Moving forward as the industry revives from its slump, to accelerate the recovery process, new and emerging models need to be deliberate. The industry is still hampered by the loss in demand therefore proactive steps need to be taken by the government to revive consumer confidence as well.

The government has always been proactive for the retail sector and has taken several measures to help create a robust environment that has allowed retail to thrive.

- The government may change Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) rules in food processing in a bid to permit E-commerce companies and foreign retailers to sell Made in India consumer products.
- The government of India has allowed 100% FDI in the online retail of goods and services through the automatic route, thereby providing clarity on the existing businesses of e-commerce companies operating in India.
- The government’s focus to improve digital infrastructure in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets would be favourable to the sector.
39% of company CEOs say a good customer experience is the most effective way of establishing an advantage over competitors.

Customer relationship management in retail can increase customer satisfaction, reduce costs and improve your company’s performance in the marketplace. CRM software manages your relationships with individual customers to create advantages for both parties. To select the appropriate software which includes necessary features, you need to know the working of a CRM and its effects on your retail operations.

### **How will a CRM be helpful for the retail sector?**

### **Segmentation**

CRM helps you gather information about each of your customers, including preferences and demographic data. You can use such information to segment your market and customize your approach to each group of customers. For example, if you have a large number of young families in a segment, you can create a family-friendly retail environment. If your data shows you have many seniors, you can install ramps for wheelchairs and make your store more easily accessible. The effect of segmentation based on CRM data is to adjust your retail strategies according to the customers you have.

### **Promotion**

The data gathered within a CRM system lets you target a market segment with promotions that appeal to its members and individual customers. For example, when you know that a customer is reaching retirement age, you can promote appropriate hobby products. If you see that a customer has visited your website and looked at particular products, you can include promotions of those products in his mails. In this way, CRM reduces promotions that are of no interest to the recipient and increases the relevance of material you send out.

### **Purchases**

A CRM system keeps records of customer purchases and customer service calls. You can keep track of the products each customer has purchased and check for warranty or dissatisfaction issues. This information allows you to send out special offers to customers when the products they have purchased reach the end of their lives. Such a strategy keeps your products in front of the customer when he might need them and gives him the benefit of lower pricing if he buys from you again. On your side, the costs of such a targeted promotion are lower than marketing to a large group and receiving only a few responses.

### **Retention**

The overall effect of CRM is to increase the retention of customers by serving them in a more focused and convenient way. You can further increase this effect by using CRM software to implement customer loyalty programs. Since the applications already track purchases, you can issue reward points and bonuses to keep valuable customers. Such programs help you reduce costs because sales to long term customers are less expensive than sales to new customers.

### **Bottom Line**

The benefits of a CRM in retail are varied and significant. Positive customer experiences have long been a crucial factor in the success of SMBs, and now, more than ever, businesses have to deliver.

Streamlining customer service and utilizing data through a CRM provides the best opportunity to retain and gain customers, and savvy organizations will recognize that those who are leaders in customer service are more frequently finding success.

As customer attitudes continue to change and expectations climb, it will be incumbent or decision-makers to ensure that they have the right technologies in place that effectively offer a great customer experience.

Moving forward as the industry revives from its slump, to accelerate the recovery process, new and emerging models need to be deliberate. The industry is still hampered by the loss in demand therefore proactive steps need to be taken by

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The know-how of CRM in the retail sector

In the first moments of a company, most founders only have one worry: to start selling and obtaining benefits in any way. When you have only a handful of customers, keeping your sales process under control is relatively simple. But as the company grows, managing a growing mass of leads in different stages of the buying process becomes increasingly complex. If you want to sell more and more effectively, you need to optimize the process. And for that, you need a CRM.

Here are nine ways in which Sales Simplify will improve your sales process.


#### **1. The CRM lets you document your sales process**
In the beginning, your sales process can be as simple as an idea written down on a napkin, but if you have to coordinate with a team, you will need a more effective method. With Sales Simplify, you can document all stages from initial contact to sale, and your team will always know what to do at all times.


#### **2. You can create repeatable processes**
If each sales representative goes about their business, you end up having as many sales processes as sellers. Thanks to our CRM tool, you can standardize interactions between vendors and customers, which will not only give consistency to customer relations but will also help you save time.


#### **3. You will automate and reduce data entry**
Before CRM came into the picture, most sales teams used Excel. Although the formulas and macros can do wonders, entering the data one by one is a long and frustrating process. If you simplify the process with us, your team can devote that time to getting new leads.


