What does CRM, Pipeline and Sales Funnel mean?

What is CRM?

The word CRM (English Customer Relationship Management ) is a marketing concept that refers to a method or system to organize and keep track of the various stages that make up the sales chain of a company. As such, ie as a method, it can be executed on paper or verbally. However, in common usage, the term is used to refer to software business management and business administration such as Salesforce, Zoho, Workbooks, Microsoft Dynamics, etc.

What's Pipeline?

 

This term is used to designate engineering based on different branches, which have valves and pumps to drive, at each distance, the flow of a given substance (in this case, a "commercial substance"). This type of data stream output implies that a phase is another input. Thus, the various stages or phases are linked in the manner of a pipe, making the flow speed through the pipeline. Perhaps a valid translation of the term into Spanish would be "Aqueduct sales" ( AS ).

 

Why is the concept helpful? One reason for segmenting the calculations, is that it improves the diagnosis of the present situation of the company: where is the business today, what sections of the marketing chain are neglected, where are they over-allocating resources and eventually the causes.

 

What is Sales funnel ?

 

Like the word Pipeline, the English term funnel (in Spanish embudo) is graphical and pretty self-explanatory: the top of the funnel, the widest part illustrates all potential customers ( CP ) consumers or users of the service or product the company sells. Includes thus, in a vague and undifferentiated way all potential candidates  that the company has indexed in its database as potential customers, even in the case of people who are not even been shown the product or service yet .  

 

The bottom of the funnel, illustrates what is happening as you go through the sales process after product presentation, negotiations, etc., until it reaches the narrowest part representing the final percentage of actual buyers or consumers.

 

The sales funnel is a marketing tool to quantify potential customers (or sales value) at any given moment of the marketing process.

 

Its utility lies in helping to predict the number of CPs that with probability, will become customers of the company.

 

Another of the advantages is that through continuous monitoring of the coefficients, detects problems in the sales pipeline and take corrective action before it is too late.

 

The  sales funnel shows AV obstructions, downtime outside the standard norm, or if there is an insufficient number of CPs in a given stage of the process. This knowledge allows to determine where sales agents should focus, efforts to maintain sales at the desired level and to meet sales targets.