Last month I was sitting in my backyard, sipping on a cold glass of water after a long day at work. I heard a crack behind me, and watched as a large branch from my neighbor’s maple tree fell directly onto his garage, turning his peaked garage roof into a flat garage roof.
It was scary. So scary, that I decided it was time to call a tree service to discuss the costs of removing a large maple branch hanging over my house. We scheduled an appointment, received an estimate, got busy, and in the intervening month we haven’t heard anything from the tree service.
I’m guessing he’s not using a field service sales CRM in his business. Why? Because if he was, he’d be monitoring the status of his estimates and trying to get them to make a decision. Instead, he’s relying on me to call him back, which I haven’t done, and may not do until this fall. His passive sales approach may even cost him my business.
At its core, a field service sales CRM helps you track every prospect as they move through your sales pipeline from a prospect to an estimate to a sale. You can track things like how much the estimate is worth, the source of the prospect (social media, website, referral, etc.), the sales rep, the service request, notes, when the prospect was created, when you sent an estimate, and a lot more. You can then use that information to continue to follow-up with the sales opportunity.
Wondering whether you need a sales CRM in your business? There are certainly a lot of benefits to using one, including:
Sell Faster
As I related earlier, if you’re not using a CRM and following up periodically with your prospects and estimates, you’re relying on the property owner to contact you when they’re ready to buy. If that property owner is like me, they’ll forget or, worse, contact someone else for another estimate.
With a sales CRM, you can quickly create a list of every open estimate you have that is more than 7 days old. Then, you can spend a couple hours calling all of those prospects to get them closer to decision. Even better, if they’ve asked for quotes from a couple of service providers, you’ll keep your name top of mind. Your buyers aren’t stupid - they know that if a service provider keeps following up in the sales process, they are more likely to be proactive when they deliver the service, too. Your sales process is a reflection of your service delivery.
Sell Smarter
Keeping track of everything the property owner has asked is difficult. Tracking who requires follow-up and when isn’t easy. If you’re using paper to track this information, it’s likely a lot of prospects and estimates are falling through the cracks.
But a field service software sales CRM makes tracking that information easy. You can store all that information electronically and retrieve it prior to making a follow-up call or scheduling an estimate. You’ll be able to sell smarter thanks to all the information you’re storing in your sales CRM, which should result in better close rates.
Improve Your Sales Performance
Speaking of better close rates, do you know what percentage of estimates you close? If not, you need a sales CRM. It can help you track information that will help you improve your sales process and your sales performance.
For example, let’s assume you have two sales reps. Sales rep A is closing 75% of his estimates, while sales rep B is only closing 35%. Yet sales rep B's sales generate more revenue. He’s better at closing larger deals, while your sales rep A is better at closing smaller deals.
If you weren’t using a sales CRM, you might know this intuitively, but would you act on it? Seeing the data in your sales reporting can help you improve your sales performance. You may decide to shift more larger sales opportunities to sales rep B. Or you may have sales rep B train sales rep A on how to close large deals. Information is power, and a sales CRM gives you the information you need to improve your sales performance.
Plan Better With Sales Forecasts
How much revenue do you expect to close this quarter? Don’t know? If you don’t, it could seriously impact your business. Closing too little revenue could obviously damage your business. Closing a lot of business could also impact your business if you don’t have the manpower to do the work.
A sales CRM delivers the information you need to create rudimentary sales forecasts that help you project upcoming revenue. Because you are now tracking the dollar value of estimates in your pipeline as well as the likelihood of winning the sales, you can create rudimentary forecasts that give you a good idea what new revenue to expect. For more information about setting up sales forecasts, read this blog post: How to Build a Sales Forecast in Your Green Industry Business.
Now that you know the benefits of a sales CRM, why not get some more opportunities in the door? Check out our free eBook, the 6 Requirements for a Website that Sells.