#### **4. Your prediction will be more accurate**
According to a MarketWatch study, 88% of spreadsheets contain errors. If you use them as a basis for your decisions, do not be surprised if your calculations fail. Instead, with a CRM, you will see all your sales and leads much more accurately. 


#### **5. You can keep a better track of objectives**
If your sales representatives are achieving your goals, you can reward them for it, and if they are falling short, you’ll be able to see and solve the problem in time.


#### **6. You will centralize all of your sales information**
Having different sources of information can drive you crazy when looking for the information you need. But with all the customer information stored in a single program, your life will be much easier.


#### **7. You control the whole process without disturbing your employees**
If you need to know the sales results for the quarter, you do not need to ask all your sales representatives, just consult the CRM.


#### **8. You will create a sustainable salesforce**
Imagine you have a person in the sales department who has been creating the sales Excel and knows exactly how it works. While that person is working in your company, finding out how things are going is as easy as asking. But the day they leave is the day chaos begins to reign. To prevent this from happening, you need to have an infrastructure set in place that everyone understands and does not depend on one person.


#### **9. You will make the information about your customers more visible**
CRM is mainly used in sales, but the other company areas may also be interested in having information about customers. And with this system, they can have a look with just a few clicks.

With the above-mentioned features, we are sure you might want to get a FREE trial of this software. For the same, you can visit [www.salessimplify.com](www.salessimplify.com)

In the first moments of a company, most founders only have one worry: to start selling and obtaining benefits in any way. When you have only a handful of customers, keeping your sales process under control is relatively simple. But

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9 reasons to choose Sales Simplify over any other CRM

The benefits of adopting a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system are not easily seen by everybody, except for the Sales Manager. They like and even appreciate the fact and feature that the data file is stored safe and private and is even presented in an easy-to-follow format, allowing them to monitor every sales process, which eventually helps in increasing sales. 

In the former days, the Sales Manager did not appreciate the CRM applications much. They underestimated the benefits it had for them and misunderstood it as just another tool or an application that helped their seniors in keeping track of their work.

It was later that they realized CRM improves the lives of salespeople. They understood that helping them keep track of their generated leads by setting the follow-up reminders and prioritizing them helps boost their sales.

Later in 2014, a survey was conducted, and they saw an increase of about 87% in the use of Mobile CRM. A study showed that about 65% of sales representatives who have used Mobile CRM have already achieved their sales quota.

CRM is a tool that solves the key problem of how to qualify and follow up on leads and prioritize their sales activities.

Here are three main reasons why CRM is necessary for sales representatives.

#### **1. Safe and private data storage**
CRM helps salespeople to store their data files safe and private. It gives easy access to data anytime and anywhere. To assure that your data won’t get lost. Segmentation of the data and identifying valuable opportunities is another thing that CRM helps salespeople with. It saves them from hours of cutting and pasting from various documents or surfing in the disorganized list.

#### **2. Automated activity reports**
CRM helps salespeople to automate their weekly or monthly reports for management. The process is automated and transparent and takes just a few minutes to inform clients about their sales leads and current progress. CRM helps salespeople to manage their schedules and prioritize their tasks lest to ignore them. It allows them to spend more time with their customers, which leads to more deals closed and a stronger customer base.

#### **3. Time for the new sale**
CRM software shortens sales cycles by discarding manual tasks that bog down a sales manager’s time. This software solution captures and centralizes all communications to achieve sales targets seamlessly and consistently. Sales CRMs can track every customer communication irrespective of the source – emails, phone calls, chats etc. In this way, it saves time by tracking all communication with the customers. CRM helps salespeople to know exactly when you need to contact the customers.

#### **Conclusion**
Therefore, one can say that salespeople and CRM when together, and used correctly will not only boost the performance and attract an audience. But also get stronger, and have a better reach and sorted qualified leads.

All the sales representatives need to accept that fulfilling their goals by recording all activities and following the schedule will help them achieve their sales target. Doing so will save their time, and they can attract more leads. 

CRM also revolutionizes sales operation with a mobile CRM solution that easily integrates with mobile apps to offer excellent scalability and flexibility benefits. Using it, you can plan, schedule and reschedule on the go and prioritize your tasks. It helps you stay focused on the deals to deliver and offers a personalized experience to customers.

So, are you ready to try out this software and go on a high roll along with your team? Share your experiences with CRM software? To take the demo of this software, visit us at salesimplify.com

The benefits of adopting a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system are not easily seen by everybody, except for the Sales Manager. They like and even appreciate the fact and feature that the data file is stored safe and private and

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A proper guide to building Sales through CRM

Today, the customer journey has changed. Customers buy experiences, not products. A few years ago, everyone was generating leads through billboards, radio commercials, and designing print marketing materials.

