Three ways document generation supercharges your CRM

Your company has invested a lot in Salesforce, and you’ve been there to customize it and help train the employees to use it. You’ve put a lot of effort into rethinking and replacing old systems with new. Your company’s leadership may not want to add anything else to your existing solution – either because they don’t think it’s needed or because they feel like they can’t afford it – but there are several important reasons why they should consider adding a document generation (doc gen) solution.

Before diving into the benefits of doc gen, it’s important to know what it is and how it can impact your business. A doc gen application enables you to retrieve data from anywhere in Salesforce, include rich content (images, tables, graphs, etc.), then group and summarize that data and conditionally display content depending on your business rules. Users can create contracts, invoices, presentations, account plans, reports and other documents using the same application, which makes for a simpler learning curve for both admins and end users.

So, why does your business need it? Here are three specific reasons why:

1. It saves you time

Tasking employees with the manual, labor-intensive, repetitive process of copying and pasting is highly inefficient and wastes valuable time. Not only is it a waste of human capital, it also creates a good chance that errors will be introduced such as the wrong total on an invoice or an incorrect close date.

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The best CRM systems can leverage automation to take the burden of mundane tasks often associated with sales off the shoulders of your employees. In turn, your sales staff can focus more on closing leads while the automated CRM system takes care of the details.

2. Fewer inconsistencies

Collecting and organizing actionable customer data is a full-time job, and one that isn’t very forgiving of mistakes. Without a solid doc gen system, inconsistent documents are being sent to prospects and customers far too often. Each employee sending out documents may be using their own “creative” formatting, relying on an outdated template, or forgetting to use the appropriate version of a document for a given situation.

This brand inconsistency can make your company look less than professional. And it can mean that the information going out is outdated or inaccurate. With a templated doc gen solution, the need for manual effort is cut back significantly (along with the errors that come along with that effort). An approved template creates an appropriate, brand-consistent message, and a copy of the document is automatically captured in your CRM. In the end, a doc gen solution will more than pay for itself.

3. More visibility

If you don’t have a doc gen solution linked to your CRM, it’s difficult to track when a document went out and whether it contained up-to-date information. If your CRM is a true repository of all information - including all documents sent out – then it will provide you with true visibility and insight into your company’s sales process. Plus, CRM makes it possible for any employee to have access to the same customer data, which means more transparency across the account, and better customer service across the organization!

In the game of sales, customers should be your top priority. By investing in a doc gen solution on top of your CRM system, you’ll be able to deliver better customer service by streamlining the sales process and eliminating inconsistencies often associated with manual tasks. So, what’s holding you back?