Why Shouldn’t You Use Excel Spreadsheets For Customer Tracking?
For years, we have been using Excel spreadsheets in business life, even customer tracking spreadsheet excels and we can’t ignore that spreadsheets still have some advantages, especially for low budget new businesses.
Excel Spreadsheets are simply not enough.
Most of the companies have been using CRM software for a while. If your organization is still carrying the baggage of traditional ways of doing business, it’s time to switch CRM software. Minimum CRM is your guide in achieving sustainable growth thanks to the well-planned customer relationship management strategy and a customer follow-up program it provides.
Now, let’s see why it can be dangerous to use customer tracking spreadsheets to follow up your clients and how you can avoid these dangerous situations.
1. Risk of data loss
If you have a big team that uses customer tracking spreadsheet excel as the meat and potatoes of their job, it likely means that you have several spreadsheets to check to understand how the job is going. Have you realized that when there is a big team and several spreadsheets, the possibility of data loss is increasing? To prevent data loss, the only thing you can do is pray that every single person is careful about their worksheets, updating them timely and saving every time.But when you use Minimum CRM, you don’t have to worry about a possible data loss. Every data entered into the CRM system is automatically saved. You don’t have to check many customer tracking spreadsheet excels either. In just one click, you can check what everybody works on. Also, Minimum CRM has an exact solution for excuses such as “I never received your email” and all. On the “E-Mail” section, the software allows you to check email history to avoid any kinds of confusion both with your teammates and customers.
2. You can’t customize your Customer Tracking Spreadsheet Excel as CRM
While every business has its own specific needs, the actions you can take regarding customizing your customer tracking spreadsheet excel are quite limited. At this stage, CRM solutions are go-getters. For instance, Minimum CRM is flexible and can be customized for different business sectors by defining special fields within the Minimum CRM modules. The newly added fields allow data entry specific to a particular industry.3. Your spreadsheets can be the biggest time wasters
In work, time management is as important as customer and staff management. When you use your time for assigning tasks to employees, maybe by calling or emailing them, you actually spend more of your precious time than needed. In Minimum CRM, you can use the “Activities” button to create tasks, appointments, or calls. Then, you can easily delegate tasks to each person and notify them via Minimum CRM. You can specify a start and end date. Finally, click on the “Mark as done” button after completion of the work.Additionally, as we mentioned above, if you are working with several spreadsheets, you probably have to check different ones to find what you are looking for. Or, if you are not sure whether your list is updated or not you have to cross-check with your colleagues. Using CRM software, you don’t have to switch spreadsheets, waste time for updates, and so on. There’s no need to say that it’s much easier and quicker to enter and update data on CRM than customer tracking spreadsheet excel. Once it’s done, the data is automatically categorized and reported.
4. Spreadsheets aren’t collaboration-friendly
When everyone has their own customer tracking spreadsheet excel, it requires time to share the data, new tasks, or important notes about a customer. And this doesn’t create an atmosphere full of cooperation for sure.But Minimum CRM lets you share your data and all kinds of work and customer-related activities such as appointments, deals, and emails with the rest of the team. Staying in touch and keeping each other up to date all the time is the key to efficient teamwork. When nobody needs to ask you for the meeting time or the email address of a client, it will be a real weight off for your mind.
5. You can’t measure organizational and individual success through spreadsheets.
As a manager, you know that your company is doing good lately but do you have a clear view of what your sales representatives personally achieve? How do you measure success? Do you check your customer tracking spreadsheet excel at the end of every month and calculate all the sales that have been made by an individual to measure your team’s success? Isn’t it time-wasting and inefficient? There is no longer any need for old fashioned methods at work.Thanks to multifunctional CRMs, you can easily review and analyze your data and get a clear picture of your sales funnel, team efficiency, and more. Minimum CRM provides you with detailed reports, including your deals, products, client companies, tasks, and appointments. You are free to select a particular period of time or just check your weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly reports.
6. You may forget to follow-up your leads during busy working days
Your sales leads are the assurance for the future of your company. In the end, more customers mean more sales. As you already know, it’s not the easiest thing to be sure whether a person is only a time waste or a serious buyer. Until you identify a buyer from a looker, you make many phone calls, email exchanges, and meetings. Thus, you have to keep track of each buyer not to miss them. But how successful are your customer tracking spreadsheet excels in reminding you about them?For example, if you have a buyer who is on vacation and said that he would get back to you in a week, you can set up a reminder on Minimum CRM to not forget about them. Obviously, customer tracking spreadsheet excel can’t be enough.
As far as customer tracking is concerned, it’s evident that CRM solutions are much more efficient than excel customer tracking spreadsheet excel. CRMs minimize human error, support collaboration at work, and prevent risks of data loss. If you still use old methods to run your business, we highly recommend making the switch from a customer tracking spreadsheet excel to a CRM system.
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