16, September, 2024
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Best CRM Software for Outside Sales Reps
Biography
Roger leverages his two decades of experience in construction company management, specifically mid-sized firms in Santa Clara County, CA. His expertise lies in streamlining office processes and navigating complex paperwork like bids, contracts and permits. Committed to sharing his practical knowledge, Roger contributes to this blog with a focus on how CRMs can optimize construction operations.
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Latest Update:
Sep 16, 2024, 8:45 am
In a Nutshell
Outside sales reps have a lot of work beyond meeting customers. This includes using digital tools to find leads, mapping sales territory, setting appointments, presenting, demoing products, and reporting.
These are time-consuming activities, especially when you rely on old tools like Excel sheets and making notes. With that in mind, I’ve researched the best CRMs for field sales reps, and you can find my Top 5 here.
5 Best CRM Software for Outside Sales Reps
1.LeadSquared – Best for offline CRM app access
2.Salesforce – Best for a free trial
3.Zendesk – Best for tracking customer interactions
4.Spotio – Best to integrate with an existing CRM
5.Geo Rep – Best for advanced GPS features
Why Outside Sales Reps Need CRM Software
Modern marketing techniques are heavily influenced by technology, which has generally influenced businesses to do things faster than ever before. Outside sales reps are busy people, so they need all the help they can get.
This is why they need to use tools that help reduce time spent on manual work. Companies need to provide outside sales reps with excellent CRMs to increase their productivity. Those CRMs help with customer data, making notes, scheduling appointments, and other time-consuming manual tasks.
In my experience, the best CRM software for reps is one with a mobile app that allows you to work offline. This helps reps succeed wherever they travel to find customers, as some areas don’t have good signals.
Additionally, I found that most CRM software for sales representatives features tools designed to build customer trust. They allow you to work effectively in face-to-face interactions as their toolkit helps foster strong and lengthy customer relationships.
Top 5 CRM Systems for Field Sales Teams
Starts at $25 per user per month
LeadSquared is an idea from MarketXpander Services. It was launched in 2013 to address needs that couldn’t be addressed by the many horizontal sales tracking CRMs at the time. It’s a trusted CRM software with over 250,000 users globally.
Why We Like It
I like that LeadSquared has a CRM mobile app designed for the convenience of an outside sales rep on the go. It features various plans (Lite, Pro, and Super) with compatible prices, allowing organizations to choose one that best suits their needs and budget. All these plans feature the essentials of field sales, including the mobile CRM app, lead and sales management, and sales communication.
Key Sales Reps Features
LeadSquared accommodates large and small companies. Small enterprises can grow with this CRM. Its Lite plan is affordable and covers all the essential elements of outside sales. As your company and team grow, you can upgrade to Pro and Super plans.
Its advanced features allow companies to plan, track, automate, and monitor their sales reps’ daily routines. The app also lets sales agents easily find, communicate with, and meet leads.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Wide range of valuable features
- Reliable customer support
- Adaptable and easy to use
- Great value for money on any plan
Cons
- Limited third-party tool integration
- Occasional server issues can lose sales leads
Starts at $25 per user per month
Salesforce was founded in San Francisco, 1999. Its main aim is to help organizations build strong relationships with their customers. With over 150,000 customers, Salesforce is considered one of the best CRMs in the world.
Why We Like It
Besides its longevity and consistency in providing quality field sales CRM tools, I like that there’s a 30 day free trial. Salesforce allows new customers to test its services for a month without financial risk. It features many CRM tools that are suitable for small, medium and large companies.
Key Sales Reps Features
The platform features modules on sales rep training to enhance your staff’s creativity in sales related techniques. On top of that, it has an integrated AI technology that helps push sales engagement and programs.
Its Sales Cloud data system helps boost sales team productivity, drive channel sales, and uses automation to unlock peak performance. Data Cloud, on the other hand, stores and processes customer data while helping you convert leads.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Trustworthy, well-established platform
- Very customizable
- Easily accessible central location for customer data
- Great integration with third-party apps
Cons
- Can seem complicated for tech novices
- Not a great mobile experience for outside sales reps
Free Plan: No
Starts at $19
Zendesk operates in over 160 locations and has more than 100,000 customers globally. Its main priority is to assist companies champion customer services through extraordinary daily interactions.
Why We Like It
Zendesk is all about building strong customer relationships, starting with the leads obtained by field sales agents. I like the fact that it has a wide variety of basic and comprehensive plans to choose from. Plus, you can sign up for a free trial to test the exact plan you believe would work best for your business.
