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As a roofing professional, you work hard to build a successful business. But often, the trick to gaining success is managing your time and work more efficiently. A roofing customer relationship management (CRM) software will help you do just that.
CRM is a tool to help you and your business succeed. It can help you plan projects, organize contacts, track time, and more. Whether you’re trying to be more productive as a company or want to get more communicative as a team, a CRM system is the way to reach your goals.
To get the most out of a CRM system, not only do you need to know how to use it, but also how to choose the right one for you.
We’ll walk you through what a CRM is, how CRM software works, who can use it, key features, and its benefits.
Let’s get started!
What Is CRM Software and How Does It Work?
A CRM system helps businesses update customer information, track interactions, and manage customer accounts. Primarily, a CRM software improves business relationships by connecting you to customers, streamlining processes, and increasing total revenue.
At its core, a CRM is like a digital spreadsheet that holds all your company information in one spot. The biggest difference is that a CRM is more robust and automatically updates as your customers take different actions.
This cloud-based software lets you store and view customer information, leads, sales opportunities, and more. You and your team can access this information in real time from anywhere and from any device.
Types of CRM Software
There are three main types of CRM software, each with different functions: operational, analytical, and collaborative.
Operational CRM
To build a strong customer support structure, an operational CRM focuses on automating and streamlining sales, marketing, and customer service workflows. It acts as a customer information management software and customer retention management software.
Analytical CRM
An analytical CRM database analyzes customer data and improves business processes. This CRM type includes reporting and dashboards with sales, financial, and marketing data. It aims to increase customer satisfaction and retention rate.
Collaborative CRM
A collaborative CRM promotes teamwork and communication between sales, marketing, and support teams. This type of CRM has communication tools such as instant messaging, social components, and email and file sharing.
Who Is CRM Software for?
A customer retention management software can help everyone improve productivity and better manage customer relationships.
This type of software is popular for people in sales, customer service, marketing, and recruiting, but everyone in your company can use a CRM.
CRMs can significantly benefit large businesses that deal with a lot of incoming data or small companies that need to optimize daily tasks.
Why Use CRM Software?
CRM systems exist to address the issue of managing customer data. Businesses generate a tremendous amount of data daily. That volume of information makes it crucial for you to have a way to organize it all.
Implementing a CRM can improve:
- Customer Retention
- Customer Satisfaction Rates
- Customer Experience
- Information Documentation
- Perceived Company Value
Key Features of a CRM & What They Do
Some software systems will have different or additional features, but you’ll typically find the components listed below in a CRM:
- Contact Database and Profile: With a CRM software, you can track and update a client’s entire history, from their first contact to the end of their service.
- Lead Management: You can use a CRM to increase sales by capturing leads right at the door. Track pipeline activities, check off tasks and goals, and keep leads moving through your sales process.
- Email Marketing: Identify and focus on the best customers, generate quality leads for your sales team, and manage marketing campaigns. You can also use the email tool to send, forward, and reply to emails and sync contacts to your CRM.
- File and Content Sharing: Upload videos, photos, and messages to a central database that everyone on your team can access.
- Social Media Analytics: View your audience and see how your social media profiles are doing. You can also analyze your competition and observe how your tactics are working.
- Quote and Proposal Tools: Quickly write and send quotes and proposals with easy-to-use templates.
- Mobile Access: Record all your work from wherever you are and access it all from the palm of your hand. Your CRM software should follow where you go.
Bonus CRM Capabilities
At this point, you might ask, “What makes a good CRM?” The answer is one with all the features you need for your business.
Beyond the essential features listed above, there are others that turn a decent CRM into a great one. Here are some additional CRM features you might be interested in for your business.
Take & Upload Job Photos On-Site
It can be challenging to document and organize photos of a job site without the help of a CRM.
A CRM lets you take and upload photos from your phone while at the job site, then instantly upload them to the web and share them with customers and coworkers via email. The software will store those pictures with the job.
Prepare Estimates & Invoices
A CRM lets you create, send, manage, and report on estimates and invoices. You can view live reports to track invoices as they change statuses. This function helps you prepare and track finances as you do your job.
Capture Signatures at the Door
A viable CRM will let you get contracts and agreements signed on a mobile app. Mobile signing significantly increases your success by collecting customer information and facilitating better engagement and long-lasting relationships.
