Many manufacturers don’t feel the need to have a CRM due to the fact that they are usually touted as being tools for sales and marketing teams. One of the great features of a CRM, such as Salesforce, is the ability to integrate all departments and vendors while creating a seamless connection between employees and customers. Salesforce goes beyond the sales department to streamline customer service, marketing, finance, partner management, logistics and everywhere in between. In order to keep up with the incredibly personal and attentive world that a flexible CRM creates, you must hop on the bandwagon! If you’re still unsure about how a CRM could benefit your team, keep reading to see the top reasons why every manufacturer needs one.
CRM Benefits for Manufacturers
- Inventory Management, E-commerce, Finance
A CRM is not only great for basic communications between a company and its customers, but it’s also an invaluable tool for managing your inventory, finances, and e-commerce processes throughout your company. Integrating your ERP with CRM allows for full-spectrum visibility across all valuable KPIs for your business. With insight on your finished inventory as well as your shop floor, a CRM provides invaluable information for field sales, manufacturer reps, vendors, order processing, and manufacturers to asses ways to improve the inventory turns and the net availability of products in stock.
- Customer Support
Since CRM provides data for all aspects of your business processes, it can be used as a tool to better support your customer’s needs while communicating with your sales staff. Your customer will be able to access knowledge based articles to self-diagnose resolutions as well as getting real-time status on open trouble tickets. Another way your CRM will transform your customer support is through the data regarding past purchases and interactions. From customer communication to product launches, your CRM will provide next-level engagement with your customer, enticing them to further support your business.
- Increased Sales Pipeline Visibility
A CRM such as Salesforce provides real-time information for availability and ship dates, as well as updates and alerts for problems that need resolution. Having visibility into your entire sales pipelines will allow your manufacturing team to work seamlessly with sales in order to resolve issues and predict trends for the future. Integration with ERPs will also tie the complete supply chain with the forecast and show actual sales in real-time.
- Company-wide Collaboration
Along with sales, your manufacturing team can benefit greatly from the collaboration across departments, whether that be with marketing or project management. Salesforce provides a tool named Chatter, which can provide a space for internal communication about new product releases for example, and other general conversations. Having a collaborative environment is beneficial for manufacturers as they now have insight into the way products are being sold, and are able to connect with teams across the company about data present within the CRM.
- Vendor Management
A CRM allows you to stay connected to your vendor to ensure the highest quality products and on-time delivery through real-time communication. In today’s business world, ensuring that your vendor supports your business needs requires an integrated solution to ensure an efficient process is in place. Allow a tool like Salesforce to schedule and grade your vendors for you, in order to allow your staff to be as efficient as possible.
- Customer Feedback
Ensuring your customer’s satisfaction is critical in today’s business world of social networking. As customers go through their evaluation, purchase, and receipt of products, you can capture and analyze areas for improvements, as well as using the feedback to socialize on your corporate channels.
How Corrao Group Can Help
We have been optimizing business processes since 2002 and have continued to work with numerous clients in fields from manufacturing to finance. We have worked with large and small companies, new and seasoned companies, and everywhere in between. We know how it feels to have a business process in disarray, and we strive to create customized plans for each company that allows them to grow.
Working with Salesforce since 2008, we’ve have seen the invaluable benefits that a CRM can have for companies, especially those in the manufacturing industry. Salesforce allows for streamlining and company-wide visibility into all business processes. With tools such as custom reporting and forecasting enablement, data can be analyzed effortlessly. Salesforce consulting services have been just as important to us as business process optimization, and we strive to help businesses maximize their investments into their CRM.
To learn more about our the benefits of Salesforce and our Salesforce consulting services, visit our Salesforce Services page.
