Customer Relationship Management Software: Changing the Face of Sales Force Management

Mr. Indivar Arora of Precision Testing Machines Private Limited also testifies to the benefits offered by CRM packages. His biggest problem tended to be keeping track of the machines he sold across the country so that he could allocate sufficient resources to their after-sales maintenance. This was easily remedied by SalesMantra. The software helped him maintain a record of sales made by every branch and employee in his company. He was also able to plan the resources he would require to service these beforehand, and build a team of service.

Mr. Sharad Jain, Business Head at FSL Software Technologies dispels some commonly prevalent myths about incorporating CRM packages into sales forces. Past experience has showed us that even a 3 member sales team benefits from having information about each client stored in a common repository with easy access and analysis through recording every piece of information about a client allows the team to offer high quality service based on individual client needs. Web hosted CRM packages offer price their products based on the number of users which limits the cost for such. Efforts are made to ensure a user friendly experience thus limiting the need for prior technical knowledge of any kind. Records maintained prior to adopting these systems can be imported easily minimizing the need to duplicate data.

The biggest misconception about CRM software is that sales forces are adversely affected by the increased transparency in operations creating a ‘Big Brother’ effect. However, in most cases, employees enjoy the freedom of not having to report their activities daily to managers directly or maintaining tedious logs. Employees can get feedback on their handling of clients and related activities, which can be used to enhance their skills. They are also given direct access to higher levels of management, which could create a medium for exchanging ideas and perspectives.

While the number of large service providers offering CRM software in India is still limited, the ready adoption of these tools augurs a significant increase in this number of the near future. The improvement in features and prices that this would bring would have a significant impact on the adoption of such software by every company.