Why did Dominate Sales choose Pipedrive?
The new way of life has quickly moved the distance between sales work and team management. Companies that use Excel, Outlook or just CRMs to sell are now facing questions, that can no longer be postponed. How to manage your sales team remotely? How to have an overview of whether we have activities in place in addition to the results, and whether we are creating enough sales potential for the future as well? Who is just sitting at home and who is really contributing to us emerging from the crisis as a winner? One way to solve all the above issues perfectly and start selling better, is to introduce Pipedrive. I write simply and clearly what Pipedrive is and how this software, that was created by Estonians, has helped Dominate Sales, our customers and tens of thousands of others around the world.
What is Pipedrive?
The main goal of creating Pipedrive was to manage sales better and more efficiently. Most of us know that sales people usually have the same problem. There are always more than one place to run and how to make sure that where I run helps or leads me to success. In order to make the right decisions, it must be possible to see one’s own history, one’s own previous activities. This is largely because we cannot move forward systematically if we do not know where we have come from. Today, a notebook, a cluttered table, and a mailbox from which we read emails are not enough to drive sales.
There is one big mistake with this outdated system – a person cannot prioritize things in an information-saturated work environment. Thus, situations are resolved according to which of the customers shouts loudest or from memory. Let me give you a simple example. Would you be willing to start a flight with an aircraft that serviced the parts that crashed the most, or with a technician that simply performed memory-based procedures? Or do you still want to fly an airplane that was maintained according to a certain procedure. Keeping in mind the maintenance history by flight hours, and the maintenance master systematically kept track of what has been done and what has not? I think I know which plane you’re going on.
We have tested four or five world-class CRMs before deploying Pipedrive in the Dominate Sales team. These include Sales Force, Sugar, Odoo, Suite CRM and of course MS Excel. During testing, we found that most CRM software is hostile to the salesperson. In the classic scenario, the sales person has to click 10 clicks to record basic activities. So that useful information about the work would be created for him, the manager and the company as a whole. Today, in return, we offer an environment where many activities are automated, segmented by filters, and divided into stages in the sales tube view. In such an environment, it takes 3 clicks to store basic information.
Why did we choose Pipedrive?
Pipedrive is created from salespeople to salespeople. All its user-friendliness is based on the well-being of the end user. Pipedrive has realized that CRM (client relation management) is only useful when people use it. And for people to use it, the salesperson needs to be easy and fun to use. Yes, the management receives the necessary information visually and clearly, but the main focus is on the person who makes calls, sends e-mails, receives inquiries, ie does daily sales work and communicates with the customer. Pipedrive means that the sales person’s life would be as comfortable as possible and at the same time the company would receive the necessary information on which to forecast the future and make budgets. We have seen too many environments in which tens of thousands of euros have been invested, but the end user does not feel comfortable there, even after years of use. We have a saying in the team: “You can have the best CRM software with brute force, but if your people don’t use it, it’s pointless!” The convenience and simplicity of the Pipedrive user is also one of the main reasons why it has been repeatedly chosen as one of the world’s top CRMs, and also why Dominate Sales introduces it to the company and builds it according to needs.
Let's get more practical now and take the Pipedrive more seriously. What makes a Pipedrive a good companion for a salesperson, or what makes a company manager feel that an additional player is on the field when using a Pipedrive?
1. AUTOMATION
One of the indispensable helpers of Pipedrive is automation. The simplest example of automation is solving one of the biggest problems in the Estonian sales landscape: making a follow-up call after submitting an offer in order to understand what the customer thought of the offer we sent. For example, if a sales person raises a transaction to a specific sales stage, he or she will automatically have a follow-up to the calendar that expires in three days. The sales person does not have to bother, because the follow-up is nicely written on the calendar, and when the time is right, the environment also signals this. In addition, you can automate the sending of e-mails, the flow of transactions in the sales pipeline, the assignment of tasks according to the situation and customer feedback. There are many possibilities!
2. FILTRATION
One of the additional sales development points in a company is usually the maximum use of the existing customer base. The simplest example is to ask the customer base for all customers who have not been in contact for 6 months. The salesperson comes to work, opens a pre-saved filter, and starts making calls through Pipedrive. It is also worth mentioning that when a customer is contacted, it automatically jumps out of the list created by the filter. So the sales person always has a fresh list in front of them and the annoying wandering in tables and papers is eliminated. We have also seen sales people and customer managers develop customers with whom they interact more. Parts fit better at the communication level, some buy much easier than others, and so on. In this case, the filter can be used to monitor that if the manager has 100 clients in the portfolio, but the communication is mainly with 55, then something else needs to be done urgently. Without a filter, we will only realize a lack of communication if one day the customer decides to go to a competitor. It is usually too late or has to attract him at a price, in both cases it means a loss for the company.
3. E-MAIL
Customers are often contacted by email. The information in the letters is evidence that includes changes to the price offer, agreements that became clear at the last minute, or even disputes. In Pipedrive, sent e-mails are interfaced to the customer’s folder and can be viewed in chronological order quickly and easily, if necessary. This option is useful, for example, for salesperson replacements. In this case, Ants goes to the company with which Kati wanted help and Antsul quickly finds out what has been talked about and can communicate with the customer without any problems. Additionally, emails sent from Pipedrive can be turned on for email opener. Let’s give a simple example. When sending a quote, the tracker nicely indicates when the customer has opened the received email and how many times he has done so. Think about how good it is for a salesperson to put in place a strategy before making a follow-up call if he or she knows whether the customer has viewed the email 15 times or 1 time. However, if someone really likes their current e-mail program, there is no need to leave it, because connecting Pipedrive will also synchronize the e-mails.
4. MAKING CALLS THROUGH PIPEDRIVE
You can conveniently make phone calls from the Pipedrive using the mobile app. This has a number of advantages that are very difficult to give up once you start using it. For example, automatic logging of a call to the calendar. When a call is made to a customer, it is a bit of a fact that he logs the date and time of the call, the duration of the call, the contact person and its organization. He also adds the call as an activity to the salesman’s personal calendar. To do this, the sales person does not have to do anything separately. In addition, if the customer calls the sales person himself, Pipedrive will indicate who is calling, from which company and what is the ongoing activity with him. The best example is our own company. The salesman made an offer that didn’t work out. It took half a year and the customer contacted himself. The contact was stored nicely in the customer base and the sales person already knew who was calling. He answered the call with a personal approach and, thanks to Pipedrive, knew immediately what the customer wanted to talk about. The client felt that he was taken care of and this time he immediately went for a deal. In return, we give the usual situation where a sales person calls 10 strangers a day and each time it takes several minutes to understand who is talking and what he wants.
Pipedrive and practical examples “straight from the field” can be written at length. But here’s what I’m talking about: Dominate Sale’s ultimate goal is always one, to help the customer make the best decisions for him, not just sell. That is why we introduce our customers to the sales software Pipedrive, which we use ourselves and dare to recommend it to you as well.
Rene Sieberk
Dominate Sales OÜ
+372 5323 0579
