In an age of busy schedules, short attention spans, and smartphones, we often see the misuse of acronyms, such as CRM, to try to explain and categorize these new business softwares. Unfortunately, this misuse often confuses consumers, creating an inadequate or incomplete understanding of the meaning and uses of these turn-key business solutions. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a process that enhances your customer relationships through managing customer interaction, streamlining processes, and tracking leads. Most importantly, CRM should not be confused with Lead-to-Cash — the most critical, yet often overlooked, business process. Lead-to-cash, in comparison, is the unique sales process that determines your customers’ complete buying experience.
Unfortunately for many companies, the lead-to-cash process is often manual and full of bottlenecks. As a result of these outdated systems, data is often inconsistent, leading to costly inefficiencies. Lead-to-cash is an end-to-end, top-level business process that starts with a qualified lead and ends with revenue collection.
Lead-to-cash includes:
Stages:
- Lead Assignment
- Quote generation
- Invoice and payments
- Order processing
Management:
- Lead Management
- Channel Pipeline Management
- Order Management
- Revenue Management
Bottlenecks from obsolete and disjointed systems at each of these steps produce inefficiencies that adversely affect customer experience, which is detrimental to your organizational success and bottom line.
Focusing on customer experience management, you will be glad to know that lead-to-cash software offers an integrated solution for your company and automates all aspects and facets of the sales cycle into a single and seamless workflow.
So, we can say that lead-to-cash software is a fully integrated business solution that automates routine sales tasks and provides valuable sales insights, eliminates siloes and process inefficiencies, and ensures accurate and reliable reporting on current business performance and future trends.
SalesStreamliner SaaS is a channel sales automation platform that manages lead assignment, automates quoting, invoicing & payments, order processing, and tracks sales pipeline and results in real-time. All-in-one stand-alone system that is simple, affordable, and mobile. See how lead-to-cash technology can maximize your channel sales. Schedule a call with one of our world-class SalesStreamliner lead-to-cash experts today.
Sources:
https://www.ibm.com/services/client-stories/lead-to-cash
https://www.hubspot.com/growth-stack/what-is-crm
https://www.huronconsultinggroup.com/insights/lead-to-cash-transformation
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/customer_relation_management.asp