74% of users say that customer experience is an important factor, but if you see the actual numbers, only 45% of customers get a good customer experience. It will not let you build a long-lasting relationship with your clients. Sales Simplify helps you automate your lead generation process effectively.

So, when a potential customer opts in to receive your emails, you can send them a sequence of messages designed to increase their interest in your product or service, then adjust your emails automatically based on their behaviour.

#### **What is lead generation, and why should you automate it?**
Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into someone who has indicated an interest in your company products or services. Tell them about it and try to build a lasting relationship. Some examples of lead generators are job applications, blog posts, coupons, live events, and online content.

Automating the lead generation means you will be able to secure more leads with fewer efforts. You can prioritize which leads to a chase, you can nurture prospects and keep track of your progress.

#### **Chatbots**
These little robots are amazing at removing friction from a customer to business interaction. They indicate that not only businesses are passionate about chatbots as marketing, customer service, and lead generation solutions, the customers themselves find it appealing too. And there’s no secret behind it.

Customer engagement is the critical requirement to boost your sales and chatbots are an excellent tool to keep your customers engaged. Research suggests that businesses that successfully engage with their customers can increase customer spend by almost 20% to 40%.

#### **Nurture Leads with Smart Email Automation**
Email continues to be the main driver of customer retention and acquisition for small and midsize businesses. According to the data, 81% of SMBs still rely on email as their primary customer acquisition channel, and 80% for retention.

Email marketing is going to be a critical factor in determining whether someone chooses your business or a competitor, and you need to use it very smartly. Use email to send prospects relevant information that helps them with their decision. 

It could be a blog post, a personal email from a sales representative asking a question about their pain points, or an invite to your next webinar. The more you will connect with your customer, the more you can grow your business.

#### **Provide hot leads to your sales team**
The hottest leads are identified and segmented automatically. All that your sales team needs to do is, follow up with the subscribers and download your extra content. You can even notify your sales staff of new leads, letting you follow up quickly and easily.

#### **Dynamic landing pages**
These types of landing pages are an excellent way of generating leads at a much greater rate. Furthermore, this process can also be automated.

If you use it correctly, your dynamic landing pages will show different messages, website designs, and even calls-to-action to various users, based on a set of factors, like their location, age, occupation, and so forth.

One of the main reasons to consider using dynamic landing pages is their potential to increase conversion rates. The idea is that instead of arriving on a blanket landing page based on a single campaign, or set of keywords, the pages will be customized. Doing so will help you provide more relevant data to the user.

Today, the customer journey has changed. Customers buy experiences, not products. A few years ago, everyone was generating leads through billboards, radio commercials, and designing print marketing materials. 74% of users say that customer experience is an important factor, but

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Automate your lead generation process with Sales Simplify

The increasing popularity of social media has changed the way organizations interact with leads and customers. Now, there are 4.2 billion social media users worldwide spending an average of 145 minutes each day on the platforms. To get a complete picture of our leads and prospects, we need to consider the part social media management plays in our customer relationships. 

Social media lead generation is part of every marketer’s strategy—whether they know it or not.

For marketers ready to move beyond brand awareness and engagement, social media lead generation is a good next step. Collecting leads on social media will help you find people interested in your company. More importantly, these leads will help you keep in touch with potential customers—whether it is to make a special offer or share news.

#### **What is a social media lead?**
A lead is any information someone shares that you can use to follow up with them. That includes names, email addresses, occupations, employers, or any other information that a social media user shares with you.

Before moving forward, let’s do a breakdown of some of the lingo marketers use for social media leads.

** Social media lead generation:** In simple words, social media lead generation is any activity undertaken on social platforms to collect new leads.

**Social media lead nurturing:**Once a social media lead gets generated, good marketers will nurture their leads. It includes taking them through the customer journey, or as marketers would say: through the sales funnel. 

#### **Picking the right social CRM solution**
There are a growing number of SaaS products and other solutions describing themselves as social CRM platforms. However, as most sales organizations already have a familiar CRM, the idea of trading in their existing solution and pricing up a dedicated social CRM software isn’t so appealing. 