Manage Appointments & Tasks
A CRM will help you see your schedule at a glance and manage the many roofing tasks you have to do. It can remind you of important client meetings and the specifics of a project you’re working on.
With a CRM, you can track your appointments, to-dos, work, and follow-ups as you sell jobs and move toward completion.
Track Your Jobs and Manage Your Production
Keeping projects on track is essential because every day is money. The tighter the reins, the more money you’ll save or make. If you’re ever stuck telling a customer you aren’t sure of something in the schedule, you aren’t using a CRM correctly.
As you track the jobs you’re working on through a CRM, you can assess what areas you need to improve or adjust. The information the CRM gathers will help you plan for future jobs and see better results.
Follow up with Past Customers
You shouldn’t wait until a customer calls you back to work with them again. Call them six months to a year later. If you don’t, someone else will.
In this economy, you have to work to maintain customers through service because they’re getting mailboxes and emails full of fantastic deals. Set reminders in the CRM for you and your team to reach out to your customers at set intervals.
Create Reports for Everything
Use your CRM to create and customize reports, from estimates and material orders to job performance. These reports give insight into what’s happening in different parts of your roofing company so that you can reach your business goals.
Assign Work Orders to Your Team & Subs
A CRM will let you schedule out subcontractor work so everyone is on the same page and responsible parties are held accountable. It also allows you to manage work orders and due dates.
Distribute assignments and see your team’s work orders to help evaluate priorities.
Submit Material Orders to Suppliers
You can order materials from suppliers like Beacon and SRS through a roofing CRM, so your crew has what they need to start a project.
A CRM database makes submitting material orders easy by directly emailing the supplier. You can save the supplier as a related contact and make a template to make the process even faster.
Organize All Your Documents
File folders of job documents need to be updated. How many receipts, quotes, bids, contracts, change orders, and other documents get lost over time? A CRM helps you organize all your documents. It keeps everything with the job, so nothing slips through the cracks.
Set Up Automations
A CRM is more than just letting software manage your clients. Instead, a software solution will help you automate your processes to work for you and your clients.
You can automate your workflow to set triggers when you want to do something or receive notifications.
Each CRM requires a different process for setting up specific actions for its automation system, but doing so can make your work less tedious and more time-effective.
Some automation options include:
- Sending emails to customers
- Changing customer statuses
- Creating tasks
- Sending reminders
Customize Workflows
One of the great things about roofing software is the ability to customize everything to your liking. You can customize types, statuses, and more with a CRM. You can also digitize your existing workflows more efficiently.
Test what works for you and perfect the process you’ve used for future workflows.
Take Notes
Whenever you pick up a phone to talk to a customer or meet a potential client, you learn something new and potentially valuable. You need to record that information somewhere.
Before CRM software existed, contractors had to manually record these notes in notebooks, laptops, or mental memory. But now, you can use a CRM to keep all your work notes safe and organized.
Track Time
Time tracking gives you a better idea of what’s going on during your project and what your hours are going towards.
A CRM allows you to properly track time by adding time estimates to tasks and monitoring how long you work. It can also create time log reports for you.
Build Budgets
In business, it’s essential to create a budget and watch your job expenses. Put your projected and actual costs into your CRM software, where you can track job costs for the duration of your project.
A CRM software lets you analyze which project parts require more time and effort so you know where to invest more of your budget.
Stay on Top of Outstanding Payments
A job not billed out and collected on could completely crush your roofing company. It’s possible to have millions in outstanding invoices and not a penny in the bank for payroll.
A CRM will help make your payment processing more effective, so you know who owes you money and how much.
Which CRM Should You Get?
Since many CRM systems are available, you’ll want to use your CRM knowledge to determine which specialized features you’d use most.
You can look at online reviews and take advantage of free trials and demos to discover which CRM platform is best for your roofing business.
Whatever you choose, a CRM software will upgrade your company’s operations.
Your Business Needs a Customer Relationship Software
By getting to know your customers better, understanding what they want, and reworking your processes to serve them better, you can help more customers in less time. With better products and services, you’ll maximize your profit. It’s a win-win situation.
JobNimbus is here to fill that need. It’s free to start, simple to use, and full of great features to improve your client relations and maximize profit and success. Sign up for your free JobNimbus account today!
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