to speed up the hiring process and track employee performance.
  • CRM can help you improve HR functions. H H. by accelerating the onboarding process, automating the candidate management process, analyzing resource needs, and identifying skills gaps, as well as supporting the achievement of staff retention goals.
  • Consolidating all data streams from sales teams, customer service staff, vendors, and social media, and translating it into actionable business insights would be ideal for an organization. A CRM platform allows you to manage these information flows through the different channels without losing track while providing the sales team, customer service, marketing, and more with an integrated vision.
  • The implementation of a CRM in a company is a critical moment because it is when the current processes must be modified and adapted to the new philosophy of CRM, which is not just a program, but rather a way of guiding all processes toward the future. customer.

Discover in this Guide everything you need to know so that the process of implementing a CRM in your organization is a success!

CTA CRM IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE

Conclusions

In summary, it is not enough to invest in the appropriate technology for your company with a view to creating a single source of reference that allows the connectivity of data from each operational area of ​​your company. After this, the most important thing is to take care of the hygiene of your data as a business priority.

Automation and two-way data synchronization eliminate manual data entry by your team members, giving them more time to do their jobs and allowing you, as a business leader, to reduce operating costs and the risks of having inaccurate reports or information silos. For this, it is vital to be certain about the way in which the CRM integrates with the other tools.

In recent years automation has been the buzzword. However, the idea of ​​automation goes back decades, and perhaps even to the dawn of the industrial age. The realization that revenue and profit are closely linked to consistency and efficiency has meant that whenever the opportunity to do things better, faster, cheaper and without errors arises, it must be seized with both hands. In fact, companies that do not automate are outperformed in their markets in the long run.

Business Process Automation (BPA) and other forms of automation processing are not new in today's business world. We have changed filing cabinets, which used to fill an entire office, for databases. Jobs are now data entry jobs done from home. And human resources do much of their work through HR software. H H. that are now powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

The automation of business processes allows us to transfer the responsibility of these tasks that reduce productivity to technology. Automating processes in the various business lines helps to reduce bottlenecks, to detect errors in procedures, to improve communication between departments and, ultimately, to achieve objectives more quickly.

Automation is important to improve the competitiveness of a company, since it allows to optimize its processes, reduce costs, increase productivity, reduce errors and achieve greater control of information, among many other benefits.

What is business process automation?

Business process automation is a technology, or rather a set of technologies, used to automate business processes so that they develop autonomously.

It refers to the transformation of business procedures that previously could not be automated due to the processing of unstructured data, which forced them to be carried out manually.

As organizations grow, the number of people, teams, departments, and tasks that need to be coordinated increases. Relying on manual execution and tracking creates bottlenecks and leaves room for small mistakes to become disastrous roadblocks.

Compared to a simple task management platform, BPA helps you create, control and manage complex workflows at scale. The strategy centralizes all the processes that are shaken in your organization in a single portal.

Here are some of the commonly automated tasks within a workflow:

  •    Content Marketing Approvals
  •    Incorporation of new employees or departure of personnel
  •    Review of time off requests
  •    Preparation of sales contracts
  •    Autofill agreements and other documents with information from your CRM
  •    Fill out spreadsheets
  •    Report preparation
  •    Submit a query to an online database
  •    Data validation
  •    Task assignment

As? In general, business process automation helps organizations:

  •    Speed ​​up everyday operations
  •    Make informed decisions faster
  •    Eliminate process bottlenecks
  •    Reduce regulatory risks
  •    Eliminate manual/paper processes

Let's get acquainted with some terms commonly used to describe business process automation.

Business process management (BPM)

The BPM approach involves the evaluation of the company as a whole. The process helps review all business processes, analyze growth, optimize where necessary, and set a new path to improve efficiency, business agility, and revenue generation. At its core, BPM is a strategy for using both automated and manual processes. It focuses primarily on modeling everyday activities.

Business Process Automation (BPA)

BPA is essentially a digital transformation of business processes into simpler, more controlled systems through workflow automation solutions. This automation aims to establish error-free, economically viable, open and streamlined functions across the organization with clearly defined, adaptable, efficient and accessible roles. The process focuses on replacing manual tasks with a seamless and error-free automation approach.

Automation of robotic processes

RPA uses unique and sophisticated robotic programs to automate routine tasks. The difference in this case is that the BPA focuses more on the achievement of instructional codes, but the RPA deals with taking those illustrative steps in the completion of the tasks. These bots mimic human actions like replying to emails, copying and pasting, general administrative tasks, etc. through the use of user interfaces.

How does business process automation work?

BPA occurs whenever an organization automates a process, but workflow solutions are not created equally.

BPA allows multiple applications to "talk" to each other. For example, a member of the marketing team can tie multiple applications together to streamline parts of a workflow, such as adding a new email address to the CRM and a separate email marketing platform.

An effective BPA strategy includes more than a handful of automations that perform tasks scattered throughout your organization. It's a company-wide initiative that extends the benefits of automation to every function and team. When 45% of workers say they are too busy with administrative work to perform the tasks they were hired to do, you can see how important it is to empower every employee with the power of automation.

To manage a large-scale BPA program, organizations turn to business process management.

Automation through software: ERP, BPM and RPA

What automation system to implement? Actually, these softwares complement each other. By automating business processes through ERP software, the most common and standard processes of the value chain are being automated, while from the BPM, more specific management processes are designed that usually respond to particular control criteria of the company.

