What is a CRM?
A CRM is a database where a company will keep track of their leads and customers, CRM stands for “Customer Relationship Manager”. CRMs are used to store contact details such as email addresses and phone numbers, notes about meetings and calls that have taken place
Here’s a list of popular CRMs
These CRMs are great tools to help you track your sales and marketing activities. They work especially well when you’re sitting at a desk, selling to other people who are sitting at a desk; and your primary communication channels are through email, phone calls, and instant messages.
CRMs are organised by types of objects. Typically, these consist of Contacts, Companies, Deals and Campaigns. Contacts are nested under companies, with Deals associating the other three. This is so you can find all correspondence from one person who’s involved in a deal, and you can track which deals were generated per campaign.
What is a field sales platform?
Field sales apps offer a great alternative to CRMs for teams who conduct their business face to face.
Traditional CRMs work brilliantly when selling to people via email, telephone calls and instant messaging but a field sales app helps you track sales activities that take place in person.
While field sales platforms will also have objects such as contacts and companies, they mostly revolve around locations rather than companies. Many also include route planning functionality, so that Field Sales Reps can better plan their days.
Here’s a list of popular Field Sales Platforms
Field sales apps often have functionality to make note of phone calls, emails and other communications, but treat these as secondary to visits.
Want to see what a field sales platform looks like in action? Book a demo of Bowimi here.
Could I have both?
In companies where you have a mix of ‘desk’ selling and field sales, you should consider using both.
For example, a snack brand might have a field sales platform to make sure their supermarket listings are compliant and also use a CRM to track their activities around getting into a new account.
However, don’t use the wrong tool for the job. Trying to track email outreach or phone calls with a field sales app will prove harder than using a CRM that has features for recording these built in. If doing a phone call or a drop in visit is a rare occurrence you may find it easier to record these as notes/free text in your current platform rather than onboard a brand new platform.
