Salesforce for Manufacturing - Manufacturing CRM

Manufacturing Companies Need A Custom CRM

Global competition is pushing prices down, and technology has made it easier than ever for your customers to buy your products from somewhere or someone else. Utilizing that same technology to optimize the selling process for your sales reps should be your goal. You will be able to send more quotes and capture more approvals.

Manufacturing companies need a reliable way to identify customer demands to improve response time, increase productivity, and to forecast their operating and production costs in a more accurate and consistent manner. Our consultants’ deep understanding of core manufacturing methodologies allows us to examine a company’s business processes and translate those to robust solutions within Salesforce.

Salesforce functionality used to streamline the manufacturing process:

Sales Cloud®

One of the core requirements for any company is the ability to attract and service its customers, and Alternative Solutions offers Salesforce consultants with manufacturing expertise that can help you get the job done. The versatility of the Salesforce Sales Cloud product means that it fits the needs of many industries. This powerful solution helps companies grow their customer base, plus identify and close more deals, all while accelerating overall productivity. Manufacturing companies can integrate legacy systems and data to provide real-time visibility into the sales pipeline with actionable results and forecasting based on reported trends. Bottlenecks can be eliminated by automating workflow approval requests and deal size can be boosted through cross-selling and upselling opportunities. Alternative Solutions and our Salesforce consultants will help you better serve your customers.

Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud

Salesforce makes it possible to connect your sales team and your operations team. You can create transparency through the process by giving your team members access to all of the customer information. In Salesforce, everyone can access sales agreements, order information, view the manufacturing timeline, etc.

Service Cloud

After you’ve increased your customer base, it’s important to manage that customer relationship. Salesforce Service Cloud is the manufacturer’s perfect customer relationship management system. It gives your customers the ability to connect with a specialist or find an answer to their issue in a quick and trackable system. By keeping track of your customer’s concerns and needs, you’re able to support them and their business more effectively.

Salesforce CPQ

CPQ Salesforce, (Configure, Price, Quote Software) is a custom-designed tool for Salesforce users. It allows companies to provide accurate pricing with any given product configuration scenario, thereby increasing your sales rep’s ability to send quotes more quickly. By optimizing quote delivery, it leads to less lag time and more overall sales!

Atkore International - Manufacturing CRM Case Study

Providing Guided Selling and Quoting to its Sales Channels

Atkore delivers a unique portfolio of integrated electrical raceway solutions that deploys, isolates, and protects a structure’s electrical circuitry from source to outlet. They, like many other manufacturing companies, utilize a sales team to manage and bring on new clients. This process involves creating, sending, and keeping track of proposals during the sales pipeline.

Alternative Solutions was brought in to design and implement an automated solution that would enable Atkore’s sales reps to eliminate redundant proposals and streamline the process from beginning to end. We utilized Salesforce’s powerful CRM to build them a completely custom customer relationship platform to help their sales reps succeed.

The system we created gave the sales reps the ability to manage the entire quoting process in one user experience (quote entries, approvals, etc.) They also had the capability to create and synchronize sales projections with the company’s forecasting application – all based on the input from the quote. With Salesforce, Atkore was able to create and send more quotes, while quickly and easily moving those proposals down the sales pipeline. Atkore was able to have constant interaction with all quotes in every part of the sales process.

Manufacturing Industry Pain Points

Manufacturing Costs

The cost to manufacture your product is always changing. When there are months between your price quote, the approval, and the actual manufacturing of the product, the cost of your goods could have completely changed. In the past, that either meant you ate the cost difference or you asked your buyer to help pay the difference.

Now with Salesforce CPQ, you are able to implement complex pricing scenarios. This means you will never again have to assume the risk of ever-changing costs!

Customer Relationship

Manufacturing companies have run their entire businesses on Rolodexes since the dawn of the industry. The problem with the Rolodex is that it usually belongs to one person and the entire customer relationship and experience can balance on them. In today’s economy, the average sales rep stays with a company for 3-5 years. You need a system to manage that customer relationship internally and share it across your entire sales team.

Salesforce CRM for Manufacturers gives the entire team access to the relationship to see what has been quoted and any service-related tasks available. It turns your sales reps into a sales team.

Alternative Solutions would love to help you better understand the Salesforce platform. Get in contact with us today to learn more about how a custom CRM can improve your manufacturing sales process.