The standard spring clean starts with throwing out everything old and unnecessary, dusting the forgotten corners, sorting and organising, and finishing with a fresh bunch of flowers in a vase.
How does this translate to your CRM system? Let the plan be the same - get rid of everything unnecessary, dust off old matters, organise your data, and treat yourself to something new at the end. Voilà!
Here are a few tips on where to start.
How many times during a tidy-up at home or in the wardrobe do you come across things you haven't used in years that just take up space? Your CRM can be the same. Check and remove data that is unnecessarily using up your storage.
If you don't need to keep clients you no longer work with in your database, don't - just delete them. There is no reason for them to take up space that could go to potential new clients. Go to your CRM tab and filter clients by status to find all inactive/non-paying ones - in short, those whose cooperation ended long ago. Select the checkbox next to the Client Name header and delete them all in one click. You can also use the Last Activity column on the client list. Simply click the header and the system will sort clients from most to least active, so you'll know which ones you haven't been in touch with for a long time. Bear in mind that the Last Activity column is most useful if you use the VoIP module and email in Sugester.
And speaking of emails - do the same there. If you don't delete spam or test emails straight away but just archive them, now is the time. Go to your inbox, click All from the list on the left, open "advanced search", select the Status "resolved" and post type "email" from the available filters. You can archive the results with a single click, just like with clients. First stage of your spring clean - done!
If your client database is growing unnaturally fast and you can't figure out why, check whether this feature is turned on. With it enabled, every time you send an email to an address not in the CRM, that email address is automatically added as a new client. Of course, if that is intentional, fine - but if you build your client base another way, turn this option off in the Helpdesk Configuration.
Go to Files in Sugester and check whether there are any unnecessary images, screenshots, or draft contracts that you no longer use - anything that is outdated at this point. If you haven't been using folders and have dumped everything into one, this is a good moment to create new folders and subfolders and organise your files properly.
Think you don't have any? You almost certainly do - overdue, outdated, or belonging to an employee who has already left the company. It's worth checking. The task list will help you here. Open it, leave the "unassigned" field empty, then click the "Due date" column header. The system will show you all tasks for the whole team, starting from the oldest. You can search for tasks belonging to people who are no longer at the company the same way, using the "assigned to" field. Then, just like with emails and clients, select the checkboxes and delete those tasks in one click.
In the "pending" tab of your inbox there may be unresolved matters waiting. Waiting for what, exactly? Check how long you've been putting them off and whether they are still relevant. If they are, open the client's profile, remind yourself of the context, and reply as soon as possible. If it turns out that items have been sitting there long past their expiry date, simply archive them.
Just as you organise items in a wardrobe, organise your clients in the CRM. Before you start putting data on the right "shelves" according to the right logic, begin by checking whether there are any duplicated records in the database. If there are, use the client merging function. Select the checkboxes of all duplicated records, then click "merge". Choose which record is the primary one, and the system will merge all duplicates into a single client. From that point on, important information will be in one place, and you'll gain extra space in your CRM for new clients.
Now you can start organising. As a reminder - use statuses to indicate the stage of cooperation you're at with a client: contact, negotiations, offer sent, paying - this gives you clear information on your conversion rate (you'll see it graphically in the sales funnel) and shows which stage needs improvement.
Departments - use these to mirror the departmental structure of your company. If you manage sales, for example, you can use departments to separate sales areas by location, product, or other criteria.
Categories - you can use these to indicate client importance (e.g., VIP Clients), or to segment your database into partners, distributors, suppliers, and clients. It all depends on your needs and business profile.
And finally, tags - use these to record additional information about clients that is important to you: location, age group, industry, or acquisition source. The benefits of using tags are many: you'll create extra segments in your database, it'll be easier to find and analyse a specific group, and you can use tags to build a mailing list and send email campaigns.
Now that everything is organised, you can do something for yourself. First - enable the virtual assistant that will manage your correspondence. It's a brilliant solution for busy people and for those who spend a lot of time processing emails. The email assistant in Sugester was designed for employees or, for example, board members who don't have time to deal with all their correspondence. Depending on the settings you configure in the Mail Configuration, the system will forward all emails from unknown senders - or all emails addressed to you - to the general "unassigned" folder. This way, only genuinely urgent matters will reach you, and your colleagues will handle the rest.
Enable an additional module
And now, truly the end. Everything is in its place, refreshed and clear. As a reward, why not allow yourself something new in Sugester? Perhaps a new module you've been thinking about for a while. Before you activate it, think carefully about what you're missing and how you want to enrich your company's processes. Maybe it'll be email marketing? You'll learn to create, analyse, and respond to email campaigns. Or maybe a knowledge base? You can start by organising internal processes and creating short how-to guides for your team, then go further and build a knowledge base for your clients. What about chat? Are you using chat yet? If you have a spare moment and want to invest it in something productive, enable chat and let your future and current clients get to know you better. You can start small - with consultations once a week - and then decide where to go from there.
And truly, finally -
…coffee. Just make yourself a good cup of coffee and enjoy the spring changes. :)
