How CRM applications increasing sales (Part 2)

Accountability problem

Sales people typically hate to compile the weekly, sometimes daily, reports regarding their pipeline and their opportunities. How many times have you had to "go over your list" in a meeting after having to manually account for the status of each prospect. This accountability is a painful activity which sales people can expend a tremendous amount of time compiling. As a result, too much time is wasted reviewing notes, looking back at information regarding individual sales calls, etc. This pain is also felt at the management level.
Having to call regular meetings to go over each salesperson's pipeline in the effort to create realistic opportunity reports can be grueling process.

CRM solve Accountability problem

In a well-designed CRM solution, reporting should be real-time allowing managers and executives to view instant status on leads, opportunities and closed deals from their own computer. These real-time charts and graphs must be able to "drill down" to the actual opportunity for a detailed examination. For example, Joe, the Sales VP needs to get a report on anticipated revenue for the month of August. Using CRM APPLICATION, Joe can access his customized portal and click on a graph which depicts real-time revenue projections by region and/or sales rep for each remaining month of the year. Moreover, Joe can pull a report detailing the individual stages of each opportunity and their likelihood of closure. This could all be done without having to call a meeting or asking the sales people to provide reports. It saves Joe and his team time and effort. Furthermore, Joe's sales team can access their own information from their own customized portals to help them get a feel for their pipeline and help them decide which opportunities need more attention. Below is a screen shot from CRM APPLICATION which represents a customized portal showing an example of this scenario?