When looking for social media CRM tools, whether in a standalone platform or through integrations to your existing setup, there are different levels to consider depending on your requirements:

- **Collection**. A social CRM platform allows you to collect relevant data from social media about potential and existing customers. You can monitor mentions or hashtags related to you (or your competitors) in customer profiles and posts. 
- **Interaction**. More advanced tools allow you to directly engage with your prospects, enabling two-way communication across multiple channels while managing it all in one platform.
- **Enrichment**. With some tools, you can link the social data to the CRM entries for your leads and prospects, giving you a greater understanding of your contacts and enabling more personalized outreach.
- **Analysis**. To get the full benefits of social CRM, you need to analyze the incoming data and make sense of it. Recent advances in machine learning have made it possible to analyze social media activity at scale.

#### **Why is Social CRM important?**
Social CRM benefits the whole company, not just the sales team. Along with lead generation, building a complete picture of your customer engagement also helps marketers create more relevant campaigns and help desk staff respond to issues faster. When the sales, marketing and customer support teams all use a social CRM, it leads to greater alignment across the company and a more seamless customer experience.

#### **Benefits of social CRM for salespeople**
There are several ways that salespeople can benefit from the data collected by a social CRM.

**1. Win More Business**
With Social CRM, you can get detailed insights about your customers regarding their demographics, tastes, preferences, buying behaviour, etc. It will help accelerate the sales process by allowing you to identify the leads that have the highest probability of being converted into deals.

It can also aid the marketing team in exploring new market segments and design personalized highly targeted marketing campaigns and promotional offers on different social media platforms. 

It results in enhanced productivity, optimal allocation of the company’s resources, and brings the desired ROI. If you are currently using any other CRM for your business, you can also do social media integration like integrating Twitter and Facebook with the help of plugins. It will consequently enhance your CRM functionality.

**2. Better Coordination Among the Departments**
Due to the inter-dependency among various departments, the key to success in any organization is effective communication to ensure that work gets done on time.

With a Social CRM implementation, every single team, be it marketing, sales or customer support can now stay up to date with customers’ activities through access to real-time data related to each customer’s profile. Every department will know what the status of each customer is and will, therefore, be able to act accordingly.

**3. Bridge the Gap Between the Present & the Future**
Track what customers have to say about your company’s product and if they have changes or feedback. Today, customers with their access to vast amounts of data know what kind of product they would like to buy in the future, and that gets reflected in their online activity. 

Social CRM tools help you look into the future and develop products that customers wouldn’t expect to be in the market anytime soon.

**4.Proactively Serve Your Customers**
A positive word of mouth can do wonders for your business, whereas a single negative comment can do more damage than one can imagine. Social CRM software will give your customer support team data about customers’ feelings and sentiments in real-time, which will also help you serve and provide customer service in a more personalized manner. 

Later, it is up to you to use that feedback to make strategic adjustments and take the necessary action that enriches the customer experience.

#### **Conclusion**
As with any tool, social CRM works best when used with a clear goal in mind. When used in tandem with your overall sales strategy, your team will make better decisions based on holistic customer data.

By helping you better understand your leads and customers, organize your contact’s details and manage your communication from one location, social CRM can help you generate more qualified leads and increase your sales.

 

The increasing popularity of social media has changed the way organizations interact with leads and customers. Now, there are 4.2 billion social media users worldwide spending an average of 145 minutes each day on the platforms. To get a complete

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Social CRM – the new-age way of generating qualified leads.

On average, sales and marketing costs average from 15%-35% of total corporate costs. So the effort to automate for more sales efficiency is essential. In cases reviewed, sales increase due to advanced CRM technology has ranged from 10% to more than 30%.

CRM, Customer Relationship Management is a system that aims to improve the relationship with existing customers, find new prospective customers, and win back former customers. Sales Simplify CRM software facilitates collecting, organizing and managing customer information – all in one place so that you save your precious time and can focus on more productive work.

There were times when CRMs were just for large-scale organizations with huge databases of customers, but now things have changed, and CRMs are advantageous to even small and medium-sized organizations.

These softwares are designed in a way that they can easily keep track and streamline your processes. A CRM system like Sales Simplify can be one of the most powerful management tools in your arsenal. The outcomes of this CRM include improved customer service, deepened customer relationships, retention of new customers, and much more.

#### **A business with CRM & without CRM**
Suppose you get an out of the blue phone call or email wanting to reconnect after several years. The person might not remember you as you are not in touch with your old clients, and it may happen because we all tend to forget things. But, with Sales Simplify CRM software, you can easily build long-lasting relationships.

With a well-organized CRM system, you get to track regular communication, schedule touch calls and probably several nurturing emails of helpful information that keep your business top of mind with your clients.

