The construction industry, which includes the architecture, engineering, and construction fields, is known to use state of the art progressive technology for creating futuristic building designs and smart offices, the technology they use ranges from 3D modeling to virtual reality and modular construction to using construction robots.
Though they have been adept at using various advanced software for their clients, there seems to be a definitive lag in adopting construction industry software solutions for their internal processes.
According to a State of Sales report published in 2020, 58% of the sales professionals in the construction industry still prioritize prospective leads and bids manually compared to an average of 48% across the various other industries included in the survey.
51% of Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) business development professionals think they waste too much time tracking activities such as emails and phone conversations.
The above statistics illustrate that technological solutions for the construction sector have yet to be fully implemented to improve sales operations. It is apparent that, while the pandemic has sped the digital transformation process in other industries, the construction business still has a lot of catching up to do.
Adopting construction industry software solutions can go a long way in increasing revenue and increasing visibility into the projects involved. Using a CRM system can help the sales executives to track a project through their entire sales cycle, project managers can track construction projects on and off-site, simple integration of emails with the CRM system can make the client interactions transparent across the organization as a whole or using artificial intelligence can help predict the right leads to prioritize first.
With the right construction industry software solutions, the possibilities are endless.
The State of Sales report lists a set of new technologies that AEC organizations use currently or are planning to use and their projected growth in the next two years.
The right CRM system provides the organization with the above technological solutions to achieve ROI and customer base.
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Let’s look at how CRM provides an organization with the top 7 construction industry solutions that can potentially increase the revenue for the clients.
CRM provides a CPQ solution
The sales process of the construction industry is entirely different in comparison to the other sectors, here a single job invites several bidders, and the company has to pick the one that provides the most satisfactory service at the lowest price. In a scenario such as this, the sales rep has additional work to create proposals, submit multiple bids, and follow up with the clients.
Instead of taking the traditional route of estimating bids, the company can use a CRM software like Salesforce Sales Cloud or Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales with a Configure, Price and Quote tool where the product configuration and pricing rules are entered, and the quotes can be generated on the go.
Using CRM’s CPQ tool, the sales team can provide the quotes dynamically to any bidder based on the services they are willing to offer or services they want to procure. Thus, providing a streamlined sales process, simplifying the quote to cash process while ensuring that the company adheres to pricing and legal policies.
Centralized data with CRM
Typically, sales outreach methods such as emails and phone calls take place in the background, without the knowledge of other domains within the organization, but a CRM may help to bring all of these activities to the forefront by providing a visual picture of the entire sales process.
The primary benefit of using a CRM system is that all the customer data is centralized and visible on one single dashboard such that the sales, marketing, and service team can track where exactly a client is in the sales pipeline and assess the steps that can be taken to tend to the leads and the clients.
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Project Management solutions
A construction CRM solution provides the right tools for effective project management by storing the information of all the construction activities, assigning the tasks, personnel, and timelines for each action helping the construction companies to make faster headway in their work both at the office and on-site.
Microsoft Dynamic CRM, compatible with Microsoft Project or Salesforce platform integrated with third-party project management tools from AppExchange, can help deliver various construction projects on time within the estimated budget.
Marketing Automation solutions
The sales personnel have to regularly interact with the different bidders, contractors, engineers, and project managers have to continuously track the projects, nurture leads, renewals, or update the construction status to the clients.
With Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamic’s powerful automation tools, automated emails or reminders can be sent to clients at ease without manually doing this every single time an invoice has expired, or a service has to be renewed.
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CRM can be accessed from mobile, tablet, or desktop
Consider this, A project manager must work from the office and at the same time be in touch with his team on the field.
A sales representative must constantly travel or attend several client meetings to pitch sales.
A consolidated CRM that is compatible with all the platforms such as a mobile, tablet, or desktop helps all the members of the organization to access crucial information with a single click instead of back-and-forth communication with their colleagues. Thus, a multi-platform compatible CRM can turn out to be a huge time saver for a construction company.
Artificial Intelligence
Data is of no use if you cannot generate valuable insights to benefit businesses. With artificial intelligence embedded into CRM software, hordes of data can be easily analyzed to give predictive insights that enable the contractors to make better decisions and the salespersons to go for the right leads.
Once the customer data is fed and consolidated into the CRM, it does its magic by analyzing the customer profiles, tracking customer engagement on various portals, generating reports on campaigns, automatically assessing project deadlines, generating KPI’s and any other performance-based reports.
Artificial intelligence helps the contractors to schedule the work of a field technician such that the proper specialist is always on the job with the right tools without any scope for return visits.
Integrating emails with CRM
Integrating emails with the CRM system ensures that every interaction with both the customers and the prospects is captured automatically such that it is visible to everyone on the team, allowing the other team members to know the progress of the sales or services with the clients.
Automated emails can be sent to prospective customers at the desired time to ensure that outreach methods adhere to the sales cadence of the construction company. At the same time, automated emails are sent to the customers regarding their purchases, services, project progress, and so on, thus saving a lot of time for the construction, sales, and marketing staff.
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Conclusion
Digital transformation is turning out to be a key differentiator in the success of construction companies, especially in the wake of the current pandemic.
A CRM system provides the right construction technology solutions to the construction firm. In the short run, it offers rapid completion of several construction projects, prompt service to their existing clientele, and prospective consumers are contacted and responded to on time. In the long run, it helps strengthen organizational resilience in the face of future disasters.
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