Zoho CRM Tip - 53: How to include customers as a part of your sales process?

Zoho CRM Tip - 53: How to include customers as a part of your sales process?




The main purpose of using a CRM system is to manage customer interactions across different touch points in an optimal manner. That said, too often, CRM usage starts and stops with the sales process. Is there any role for prospects and customers in your CRM strategy? One may wonder why include prospects and customers as a part of your CRM strategy. That's a question I'm going to answer with this week's tip.  


Use Case:


For better understanding, let's look at Zylker Inc., a company that provides household services like cleaning, lawn maintenance, landscaping, etc. More often than not, you get repeat customers and it's not easy to schedule their requirements on an ad hoc basis. Zylker also interacts with third party partners for service delivery and customers might prefer select third parties to meet their requirements. 


There is a need for the customers to choose the required services to be delivered through preferred partners. Having your sales team do this manually can be time-consuming. Portals is a powerful feature that exposes the select modules of your CRM to your customers and prospects without getting added as users in your CRM account. Create an online catalogue of your services using canvas view and let your customers choose their required services in a jiffy from right within your CRM, using the portal. Set the appropriate permission to let your customers create/view/edit their records using the portal.


Portals improve transparency by providing complete visibility across your sales process, thereby improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

 

Creating a Portal:

 

To create a portal

  • Go to Setup --> Channels --> Portals

  • Click on Get Started

  • Enter a Name for your portal

  • Click Configure, which will create a unique Portal URL


 

Useful resources: 

 

Help documentation - Portals; Canvas view;

 

Hope you found this useful. Got a question on portals? Leave a comment and we will get back to you. If you think you missed out on any of our previous Zoho CRM tips, you can read them here.