If you’re in need of some extra help hitting your sales targets and better managing your sales strategy/process, you might be pleased to know that there’s a specific kind of CRM software out there that can help you out.
It’s called pipeline software, and it offers a significantly more productive solution than analog alternatives. So, what’s so great about pipeline software? And how can you use it to springboard your business operations, whatever field they might be in?
Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to discuss in this article. Read on to explore the top features to look out for when picking an effective pipeline software, and monday sales CRM is the fully customizable, robust product that’ll fulfill all your pipeline software needs and more.
What is pipeline software?
To understand what pipeline software does, and how it’s helpful, we first need to examine what a pipeline is. A pipeline is a visually organized method of tracking leads, projects, or tasks, as they move through various stages of development.
They’re typically used in sales environments — and hence also called a sales pipeline — but also come in handy in the marketing and project management worlds. Imagine for a moment that you’re using a visual tool like this that will bring your sales pipeline to life. Each stage in the sales pipeline would correspond to a stage of your sales process, and as the lead moves through that process, you’d use the software application to move the card or change the status at each stage to show how the prospect is moving through your workflow.
What benefits does a sales pipeline offer?
The overarching benefit that sales pipelines deliver to selling teams is a more manageable sales process, which translates to stronger lead management and higher close rates.
This is especially true of sales pipeline software that offers mobile applications, with 65% of teams using mobile apps hitting their sales targets, compared to 22% for salespeople who don’t. In addition, a sales pipeline platform can also enhance the ability to report on and analyze team performance through dashboards and reporting functionality.
More advanced sales pipeline software applications also give you the flexibility to customize pipeline stages to fit your sales process.
For example, with monday sales CRM you can build your own pipeline with easy-to-grasp drag-and-drop functionality. Or you can get started instantly with a sales pipeline template.
How do businesses use software to manage their pipelines?
Sales aren’t the only department that can benefit from implementing a pipeline software platform.
For example:
- Marketing teams can manage an upcoming campaign deployment by creating a pipeline for all required assets.
- A software development team can create a continuous delivery pipeline to keep track of all required updates and allow each developer to work more autonomously.
- Design agencies can use pipeline software to manage the inflow of new design work right through to completion.
Let’s look at a few examples to give some visual context to how businesses use pipeline software.
3 software pipeline tool examples
DevOps pipeline
Software delivery teams use pipeline software to manage quarterly initiates, code change requests, and continuous integration development.
Capable solutions will allow you to integrate with your bug-tracking software, so data is plumbed straight into your continuous deployment pipeline.
Sales pipeline
Perhaps the most common use for pipeline software is to manage sales processes. Sales leaders can create custom pipelines that map onto their sales process, as well as store customer information, call and email directly from their software, or assign a new task to a sales rep.
Project portfolio management
Project managers who work across a portfolio of different projects might use pipeline software to gain a high-level view of project timelines, store and manage stakeholder contact info, and keep track of associated costs.
11 features high-performing teams look for in sales pipeline software
There are plenty of ways to manage a pipeline, and plenty of software platforms out there, but they aren’t all built the same. Let’s take a look at a few of the most important features that pipeline software should offer, so you can feel confident in choosing your platform.
1. Customization
No two pipelines are the same, and every business has its own specific needs when it comes to building the most effective pipeline for its company.
Templates are a nice way to get off the ground quickly, but the last thing you want is to be stuck working in an arbitrary framework that some developer thought made the most sense. So, it’s important to choose a pipeline software provider that allows you to customize those templates, or build your own pipeline from scratch, with customized stages, fields, and views.
2. Multiple views
Not everyone likes to work in grid mode. Some salespeople prefer a Kanban-style board, others would rather work within a timeline.
Empowering your team to work in the way that makes the most sense to them, without compromise, is a sure way to lift team engagement and enhance sales results.Choose a pipeline software solution with multiple view types built in, so your team can easily switch between them without compromising the underlying data.
3. Automations
A pipeline software platform with robust automation features can result in up to 30% more deals closed, so we’d recommend prioritizing this feature. However, you don’t want to spend days bogged down in code to get there, so make sure your pipeline software platform makes it easy to create new automation rules.
With staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud. creating customized automation couldn’t be easier. Just plug in what you want to happen, and that’s one less thing on your to-do list.
4. Integrations
Modern teams, sales or otherwise, are rarely using just one software platform to get the job done. This can result in a ton of time lost switching between tabs and windows, and updating data across platforms. Save yourself this time by finding a solution that integrates with all of the tools you’re already using.
5. Mobile apps
We mentioned earlier that pipeline software that’s accessible via mobile apps is a surefire way to increase team engagement and empower your salespeople to hit their targets. So, make sure that you choose a platform dedicated to building powerful, user-friendly mobile apps.
6. Collaboration tools
Modern teams are diverse, remote, and hyper-specialized, meaning even a simple team can include people from various roles working together toward the same end goal. This is especially true if you’re embracing methodologies like Agile.
So, your pipeline software should include collaboration tools like:
- Document sharing
- Video conferencing
- Customizable access permissions
- Instant messaging
7. Ability to handover between team members smoothly
One of the biggest challenges large sales teams face is that their sales process often involves multiple touchpoints.
For example:
- A sales development rep cold calls a prospect and pre-qualifies them
- The SDR hands the lead over to an account executive to perform a sales demo and fully qualify the lead
- If the customer purchases, the AE then hands that customer over to the customer success or service department
This can feel a little impersonal from the customer perspective, but you can combat this downside by making it easy for your team members to share customer details, notes on previous sales conversations, and contact preferences.
Your pipeline software should make it easy to reassign a lead to a new colleague, and have all of the lead’s important data retained.
8. Reporting
Getting work done is only part of the puzzle. High-performing teams also put time aside to review performance, and create action plans for improvement. You can empower your team with such insights by choosing a pipeline software platform with a robust reporting suite.
9. Dashboards
More well-equipped pipeline platforms will go beyond simple reporting functions, allowing you to create a custom dashboard for regular analysis. With software like this, you can choose the reports you want instant access to in a single screen, and see them updated in real-time.
10. Forms
This one’s especially important if you’re working with customer data, and actively generating new inbound leads. Finding a pipeline creator that also has a custom form builder is a major timesaver, allowing your customers to type their data into an easy-to-understand form, which then arrives neatly in your contact management pipeline.
That means no more lost leads due to incorrectly typed-in phone numbers.
11. Templates
Lastly, if you’re looking to get off the ground quickly — which, let’s face it, who isn’t? — then you’ll want to find a pipeline software solution that provides plenty of pre-built, customizable templates that you can download and get to work on. Luckily staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud offers hundreds of templates for you to easily choose from and customize as you see fit.
staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud has all the top pipeline software features and more
As you can see, pipeline software can deliver several benefits for sales teams, continuous deployment software developers, and project managers alike, as long as you choose a solution with the right features, of course. And we’re here to give you some really great news. the monday sales CRM has all these previously mentioned features and more.
Create your pipeline from scratch or try using our sales process template, or one of the 300+ other templates we have available. No matter what way you choose to use the monday sales CRM software to manage your pipelines, you can rest assured that you’ll have all the top features at your fingertips to maximize your team’s efficiency and processes!
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