By Victoria Dyke on Mon 12 January 2015 in CRM
I have met with many companies who use their accounts system to store their core customer information.
The problem each one has is that this information then becomes hard to access as accounts systems tend to be limited to, or only used by, a relatively small number of people.
Think back to when you purchased your accounts solution. Your reasons for making this purchase were probably to move your paper based accounts to a system that would do much of the work, and store a history of this for you. It is likely if not a certainty that there was no requirement for the system to provide your sales team with the valuable information that would help them on a sale.
But, without the right information to hand your sales team end up…
1) Working from static information (price lists, credit details etc.)
2) Creating duplicate and out of date information
3) Developing external quotes that need rekeying (an error prone and time consuming task)
4) With a limited amount of sales functionality – after all accounts systems are designed for account functions.
Your accounts system is usually the most up to date, reliable source of customer information in a business. However, the limited sales functions and restricted access tends to mean… Sales teams export data to locally stored spreadsheets that ultimately results in out of date, hard to manage data.
Your sales team don’t need access to everything in your accounts system. In fact, it’s pretty risky to give more than just the critical departments the ability to directly update your accounts information. However, by integrating your accounts solution to a sales specific solution, your sales team can use the elements that are relevant and helpful to them. They can generate quotes and orders, view product and pricing information (including many special pricing options), see current stock levels, sales history, customer on-stop details and credit ratings, all of which are taken directly from the accounting system without giving direct access.
The information in your accounts system is safe and your sales teams have access to the information they need and the right functionality.
ProspectSoft CRM offers unparalleled integration to Access Dimensions, Exchequer, Pegasus Opera and Sage 50, helping you improve your business efficiency and offer a better service by allowing all users to access this important information in a user-friendly format.
To find out more about improving your processes and making the right information available to the right people drop us an email or give our consultants a call on 01494 486301.