Spreadsheets are an easy-to-use, well-known way to organize your data. Plenty of businesses rely on spreadsheets to track sales, customer data, and create reports. The problem? Spreadsheets have a lot of shortcomings: you need multiple sheets to track different kinds of data, you can’t track customer relationships, and all of your information is spread across separate devices and salespeople.

Because of these disadvantages, more and more businesses are turning to CRMs or customer relationship managers. A CRM is an online database of customer information, sales data, and even marketing information. With a CRM, businesses can store all of their data in one place, track individual salespeople’s activity, and easily pull reports.

We are living in the Age of the Customer, and businesses that don’t shift their focus on customer satisfaction will pay the price. That’s why it’s very important to use the best tools available to manage your customer relationships, and spreadsheets just don’t quite cut it.

Why is using a CRM like VTiger Cloud CRM V9 better than spreadsheets?

·   Improved Collaboration: Unlike a spreadsheet, a CRM can meaningfully share data, tasks, and events across multiple users. Multiple people can be logged in at the same time, making edits, and assigning each other calendar items or contacts, and the CRM can track everyone’s activity separately. Depending on the level of collaboration you want to have, you can set user permissions to access other users’ contacts and calendars, or keep everyone’s stuff private. If your team is working on a client’s project together, you can check out each other's notes and emails on a client’s record so that you are always up to date on where the project is at.

·   Superior Time Management: An equal balance between work and time is what makes work productive. But manual data entry in spreadsheets draws a lot of time out of you. A CRM solution for sales helps you out in this situation by automatically capturing lead information from web forms on your site. So, you can skip the manual entry and get to reaching out to them right away!

·  Increased Automation: Forget the concept of “automation” with spreadsheets because it forces you to enter information manually. But CRM solutions for sales are entirely different. Say you’re using a webform on your site. Webforms are an essential avenue for lead generation. Without a CRM, when a lead fills their information in the form, you’ll have to capture this data manually into the spreadsheet. And imagine repeating this process for every new lead! With a CRM tool, you can automate this activity from end to end. Every time a new lead fills out your webform, they get automatically added to your CRM system. Imagine how much of this lack of data entry can save you time!

·      Real-time event tracking: You cannot send emails directly from spreadsheets, and there’s no way you can track its metrics. With a sales CRM, you can track a plethora of email metrics from email open and click rates to the lead activity on your website or product. You can track this to understand every move of your lead. This real-time information gives you the essential context you need to quickly interact with your leads. Case in point, say you get notified about a lead downloading a case study from your website. This indicates that they are exploring your business and serves as an excellent opportunity for you to craft an informative email regarding an event your company is hosting.

·    Highly Scalable: Another major problem that you have with spreadsheets is that it is not scalable. As your company grows and you get more customers, spreadsheets become insufficient and highly inefficient. Consider this, for example, you cannot magnify upsell opportunities for one customer, or understand the right time to give them a follow-up call. Most CRM solutions come with pricing plans that cater to each sector of business, with just the right set of features. So, when your business grows, the CRM solution scales along with it.

·    Data Security: A spreadsheet is always at risk of being shared without your knowledge. Even if you set visibility permissions, users can still duplicate the document and manipulate information. Your data can easily be transferred to a storage device by any employee, and once the integrity is lost, it can never be recovered. So, you can see how easy it is to lose your data with spreadsheets. This ceases to be a problem with cloud-based CRM solutions like VTiger V9. Your data is always secure, even when you’re not at the office. Different sales CRM solutions have different ways of ensuring the privacy and security of customers.

·     One View of the Customer: This is by far the most important function of a CRM. With a CRM, you can track every phone call, email, and meeting with a lead or customer, without deleting, losing track of old data, or having to switch spreadsheets. If you’re deleting your last call note to add in your latest interaction, you’re losing valuable data. A CRM like VTiger V9 can keep a chronological history of your relationship without sacrificing past notes or clarity. With a CRM, leaving notes about every call or meeting will keep you up to date for future conversations and give you a log of past touches, too.

·  Powered by intelligent AI: CRM systems like VTiger V9 are powered by Artificial Intelligence engines that monitor and analyze vast amounts of data over a long period. The VTiger Calculus engine learns optimal paths from past data and provides intelligent nudges to accelerate sales and provide the best support to customers.

·   Easy to set up, administer and use: Each business is different, and so it is important to use a customer management system that is flexible and customizable. Being a cloud-based software, you get the freedom to access VTiger from multiple devices at the same time.

A CRM like VTiger V9 is much more efficient than spreadsheets for customer management. If you are still using spreadsheets to manage your business, it would be highly advisable to make the switch to a CRM system. Not only are many systems easy to use, but affordable and flexible enough for any business. If you are looking for a cost-effective CRM system then VTiger will be the best choice for you. We, at Tetra, provide a full range of VTiger Cloud CRM V9 services.