Key Sales Reps Features
The Zendesk CRM has modern sales features that reduces your manual processes while helping you work smartly. It does this with AI-powered sales engagement tools, smart lists, complete key customer data view, mobile app, reporting, and advanced analytics.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Excellent ticketing system
- Excellent customer communication tools
- User-friendly platform and fully featured mobile app
Cons
- More expensive compared to some of its competitors
- Automations setup and third-party app integrations can be complicated
Free Plan: No
Spotio was founded in 2014. It’s specifically designed to help outside sales rep’s teams to increase productivity while allowing managers access to agents’ daily plans. With headquarters in Texas, Spotio has been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies there.
Why We Like It
Spotio is the best platform to choose if you already have a CRM you trust but need one specifically for field sales. It’s easy to integrate it with your existing CRM. Since it focuses on outside sales, you’ll quickly start to see an increase in your sales team’s productivity.
Key Sales Reps Features
Spotio has management tools that help you keep track of your team’s productivity. It has advanced lead generation tools that target good quality leads. You’ll also find a super-organized sales territory feature for field agents to follow for the best leads.
Although there are details of what Spotio plans look like on the site, this CRM platform tailors pricing and plans to fit your needs. Its product experts help you select all the tools you need for your enterprise and only pay for them instead of giving you a package that forces you to pay for tools you won’t be using.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Easy to navigate
- Great real-time support for sales consultants
- Useful mobile app for field agents
Cons
- Not a great option for inside sales
Free Plan: No
Starts at $29
Geo Rep is available in various countries across the globe, including the US, the UK, and South Africa. It can help reduce time consuming admin work by 50% and travel time by 35%. At the same time, potential customer visits can increase by 30%.
Why We Like It
Besides its advanced GPS features, I like that Geo Rep has tools that are focused on reducing unnecessarily time consuming admin work and increasing productivity. It encourages team effort by providing similar tools for managers and agents in outside sales.
Key Sales Reps Features
It has everything sales reps need in one platform. These include custom forms and contracts, completed and uncompleted tasks, calendar, geo navigation tool, instant notifications, content library, and customer history. There’s also a mobile app version.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Visualizes its CRM data in geographical territories in real-time
- Lots of useful admin tools for field agents
Cons
- Limited scope – mainly outside sales customer relationship management
Criteria for Selecting the Best CRM for Outside Sales Reps:
Once you’ve shortlisted at least five CRMs that best suit your company’s needs, ensure that the one you select meets the following criteria:
Scalability
To know if a CRM is compatible with your company’s needs, you must define its requirements. This means you must ask questions such as:
- How many outside sales reps will be using the CRM software?
- How much data needs to be stored and processed?
- What features am I looking for?
- How quickly do I need the software to respond?
The answers to these questions define the kind of CRM you’re looking for.
Reliability
This involves checking the CRM performance to see its stability and reliability. Among your shortlisted CRMs, compare their:
- Speed
- Throughput
- Latency
- Benchmarks
- Standards
Also, check their optimization techniques. These include caching, compression, load balancing, and parallel processing. Go in-depth and check their availability, level of fault tolerance, and system recovery speed.
It’s also essential to read the fine print, check the guarantees offered, and review the terms of service level agreements (SLAs). What do their reliability optimization methods look like? These mechanisms resolve monitoring, redundancy, backup, or failover issues.
Security
Security is another essential element of CRMs. These platforms carry data and are accessed by various company employees. Therefore, the CRM you choose must have excellent security measures to protect data and prevent unauthorized access, breach, or misuse.
A CRM must have robust security features, practices, and compliance standards. When comparing features, consider data and user protection, integrity, and confidentiality. Security practices include encryption, auditing, authentication, reporting, and authorization.
Ensure that the CRMs comply with relevant laws and authorities. Some relevant laws on CRM web pages include HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI-DSS.
Cost
Of course, we’re all looking for something that fits our budgets when making business decisions. Although you can find the best low-cost CRM for sales reps, that doesn’t mean you should just pick the one presenting the lowest cost and go.
Comparing CRM costs involves checking the value of their services through their features and customer testimonials. It also means checking for hidden fees or discounts. Overall, compare the price to the value of their services to ensure you don’t end up paying for way more than you need.
Considerations for Small vs. Large Companies
In my experience of looking for the best CRM, it helps to look at your company first. Consider the size, industry, where it’s located, existing sales, and expected growth. This way, you know the CRM software your business would benefit the most from.
If your small business has few employees and little profit, you can find the best free CRM for sales reps. However, your needs will change if it grows larger, and your outside sales team could benefit from a CRM with excellent tracking and mapping tools.
Conclusion
Choosing the best outside sales CRM for the first time can be hard. It’s a lot of work that requires you to be thorough in selecting the best platform. As mentioned earlier, it’s best to compare the shortlisted CRMs scalability, reliability, security, and cost. This criteria will help you select a CRM that’ll increase productivity and turn leads into sales.
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