Strengthen your CRM for faster sign-offs

All hail the CRM – every sales leader knows how critical instant access to real-time customer data is. How much easier is it to build a relationship with a prospect when you have real and relevant information about what they think and what they want? How much more can you do for a customer when you’re on the same page?

As sales teams transition into a hybrid-working world, CRM software is more valuable than ever – but pivotal questions (and opportunities) remain when it comes to connecting with customers, says sales-training leader Ray Makela, CEO of Sales Readiness Group. ‘How are you managing collaboration, communication and the customer experience? How are you sharing documents back and forth? How are you submitting proposals? How are you providing references?’ 

CRM is an invaluable tool – for you and for your customers. But your ability to connect, communicate and collaborate, both internally and externally, are equally valuable. One could go so far as to say that they’re the other half of the customer relationship story, especially in a remote- and hybrid-working world.

Dropbox, along with Dropbox Sign and DocSend, can help you go beyond the capabilities of a traditional CRM. Here’s how:

1. Sync instantly with customers

Let’s say you’re working out contract details with a potential customer. You’re probably not sitting across the table from them going over all the ins and outs. You’re sending comments back and forth; you’re fielding questions left, right and centre; and you’re dealing with changes coming out of the blue. And that’s on a good day.

If you don’t have a simple, centralised place to connect on all of these negotiations, how do you know they’re all being managed? When they’re scattered across 19 different emails from nine different teams, how can you be sure you caught them all?

Eliminate back-and-forth email exchanges. Dropbox syncs your changes as soon as you make them, so all of your Salesforce users will have real-time access to the most recent version of your content. (You can learn more about Dropbox’s integration with Salesforce here.)

2. Keep your team aligned

How are you currently making sure everyone on your sales team is on the same page with your proposal? If one rogue person on your team makes one wrong move (a price change that hasn’t been approved, let’s say), and it goes out, how many things can go wrong? (Answer: lots.) 

Your sales team needs a seamless way to connect and collaborate on your pitches, prices and proposals, and if they don’t have it, all the CRM tools in the world aren’t going to hold everything together. Dropbox can help you stay in the flow through instant file updates and collaboration. 

3. Know how (and when) to follow up

It’s tough to know what your prospects are thinking over a Zoom call – even with all that CRM data. Once you send off the proposal, it’s usually a guessing game as to how interested they really are. 

With DocSend, you can stay in control of the deal thanks to page-by page analytics and granular permissions like email capture, one-click NDAs or password protection. That way you can know which pricing tier within the proposal a prospect is gravitating towards, and whether or not it was shared with other decision-makers across the company. When you know the prospect has spent 80 per cent of their time on pricing option B, it’s much easier to tailor an effective and proactive follow-up conversation to close that deal faster. 

4. Close deals faster

By embedding Dropbox Sign’s electronic signature right into a CRM, companies can put the lengthy print, sign and scan process to bed. Speed up the signing process with a mobile-ready eSignature experience and reminders and notifications. If things change on the fly, you can amend agreements or add signers instantly.

Our new sales eBook Closing from Anywhere highlights how to connect and collaborate with your teams, with your customers, and with your prospects in a hybrid-working world. It shows you how to get your hands on the most relevant information, how to smooth out collaborative processes, how to go behind the scenes and see which parts of your proposal prospects are gravitating towards, and how to speed up the signing process so you can move onto more sales.

It’s a quick read, but it covers a lot of important issues related to CRM and sales – and getting more out of both.