Missed communication, missed follow up and unable to find the right information to connect with a customer, is what it is like being without an easy-to-use CRM system.  Time and now, we have seen prospective salespeople not having the right process or tools to work effectively. They keep calling the main office and do not have detailed contact information. They do not have accurate prior sales history on what the customer had previously purchased. 

They have to do rather rudimentary Google searches to build up intelligence about the person and business they are trying to contact.

Sales Simplify allows you to keep an easy connection with your contacts or clients so that you can have a lasting relationship with them.

#### **Here is how Sales Simplify helps you grow:**

**Sales Simplify helps you improve customer relationships with its centralized customer data:** 

Customer data is critical for your business. So, maintaining your customer records accurately is one of the most important things to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

**It helps you build more lively and sustainable relationships:**

To know your clients and develop a deep and clear understanding of your client’s business, their goals and choices are highly necessary for business growth and maintaining good relationships. Understanding customers is the key to providing them with the best service which in turn, results in stronger customer relationships.

**Reduction in your sales cost:**

Making a thoughtful and strategic approach and implementing marketing campaigns to capture or generate new leads requires more human effort and budget. Selling to your potential customers and gaining deep insights to upsell, cross-sell, and renewal options can boost repeat customer sales.

**Provides better, efficient & reliable customer service:**

With the help of the Sales Simplify CRM system, you can respond to the customer’s behaviour and the evolving marketing trends appropriately. It helps you in accessing real-time sales, customer reviews, and challenges before customers and constantly changing marketing trends and technologies.

On average, sales and marketing costs average from 15%-35% of total corporate costs. So the effort to automate for more sales efficiency is essential. In cases reviewed, sales increase due to advanced CRM technology has ranged from 10% to more

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CRM – the saviour of your organizations

How did these entrepreneurs get featured in Fast Company? Did they reach out to the magazine, or did the magazine reach out to them? And how can I do the same? – these questions often cross our mind. 

While Instagram influencer marketing is a well-known strategy, many other networks are growing for influencers. According to Adweek, the industry is all set to reach $10 billion in worth by 2020. Other networks like Snapchat, YouTube and TikTok have their own set of influencers with different demographics.

#### **What is influencer marketing?**

A decade ago, the influencer marketing arena was limited only to celebrities and a few dedicated bloggers. Now, it seems like we have seen social media influencers rise, saturate the market.

Influencer marketing involves cultivating relationships with influencers to spread the word about your company or product to the rest of the market.

At a fundamental level, influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers – individuals who have a dedicated social following and are considered experts within their niche. Influencer marketing works because of the high amount of trust that social influencers have built up with their following, and recommendations from them serve as a form of social proof to your brand’s potential customers.

That means that if you can work with consumers, you can work with influencers. It also means that you can use your sales CRM to manage your influencer outreach efforts.

#### **Here’s how:**

#### **Identify your influencers.**

Much like any strategy, research is the first step. Choose the platform you want to focus on first. You can always expand to other platforms later but if you are just starting, stick with one. Ideally, your brand should already have a presence on this network or be looking to expand into it.

Once you have developed a list of 10 to 20 people, add them as contacts to your CRM. Make sure to include all the relevant information you have, including their E-mail, social media accounts etc.

 **Step No. 2: Get to know them.**

You should develop an understanding of who each influencer is and the types of conversations they are having. Follow them on Twitter and add them to a list so you can easily monitor what they are doing, subscribe to their blogs via an RSS feed and set up a Google alert to track their online activity. To keep track of these efforts, create an “engagement” stage in your pipeline.

**Step No. 3: Reach out**

Move an influencer to the next stage of your pipeline when they start reciprocating (that is, likes or favourites your tweets, shares your content, etc.) or when a predetermined amount of time has already gone by

In this stage, you will reach out to the influencer and attempt to engage.

For micro-influencers, you could reach out directly in a private message on the same platform. For more traditional ones, click around their profile, and they may list contact information for business inquiries in their bio. They may also link a website that denotes brand partnerships.

**Step No. 4: Track your results.**

There are a few ways of measuring the success of your campaign. You can create a specific hashtag, like #SalesSimplify to track what your influencers are doing.

It makes it easy to see what is being talked about with specific hashtags or to watch for mentions of specific Twitter keywords.

If you are aiming for more sales, giving out affiliate codes or tracking links is an easy way of seeing how much is being generated from influencers.

#### **Conclusion**

Influencers are here to stay, but how the world of influencer marketing looks and operates has changed a great deal in a short time, and in five years, maybe drastically different from today. This guide will help you get started with building your strategy, but like any social strategy, it is important to be ready for change.

