Do you feel like you’re not getting the results you want from your sales efforts? Investing in a CRM (or Customer Relationship Management) system for HVAC sales can make your sales activities more efficient, effective, and profitable.
That’s true for both small companies looking to grow, and for larger ones looking to improve their operations.
What exactly is a CRM system?
Simply put, a CRM collects data about all your interactions with prospects and customers in a single place (typically stored in the cloud). Having that data at your fingertips has many benefits for your business, including making your sales and marketing more efficient, helping you make better decisions, and growing revenue and profits.
Over time, a CRM can be integrated with your existing systems (including email, marketing, accounting, and ERP) and shared by multiple departments within your organization to coordinate their efforts and improve customer experience.
However, most smaller businesses begin by implementing a CRM for the sales team. Here’s why you should consider doing so.
Benefits of using a CRM for HVAC sales
Get organized
A CRM system keeps a record of every sales interaction, including calls, emails, proposals sent, and deals closed. It keeps track of all the information you learn about the customer during those interactions, so you don’t have to remember the details of every conversation. You can set reminders to follow up with prospects, so you never have to lose a deal because the sticky-note reminder to call them fell off your desk!
Being organized saves time and helps you accomplish more. This is a big benefit for small companies adopting a formalized sales process for the first time.
Build better relationships
Customers and prospects feel valued and supported when they know you’re listening to them. Recording all your sales interactions in the CRM is a powerful way of listening. Before you talk with a prospect, you can quickly review your notes to learn about their needs and any personal details that can help you connect with them.
Using that information to your advantage creates the best possible customer experience and helps you build relationships that result in more closed sales.
Close more and bigger sales
Using a CRM also helps you to use your time in the most productive way.
Here’s one example. What if you could tell which prospects were most likely to buy, and even which ones were most likely to give you a BIG sale? One of the benefits of using a CRM is something called lead scoring, where you rank prospects according to their sales potential and sales-readiness. Doing this helps you avoid wasting time with prospects who are unlikely to buy, or just not yet ready to buy.
Many times, you know that prospects aren’t ready to buy yet, but you don’t want to lose track of them. And you don’t want to miss that moment when they become ready to buy. So you spend way too much time following up with them (and you might even turn them off and lose the sale altogether).
Having a CRM offers a better alternative: nurturing for early-stage prospects. You can create educational content that answers people’s common questions, and share it with prospects using scheduled, automated emails. That keeps you top of mind and positions you as a helpful resource, while freeing up your time to spend on prospects who are ready to buy now.
Your CRM keeps track of which content your prospects look at, which also helps you understand their needs and when they are getting closer to making a purchase decision.
Increase the lifetime value of current customers
When you’re focused on bringing in new customers, it’s easy to overlook the low hanging fruit: your current customer base. A CRM helps you stay in touch with your existing customers so they stay loyal. It also helps you identify opportunities to sell them new products and services that meet their needs.
Benefits of a CRM for HVAC owners & managers
Improve sales management with accurate HVAC sales data
Without a record of your team’s sales activities, it’s nearly impossible to improve how you do things and get better results. Having a CRM tracking the details of your sales team’s actions helps you in many ways:
- Make sure team members are following up appropriately with prospects and leads
- See which salespeople are most successful at closing deals (and what type of deals)
- Help you understand your buyers’ journey (the process your customers go through to make a purchase decision)
- Understand where in the process deals are most likely to fall apart
Having this information can help you adjust your process to improve results.
In fact, one of the most common reasons your sales staff may be failing is the lack of an organized sales process. When you implement a CRM, you’ll need a carefully thought out sales process to get the most out of your new system. It takes some work, but there’s no question that results are worth the effort.
Make better decisions
In addition to storing detailed records so they are easy to access, your CRM makes it simple to analyze your data using built-in reports and dashboards. You can make smarter decisions with accurate analytics that reveal insights like these:
- Where your sales process is weak
- Which of your products and services your target audience is most interested in
- Which lead sources deliver the most sales
- Where your prospects are getting tripped up in their purchase process
CRM reports and dashboards help management keep a finger on the pulse of sales activity, and quickly respond with strategic changes where needed.
Boost revenue and profits
All of the benefits of using a CRM for HVAC sales ultimately lead to one thing: bringing in more revenue for your business. However, it’s not only top-line growth you can expect to achieve by using a CRM. Efficiency improvements also mean you can do more with the same resources, you’ll likely see increased profits even when you factor in the cost of the system.
More information to help you grow your business
Check out more helpful content for HVAC business owners and managers here.
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