Sales CRMs have become mission-critical software for sales organizations across a variety of industries thanks to their ability to provide cost-effective improvements in all areas of sales and, in many cases, across company operations as a whole. But not all sales CRMs are created equal, and when selecting a new system for your business, it’s important to know which features will offer you and your team the most utility while also ensuring the best bang for your buck. 

Most customer resource management systems deliver a core set of basic features focused on managing customer data. At an absolute minimum, your sales CRM should offer:

• Centralized, automated lead collection and management
• The ability to easily add notes and attachments to lead accounts
• The ability to launch communication with leads via email from within the system
• An analytics suite providing detailed metrics on lead accounts
• A built-in scheduling system to manage client meetings and interactions
• Built-in invoice creation and billing

Remember that the goal of customer resource management is twofold. First, it aims to use better data management and access practices to improve your relationships with your leads and customers and the quality of service you deliver them. Second, it aims to use centralization and automation to make your sales organization more efficient and more productive. If a sales CRM doesn’t offer the features above at an absolute minimum, it can’t really accomplish either goal. 

However, selecting a sales CRM that delivers the minimum is not a good way to ensure the highest possible return on your investment. Luckily, there are plenty of sales CRMs on the market today that go above and beyond. 

 

Next-Level Sales CRM Features to Look For

To get the most out of your sales CRM, you should look for a platform that offers a wider set of advanced features without driving up the cost. While there are a variety of potential value-added features across the many options on the market today, the following represent three of the most impactful. Adopting a platform that offers these three advanced features will allow your sales CRM to have a larger impact on not only your sales process, but your administration and your cost management as well. 

1) Built-In Power Dialer

A sales CRM is an extremely powerful piece of technology on its own, but when paired with a good power dialer, there is arguably no more impactful sales software available. Many sales CRMs can be integrated with third-party power dialers, but unfortunately, the integration is often limited, ensuring that neither the CRM nor the dialer can reach its full potential. On the other hand, a sales CRM with a power dialer included right out of the box ensures that the dialer and CRM-sides of the system are designed specifically to work together seamlessly, with no bugs, walls, or limitations. Each tool empowers the other, allowing the dialer to feed data into the CRM and the CRM to provide the data agents need to excel on sales calls, with full reporting available on each side. 

2) Payments Integration

The ability to generate invoices and manage billing from within a sales CRM is a basic feature to expect at a minimum, but billing tools can be taken to the next level if a sales CRM also includes the ability to directly handle electronic payments. Sales CRMs with credit card and ACH processing systems integrated out of the box allow agents to not only send invoices but to collect payment as quickly and efficiently as possible, even allowing agents to take card payments through the CRM while on the phone with customers. Accepting payment through the CRM is particularly beneficial for agents in certain areas like telemarketing or collections, where securing payment quickly is an important part of closing a sale, but the feature is beneficial across effectively all industries. CRM-based card payments also allow payment to be made on the web through a sales CRM’s built-in customer portal, and all key sales information is immediately and automatically fed into the system, helping feed the CRM new data in the process. 

3) Zapier Integration

Zapier is an innovative product that allows users to integrate different pieces of software in order to create automated workflows that save time and make tasks easier. Zapier integrates more than 3,000 different applications ranging from Microsoft Office to accounting software to team management tools and just about everything else a business could need. Selecting a sales CRM that integrates with Zapier enhances the CRM’s role as a control hub for your business by allowing you to bring your other important software into that single, centralized point of control. Only some sales CRMs are compatible with Zapier, but for those that are, their functionality can be expanded to almost limitless levels, representing a huge impact on potential ROI, employee adoption, and impact on your business. 

 

CRMDialer is the leading sales CRM on the market today, offering a full set of sales, productivity, and administration features, including a full-featured power dialer, credit card and ACH payments, Zapier integration, and much more.

To see everything CRMDialer can do for your sales organization, reach out to a member of the team or start your no-commitment free trial today.