Still, while there are some unique considerations to working with influencers, setting up a campaign is the same as most marketing campaigns: research, set a budget, determine goals, find your influencers and review and revise.

How did these entrepreneurs get featured in Fast Company? Did they reach out to the magazine, or did the magazine reach out to them? And how can I do the same? – these questions often cross our mind.  While Instagram

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A guide to managing your influencer relations with a Sales CRM

#### **What is relationship selling?**

Relationship Selling is a sale technique that concentrates on the interaction between the buyer and the salesperson. It does not focus on the price and details of the product and is 6 to 7 times more expensive to gain new customers. Based on the belief in building a long-lasting and ongoing relationship with clients to encourage repeat purchases, it inspires your existing customer and further marketing through the mouth of word and referrals.

Loyal customers have a greater chance of spending more money on each visit, and they will shop more frequently as compared to new or other customers. Thus, they will continue to buy from you regardless of the price. Building relationships with your customers and taking interest in their world notably improves sales and retaining customers. Start your conversation with a potential customer with something that is not your sales pitch. Send a blog post that you think your prospect will find interesting for a longer period.

#### **Relationship selling vs transactional selling: the difference in mindsets**

The opposite of relationship selling is called transactional selling, in short, transactional selling means exchanging money for goods.

Transactional Marketing is a marketing strategy used by firms to target customers to make one-off sale transactions which are short term in nature, and the customer contact is very low as they stress more on gaining new customers as a result, customer retention or loyalty is extremely low.

Whereas in Relationship Marketing, the primary aim is to retain and satisfy customers by providing values to them, which are long term in nature and with high customer contact. 

As we have discussed, both techniques of marketing are important for the business entities and must exist side by side, so as to increase the customer base. However, relationship marketing is capable of capitulating better results in comparison to transactional marketing.

#### **How to use Relationship Selling to connect and convert leads?**

Relationship selling has a direct impact on the success of your marketing and sales strategy, you should understand the principles and qualities to build a long-term relationship.

**Integrity and reliability**

Having integrity and reliability at work is one of the most important qualities for building long term relationships with your clients. Communicate with your customer honestly and openly. It simply shows how trustworthy you are. Admit the mistakes, if any because, it is ok to accept and resolve them. Integrity is not just important on a personal level, it is also vitally important at a workplace level. Organisations known for their integrity perform better.

On the other hand, reliability helps to keep your customers and increase efficiency. Customers like to know what they will get if you are selling them any faulty or ineffective products. They keep an eye on your behaviour as it symbolises the reliability of your brand. If they find it helpful and useful, it opens doors to creating a long-lasting relationship.

They might not waste their time and money on your product in future, but they will repeat the purchase if you are reliable. 

**Increase Trust**

Trust is the natural result of thousands of tiny actions, words, thoughts, and intentions. Trust does not happen all at once; gaining it takes work and time. It might take years of calling on a certain client to break through and fully gain their comfort and trust. For any relationship to last longer, it is important to increase the trust between you and your customer. The best way to do this is by delivering your customer what you committed, taking care of the deadlines and so on.  

**Sound human in your business communication**

Instead of directly talking about your product or starting with the sales pitches, focus on building trust. Try to sound natural to them, write fun and personalized subject lines for your cold emails, simplify your email signature and mention something you and your prospect have in common.

What is relationship selling? Relationship Selling is a sale technique that concentrates on the interaction between the buyer and the salesperson. It does not focus on the price and details of the product and is 6 to 7 times more

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Relationship selling – the way to customer’s heart

The whole process of sales can get a little hectic and can hamper the productivity of your team. It will eventually lead to issues in your business, and thus, stop growth. A sales CRM is essential for day to day sales tasks as it simplifies the whole process and makes life easier.

#### **What is CRM?**

It stands for Customer Relationship Management. The name does sound a little scary but it means just the opposite. Customer Relationship Management is all about serving customers, while sales is the activity.  A CRM is a business tool for sales designed to handle sales activities. In simple words, sales is the activity that involves converting the potential buyer to a customer or a paying customer. Customer Relationship Management or CRM plays a major role in selling and growing a business. Now that we understand the basic definition of CRM let us move ahead and dive a little deeper into the features that make CRM so important for any salesperson. 

#### **Why is a CRM important for your business?**

Sales is a team job, and sales CRM helps you track sales processes, salespeople, and customer tasks and progress. It can also record your conversations and activities and gives you the ability to automate tasks, for example, sending a welcome email to new customers. Also see: CRM Cloud For many small businesses, Sales CRM solutions are cumbersome and expensive. The best way to get started is to download our free small business CRM guide. Getting Started Where do I start? You need a Sales CRM that is effective and will suit your business. It can be daunting to look at all the options available, but check out the reviews and then get one for you.

