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Why You Should Put Client Entertainment in Your CRM

Ever wonder why companies are investing in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) more than ever? The reason is simple: nearly 80 percent of marketing leads fail to convert into sales, and effective customer relationship management helps companies greatly improve upon this ratio. But getting a CRM up and running is just the first step. For companies to truly reap the benefits of customer relationship management they must centralize not just their customer contact data, but all of their customer touchpoints.

How do companies do this? By making use of the thousands of apps which tie into Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics to give them additional functionality. This gives employees a single place to go whenever they need to see any information connected to a customer.

One place to go for everything.

No more drag on IT departments to maintain multiple systems.

And no more learning curves for your employees to conquer.

shutterstock_223390054This approach can be especially powerful when it comes to managing your company’s client entertainment assets. Whether it’s sports tickets, events, meetings, golf outings, dinners, or invitations, these assets are critical to a salesperson’s ability to develop relationships, remain competitive, move deals through the pipeline, and— ultimately —close more business. So why not tie these assets to all of the other information you are collecting in your CRM about your customer?

Smart companies invest in client entertainment, but they have historically struggled to quantify the benefits. No more. With InviteManager you can connect your investment in client entertainment assets directly to business outcomes.

sfdcappexchangeInviteManager is the only client entertainment solution that fully integrates with CRM applications. We’re listed on the Salesforce AppExchange so you know your data is completely secure. (Salesforce even selected us as a “Must-See App” during their Dreamforce conference.) There are some big reasons why companies like FedEx, NBC Universal, Verizon and EMC use InviteManager within their CRM:

It’s easy to use. Your salespeople live in their CRM all day, every day. They’re tracking who they are calling, follow ups, activities, and spend. Giving them the ability to request entertainment assets right in the application where they already spend most of their time makes it easier for them to target leads and prospects effectively. It also requires little to no training because they are already familiar with your CRM. Tickets and invitations will get distributed to the right customers faster than ever.

Ease of use is key. Every barrier which stands between your salesperson taking out your client directly increases the odds that one of the following things will happen:

  1. the client won’t go
  2. the salesperson will circumvent the rules
  3. your competitor will win your client

Data you can count on. We live in a world of metrics. CFOs, CMOs, and VPs of Finance measure every aspect of the business. Your team is already doing a great job collecting information about your clients— now see what happens when you finally connect the dots by adding your client entertainment into the mix. You’ll see exactly what kind of events leads to the most closed deals, renewals, and upgrades. And having an easy, centralized process for inviting clients to events will make it easier than ever to collect the data you need.

The invisible app. Companies are looking for an Invisible App: functionality that is so simple to use that their employees don’t even notice it’s there. People don’t like change. That’s especially true at big organizations where the list of training sessions and software walkthrus can feel interminable. And we’ve all known that one person who has been there for 30 years and sees no reason to change their way of doing things, right?

Well, what if that person couldn’t even tell that a new application was installed or a new product was rolled out?

shutterstock_339977738This is the beauty of integrating with your CRM. As far as your workforce is concerned, Salesforce just enhanced their product by adding sports tickets & events. Employees don’t know what InviteManager is— all they know is that inviting clients to events just got easier.

Too many companies use CRMs while continuing to manage their sports tickets using ancient technology like spreadsheets and email. They struggle to show how these investments actually drive business results, and they spend significant resources trying to create a process for obtaining client tickets that everyone clearly understands.

Why not put everything in one place and make it easier?

This is what we do and why we help over 4,000 companies share events with their clients. Don’t rely on outdated processes to manage your client entertainment. Let InviteManager show you why the future is now.