Choosing the Right Solar CRM for Your Company
Introduction to Solar CRM: What it is and how it’s different
Solar CRM is a software application for managing solar installation businesses. It helps you keep track of the contacts and projects in your sales pipeline. It’s easy to use and can help you save time and money by reducing manual work, improving communication, and making it easier to manage your projects and contracts.
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What is CRM for Solar?
Customer Relationship Management or CRM is a powerful tool to execute marketing automation and nurture leads in the operation step of the sales process.
The purpose of solar CRM business software is to help residential, commercial, and utility-scale solar installers and developers automate repetitive tasks related to solar sales and customer value creation. It has many features, including automated lead generation and appointment setting, insightful reports, data tracking for sales metrics like pipeline health and opportunity status, as well as customer support needs both during and after the sale.
Just like how solar panels decrease the negative impact on the environment, Solar company CRM reduces soft-costs and increases profits in business.
Is Solar CRM Software Necessary?
Solar CRM software is an ideal choice for businesses looking to scale operations, revenue, and profitability. Transitioning from traditional systems can see significant improvements in the company’s business, with CRM’s improving efficiency, customer experience, satisfaction, retention and service. Businesses should make it an intentional strategy to choose which CRM solution will best suit their needs.
Features of Solar CRM Software
Energy-saving and conservation have become a global interest. Solar is a fast-growing competitive industry where buyers have plenty of options to choose from. Some solar CRMs are designed for making sales and transactions while others are for collection and management of contacts. The following are the key features of solar company CRM –
Deal Management –
Customers tend to contact the company frequently to know the requirements. If you take too long to send a reply, your competitor may end up closing the deal. The deal management feature helps you to organize deals and keep track of them. This feature also allows you to prioritize deals so that you can close high-potential ones at the right time.Automation –
You will have to follow up with customers to convert cold leads into well-paying customers. It is difficult to dedicate time for numerous follow-ups. A lot of time is saved if the entire process is automated. A solar CRM automates repetitive and mundane tasks. It will make you efficient and save time on new and ongoing client projects.Integration with Other Apps –
Enterprise-level Solar CRM software allows seamless integration with other apps such as sales, accounting, inventory management, project management, team communications, etc. This provides the business employees and stakeholders a single source of truth for all customer interactions and transactions, while minimizing errors caused by manual and duplicate data entries.Reports –
Getting information about your sales is the key to knowing the success rate of the company. You can eliminate guessing and allow the solar CRM to do its job. The reports section helps in keeping track of customer insights, the performance of sales representatives, sales commissions, and other key metrics. Besides that, solar CRM allows the customization of reports for extracting the exact information you need in an easily comprehensible dashboard.
A solar CRM minimizes the time between lead generation to proposal submission. It enables the sales process to move at great speed. No sales process is perfect as it will definitely have some gaps. Solar CRM software provides you with data to inspect sales so that you can fix it when it is falling short.
Optimizing sales workflow is an ongoing process. A solar CRM can assist you in finding gaps, and bottlenecks in sales workflow.
Choosing the Right Solar CRM for Your Company
The role of a solar CRM system is to help your businesses grow revenue, improve efficiency, and expand market penetration. It is also to help manage the day-to-day business and ensure strong customer relationships through automation and integration with other applications and technologies.
In a typical solar system installation process, a team member inspects the project site either in the field or remotely. This requires entering customer data manually, collection of documents, and photo collection.
Solar CRM can help in maintaining healthy customer relationships and boosting the customer revenue. It should allow design files and proposals to be tracked throughout their submission process. The project manager can then review the proposal, send it to the customer, track progress of the project, and manage team members with ease.
The platform must offer integrated solutions for easy project management and team management. This will enhance productivity and mitigate errors. It has to provide a customizable dashboard view which allows managers a cohesive view of all projects at the same time. This enables them to monitor their progress and stay on top of things as they run seamlessly through both desktop or mobile devices.
It can be an asset to your company provided you select the right one. Choosing the right solar CRM is the key in terms of functionality and general usage. A CRM software designed for a non-solar business cannot fully serve the needs of solar businesses.
Considerations while choosing a solar CRM:
Automation
A good solar CRM removes the mundane tasks of the sales and operations team and streamlines the entire process.
UI/UX
The UI/UX of solar CRM software is more than just the look/feel. It is better to have your staff evaluate it with a series of trials.
Scalability
It is difficult to identify challenges in the early stages. The chosen CRM for the solar company should not limit the ability to adapt according to the company standards.
Integration
Solar CRM should be able to integrate with your other business systems such as proposals management, accounting, inventory management, project management, service management, etc.
Therefore, it is necessary to identify a CRM that aligns with the core focus of your solar business.
Blu Banyan’s SolarSuccess: Integrated Solar CRM & Business Software
SolarSuccess
SolarSuccess is an award-winning NetSuite application that is optimized for solar installers and developers. This all-in-one solar CRM is designed to improve overall company operations and meet your growth needs. It is optimized for residential, commercial, and utility-scale solar installers and developers to accelerate soft cost reduction and increase profitability.
SolarSuccess enables complete insight on every customer touch point while enabling the sales team to become performance-driven and productive through accurate calculations of sales commissions and real-time visibility of inventory for proposals.
Key Features and Benefits of SolarSuccess CRM:
End-to-end Commission Tracking
With SolarSuccess CRM, your sales team can see project details as they were initially sold along with redlines, adders, and milestone variables so everyone can reference changes from one contract version to the next.
See Equipment Available to Sell
Instead of selling modules and inverters that might be on backorder, the sales team can adjust sales proposals based on available inventory for faster fulfilment and a better customer experience.
Unified Communications
In SolarSuccess CRM, you can store high-resolution photos, sign contracts, and manage project documents through integrations with Amazon Web Services, Google Drive, Docusign, and more.
Third-party Integrations Prevent Duplicate Data Entry
As leads come in, SolarSuccess CRM can funnel them seamlessly to a sales proposal tool, such as OpenSolar, then back to SolarSuccess so projects continue without duplicate data entry by sales reps.
Single Source of Truth
All operations are connected to a single database. It integrates departments such as sales, accounting, inventory tracking, and management.
Other features include customized dashboards, rich chat, visual timelines, per project cost monitoring with solar specific financial project templates, task queues, KPIs, and alerts. The powerful drag and drop feature provides status controls that automatically trigger AR and AP transactions.
Jumpstart Your Company’s Growth & Productivity
Boosting the sales of the company can increase productivity and effectiveness. The demand for solar is increasing and is moving towards the next generation. Blu Banyan’s SolarSuccess CRM is a cost-effective solution that can empower businesses. Your business can have better control over installation, deal prospects and can ensure transparency on payments. This cloud-based online system for sales and implementation allows you to focus on growth and profitability. Speak to our SolarSuccess customer support team and get a free consultation.