#### **How to choose the best CRM for you?**

Choosing the right Sales CRM is essential because it is a helping hand in the journey of business. To choose the perfect Sales CRM, you need to consider three factors – Research, Requirement and Result. You might feel overwhelmed by the wide choice out there. That’s no surprise, as there are so many CRM options to choose from, that to be sure that you pick the right one for you, you need to do a lot of research.

Before that, understand your requirements and learn about the result you are expecting. Compare the same with the CRM available and if it matches perfectly, go for it.

Customer Relationship Management is not a niche field that people specialize in. To take the best advantage of the CRM system, it is necessary to select the one that suits your workflows, tools and approach. It is why the best CRM solution – Sales Simplify, can be very helpful to you. You can integrate it into your business processes and track sales, nurture relationships, improve customer satisfaction and much more. That is why your business will benefit by choosing the CRM that will be best for your needs.

The whole process of sales can get a little hectic and can hamper the productivity of your team. It will eventually lead to issues in your business, and thus, stop growth. A sales CRM is essential for day to day

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How to choose the best CRM for your business?

Do you wish to generate high-quality leads for your SaaS business without burning a whole in your pocket?
All you need to do is create a referral program that works best for you.

Referral programs work for all types of businesses but, they work best for SaaS. You need a referral
program if you want to connect with your customers directly. It is the most fruitful way for different types
of SaaS businesses.

Now, if you’re keen on building your own SaaS referral program, this guide is a perfect match for you.

## What is a SaaS referral program?

SaaS referral program is exactly what its name suggests, a referral program for existing users. The users
will get a unique referral code. They can share their referral codes through direct messages or social media
and earn rewards. Every time a new customer signs up using that referral code, the referrer (existing user)
gets rewarded. Thus, the existing users are engaged, which increases their loyalty towards you.

It is specifically built for a software-as-a-service business. This program can save your marketing cost for
new customers, which are high in B2B SaaS. The reward can be in various forms such as a gift card, sample
products, free content or money.

All you need to do is choose the right referral tool and relax.

## How does a referral program work?

The first thing you need to do is create a unique referral link or code for your customers. They will share
this link or code with their friends and family. Later, when their family or friends sign up using the link or
code referrer will get the reward.

## Benefits of a SaaS referral program

By now, you’ve got a good idea of what a SaaS referral business model is. You should definitely know its
benefits to understand it better. It will not only increase your user base but also has other exciting
benefits.

Let’s begin,

### • Lower customer acquisition cost

Why is a SaaS referral program easy on your pocket?

Referral programs only pay when a referral successfully becomes a new user. Referral marketing is one of
the best and cost-effective ways of acquiring new customers. It is one of the best advantages of a referral
program. You can also lower your CAC further by giving free subscriptions or trials.

### • Authentic and much quicker conversation

Your referrer will recommend your product to someone who is likely to purchase your product, as he is
familiar with your product. It will be more effective than you presenting your product. We often tend to
trust people we know, so a lead will be more interested in buying the product. Plus, you don’t have to go
through the long sales process, which will save your time. Thus, the SaaS referral program proves to be
an authentic conversation.

### • Increased customer retention and loyalty

As many SaaS companies work on subscriptions or timely purchases, referral programs prove more
beneficial as referred customers have a higher retention rate than non-referred customers.

A SaaS company needs to maintain a good relationship with its users. As the income is not lump sum but
in installments or repeated, it is very essential to retain the users. To keep existing users engaged and
loyal to your product, you need to reward them in the best possible way. Giving them free subscriptions
as a reward will surely make them stay.

The referral program works best because you get a new user and make your existing user happy by
rewarding them.

### • Increases brand recognition

How likely are you to use a product recommended to you by your friend or family?

Do you tend to use a product recommended by your favorite celebrity?

We all love and fall for it. Online referral programs works best. Knowing about a product by your close
ones gives you the confidence to purchase it.

Similarly, when your user recommends the product to someone appropriate to purchase it, he is most
likely to buy it. An existing user can explain your product in the best way and give a genuine review to its
friends and family. When a referrer gets rewarded, he will develop more interest in recommending your
products to more people. Further, the referred user can also refer more people. It will increase brand
recognition and, you will gain their trust.

Now that you know what a SaaS referral program is and its benefits, are you ready to build your own
referral program?