On the other hand, automation using RPA robot software is compatible with an ERP system. These software robots can interact, just as a human being does, with an ERP system or a specific BPM system.

Of course, all this is not done from one day to the next, the automation and digital transformation of a company is a long and evolutionary process. But it is a process that must be started as soon as possible, a process essential to streamlining business processes and achieving greater productivity in today's competitive business world.

Automation through software: ERP, BPM and RPA

What automation system to implement? Actually, these softwares complement each other. By automating business processes through ERP software, the most common and standard processes of the value chain are being automated, while from the BPM, more specific management processes are designed that usually respond to particular control criteria of the company.

On the other hand, automation using RPA robot software is compatible with an ERP system. These software robots can interact, just as a human being does, with an ERP system or a specific BPM system.

Of course, all this is not done from one day to the next, the automation and digital transformation of a company is a long and evolutionary process. But it is a process that must be started as soon as possible, a process essential to streamlining business processes and achieving greater productivity in today's competitive business world.

BPA vs. BPM: What's the difference?

To better understand BPA, let's take a look at its not-so-distant cousin: business process management (BPM). While BPA is about digitizing and automating a sequence of tasks, BPM is about managing and monitoring those workflows from start to finish.

From a software point of view, BPA does the automation. A BPA platform offers the comprehensive architecture necessary for an organization to consistently manage all the processes it automates. It helps channel tasks across multiple people, departments, and software tools. BPA platforms also give you the ability to cohesively monitor your progress from one central hub.

A process automation platform should be low-code, which means it can be used by workers at all levels. Using drag-and-drop applications that are more like a whiteboard than a coding environment, sales managers and customer service representatives can collaborate on workflow design. These "citizen developers" can easily use advanced technologies such as robotic process automation or artificial intelligence to extend automation beyond basic data collection. Also known as digital process automation, these AI-powered platforms:

  •    Connect legacy systems with third-party software to improve process automation
  •    Leverage third-party AI integrations, machine learning, and robotic process automation (RPA) to perform more complex jobs like reading and extracting information from documents
  •    Making sense of unstructured data
  •    Learn and improve from experience
  •    Improve customer and employee experience
  •    Reduce operating costs and boost revenue

Benefits of business process automation

Minimize costs and avoid errors at the same time. One of the main reasons companies automate business processes is clearly to reduce costs. By automating business processes, some of the available labor can be freed up for other tasks.

Increase quality and ensure consistency in manufacturing, sales or service provision processes. Two factors that ensure that the customer experience is perfect. Everyone wants to continually offer the best products to build trust and loyalty. The automation of sales processes guarantees that all products or services will always meet the same quality standards and the same management and payment facilities.

One of the positive side effects of process automation is the new analysis options. When processing tasks, all processes and their results are logged, so that we get an overview of how many tasks were actually completed and, above all, in what time and with what result.

This data provides a behind-the-scenes look at your business and enables continuous optimization and improvement.

Downloadable eBook on Automation of sales processes in fintech

The rise of AI and machine learning

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are going to play an important role in the future of business process automation. AI-enabled BPM platforms can analyze vast amounts of data in real time, extract insights, make decisions and act without human intervention. This allows them to make decisions faster than humans and with greater precision.

How will AI and ML power automated processes?

Increased efficiency: For example, your organization can use artificial intelligence to automatically route customer inquiries based on their needs, instead of having an employee deal with each one individually. AI-based processes can process endless amounts of data and make decisions faster than is humanly possible. According to McKinsey, AI and ML can increase the value of traditional traditional analytics techniques by between 30 and 128%. This allows companies to streamline their operations while saving money – everyone wins.

Cost reduction: While some see AI as a cutting edge, for many organizations, the benefit lies in strategic planning and analytics investments. A study of the manufacturing industry revealed that 64% of companies that adopted AI throughout the supply chain.

Improving Customer Experience: Among the Top 10 Enterprise AI Use Cases, McKinsey lists four top customer-facing activities: customer service analytics, customer segmentation, product feature optimization, and customer engagement. opportunity generation. With AI, you can deliver personalized experiences that meet individual needs. The best way to do this for companies like yours is to use machine learning algorithms to tailor communications based on tastes or preferences.

Increase productivity: According to PwC, 44% of AI leaders point to "productivity" as the area where they have derived the most value from automation with AI. Companies often need help speeding up project delivery times, especially when projects involve large teams working together on different parts of a project simultaneously across multiple locations or time zones. By automating processes through artificial intelligence, you can track progress against goals over time—and in real time. Be aware of bottlenecks at any stage of the process and let the AI ​​correct the course. Institutional knowledge retention is a point of concern for many organizations: AI bridges the gap by remembering process histories, helping people make decisions about how best to proceed in similar contexts.

When it comes to automating processes, AI-related technologies are transforming every step of the way.

How to know if process automation is for my company?

Process automation is considered a key element in a successful digitization strategy.

In the first step, companies must analyze existing processes, it is important to integrate technologies such as robotic process automation into the existing business process landscape, and develop an automation strategy based on the real needs of each company.

Conclusions:

In short, business process automation can significantly improve a company's efficiency and productivity, while reducing the costs associated with manual work. In addition, it can help free up employee time and resources to focus on more important tasks and strategic.

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