What To Look For In A Small Business Warehouse Inventory Software CRM System
Salesforce CRM + CloudArc
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Published: Nov. 2023 | By: Steve Snapp, CloudArc Founder
Deciding on the best small business warehouse inventory software CRM system can have a significant impact on your business’s bottom line.
CRM systems (or Customer Relationship Management) platforms are more than just a tool to manage account and contact information. Tools like Salesforce are powerful CRMs that help your business effectively manage warehouse inventory, orders, territories, and other essential aspects of your business. Below are some key features you should consider when looking for the best small business warehouse inventory software management solution.
First, having a CRM that can also integrate with other systems such as data warehouses or enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms is critical.
Many small businesses use ERPs to manage aspects of their ordering systems or other parts of their supply chain. Most ERPs have APIs to connect with Salesforce. The ability to connect your ERP with Salesforce and exchange information between the two systems is highly valuable to optimize your business workflows and ensure effective management of your inventory. It’s also critical to have a CRM that integrates with email tools such as Gmail and Outlook. Salesforce has highly useful plugins that allow for seamless information recording in Salesforce directly from your email.
With Salesforce you have a powerful CRM system that can also effectively manage inventory.
Adding objects to your Salesforce org can help you track inventory real-time as well as provide you with stock level alerts, batch and lot tracking, etc. What’s more, you can find many add-on features available in the Salesforce App Exchange specifically designed for inventory management that can be added to your Salesforce org.
Providing your users with a clear and seamless experience is essential to successfully deploy any new system. This is especially true when launching a new warehouse inventory management CRM. Salesforce has been designed with users in mind to make it intuitive and use of it clear and simple. What’s more, it’s accessible via mobile devices so your users can always access information they need regardless of whether they are at their desk or meeting with customers.
Taking care of customer needs is a critical part of having an effective warehouse inventory management CRM system for small businesses.
Salesforce is well-known for the ease with which businesses can manage customer orders and tickets. Using the basic features of Salesforce, small businesses can stay on top of not only what’s in their warehouse inventory but also what orders are inbound, the status of those orders, and how inventory should be replenished based on those customer orders. Furthermore, for any issues raised by customers about a question or concern with an order, Salesforce has a highly user friendly ticket management system. Using tickets, your customers are able to submit issues or questions to you. Businesses can also employ the ticket management system to track progress on customer questions or issues as well as progress made on responding to those customer inquiries. Staying on top of customer requests enables you and your customers to maintain seamless communications.
As your business grows, you need to ensure you have a CRM that is not only effective for managing inventory but is also scalable, customizable, and allows for automation of certain tasks. Scalability is critical as you add more team members and especially as you add more customers who may need to interact with you via a ticket management system or customer engagement portal. The same features can be highly valuable as you increase the number of vendors or other suppliers whose stock you track in your inventory system. Salesforce can handle an increase in inventory and customer data without major disruptions which makes it an ideal warehouse inventory management CRM system.
Regardless of the number of customers or vendors you need to manage…
…Salesforce is a powerful CRM that will enable you to effectively oversee account information and inventory details to ensure you meet customer demands expediently. At the same time as you think about scaling your business, automation also becomes more important so you can free up your staff’s time for other tasks. Salesforce’s use of flows makes automation of tasks around email, activities, and other parts of your business simple and straightforward. With flows, you are able to automate tasks like order processing, reordering inventory, etc. making Salesforce an ideal resource for businesses needing a warehouse management system.
Tracking how your business is doing is essential and a key advantage of Salesforce as a warehouse inventory software CRM. The system allows for easy report creation as well as dashboard generation so you can carefully monitor how much inventory you have, the speed at which orders are processed, the number of tickets customers submit, how sales teams are performing in certain geographic regions, etc.
A final feature to keep in mind when searching for a small business warehouse inventory software and CRM system like Salesforce is to find a Salesforce partner who can sell you the licenses to Salesforce AND who can help you configure your Salesforce org exactly as you need it. These types of partners can help you save on your license and consulting costs by suggesting only the licenses you will need and not those licenses that have all the “extras” you don’t need, won’t use, or will cost you significantly more.
We have the consulting expertise as well as the ability to sell Salesforce licenses directly
At CloudArc we welcome the opportunity to work with customers who are exploring CRMs and are interested in Salesforce but are reluctant to engage because they’re unsure if they can get the basic features of Salesforce they need at a price point they can afford. We generally always recommend customers start with Salesforce Platform which can track information related to all of the topics mentioned above. We have the consulting expertise as well as the ability to sell Salesforce licenses directly that make us a great partner to help you set up a warehouse inventory CRM system for your small business.