### How do I create a SaaS referral program?

Here are the steps to create the best customer referral program

How to set up a referral program? You need to create a great yet simple referral program. To create a
successful referral program, you need to motivate your user. Following are the steps that will help you to
build a great referral program.

### Step 1: Begin with customer referral program template

You have to start by creating a customer referral template. Make it as simple as possible if you want more
and more customers to share your referral. It can be an email, a code or a link.

### Step 2: Determine the rewards

Firstly, you need to fix what rewards your referrers will get. It can be one-way or two-way. One-way
rewards benefit your user, and two-way ones benefit your user and the new customer. You can decide
what the reward will be, whether a free subscription, cashback or a discount. Though the choice is yours,
it should be attractive to the users. Your existing user should be interested in gaining those rewards. They
should seek extra efforts to earn those rewards. Any reward that you determine should also benefit you.

### Step 3: No hidden terms or conditions

While setting up the new referral program, you need to focus on making it crystal clear. Your user should
not get fooled by fancy offers and later get disappointed. Make your offers as simple as possible. It should
contain no hidden terms or conditions. What rewards the referrer will get, what rewards the new user
will get and what benefits you will get; you need to make it clear right from the start. Hidden terms or
conditions will upset your users or new customers. A clear referral program attracts the user and, they
refer to it happily.

### Step 4: SaaS referral fee

You can fix a referral program fee for your referrers. For every new referred user, you can give some
percentage of the total sale to the referrer. It will be unique as it is not a fixed value and depends on the
sale. The more the sale, the more will be the referrer commission.

### Step 5: Make it effortless

An easy SaaS referral program encourages your user, and thus they promote it. It should not be a tedious
task. A simple referral link or code works best. Whenever a new user applies the referral code or logs in
using the referral link, he should access the program. Effortless referral programs are great referral
programs.

The user benefits by referring to your SaaS, so make sure, they don’t have to go through multiple steps. A
single click should do the job. Make sure there is a referral landing page during the signing in process.

### Step 6: Keep a regular check on the working of your referral program

How many new customers have joined using the referral code? Through which platform they have joined
the inviting link?

You need to monitor every single action as it will help you to understand whether your program is working
or not. By analyzing, you can also change your referral strategy ideas. Based on the result, you will
understand which strategy is working for you and which one is not and modify it accordingly.

## SaaS referral marketing examples 

5 SaaS referral marketing examples that will motivate you to build your own.

Here are SaaS referral examples that are doing wonders in the market. You can get ideas from a few
referral card examples given below. Many SaaS companies have referral programs. You can choose any
one or a combination or create your own ideas to make the best customer referral program.

### • Canva

Canva is a free graphic design platform that’s great for making invitations, business cards, templates,
Instagram posts and more.

Referral program: When a new customer joins using your referral code, you get a free upgrade to Canva
Pro.

### • GPay

Google Pay is a digital wallet platform and online payment system developed by Google in 2018 to power
in-app, online, and in-person contactless purchases on mobile devices, enabling users to make payments
with Android phones, tablets, or watches.

Referral program: When a referred user makes their first payment, both users will receive the reward.
Behind every transaction, you get scratch cards, which may have discount coupons for various brands,
cash back, or free subscription for apps.

### • Swiggy

Swiggy is India’s largest online food ordering and delivery platform, founded in July 2014. Based in
Bangalore, it is operating in 500 Indian cities as of September 2021.

Referral program: When your friend signs up using your referral code on Swiggy, it gives you a discount
coupon. There are exciting offers on your first order.

### • Myntra

Myntra is an online shopping site for fashion and lifestyle. It is a major Indian fashion e-commerce
industry. Founded in the year 2007, its headquarters lies in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.

Referral program: Every time a new user signs up using your referral code, the new and exciting user get
Myntra cash or a discount coupon. Myntra also has exciting offers for your first order.

### • Todoist

Todoist is an application that manages your task. It is similar to OneNote. It lets you manage your personal
and professional tasks across multiple devices.

Referral program: You get a two-month Pro subscription when your referred user upgrades to the Pro
version.

A customer referral program is a best way to retain your customers and find new customers without
spending much on the customer acquisition cost. It is a word-of-mouth marketing. By creating a referral
program, you are creating a salesperson without actually hiring them. Now that you know what a SaaS
Referral program can add value to your business. It would be the right move to add the same to your
marketing strategy to boost your sales.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss the what SaaS referral program, benefits of SaaS referral programs, and steps to create the best customer referral program. Read on to find out more!