Key features of financial services CRM software and their benefits
Given the sheer size of the CRM software market, finding the right platform can be overwhelming. But keep in mind that not all CRM platforms are created equal. And even the most feature-packed ones may not cater to the financial services sector.
If you’re looking for CRM for financial advisors, investment bankers, insurers, or asset managers, keep an eye out for the following features.
Customer data management
Any standard financial services CRM platform will offer a central dashboard that ensures easy access to client data. That includes sales and customer service interactions, purchase history, email and SMS activity, and online behaviour.
Act! CRM takes this a step forward with detailed customer profiles, making it easier and faster to find the information you need. You can collect and store data from a wide array of sources, be it phone calls, emails, or notes.
This saves sales reps and customer service executives the trouble of scrolling through endless spreadsheets, email threads, and phone records before addressing a client’s query. You can even filter the data by date, location, device, and more. That, in turn, improves the quality of client interactions and takes the customer experience up a notch.
Sales pipeline management
The best CRM for financial services companies will let you visualize the sales pipeline. In other words, you can take a closer look at different stages of the sales funnel and monitor the status of individual leads. It can help you identify and eliminate points of friction in the customer journey.
Deeper insight into customer behaviour can help sales reps focus on the right leads and even harness untapped sales opportunities. Additionally, with CRMs like Act!, you can filter sales pipeline data by location, sales stage, product, agent, and more to optimize sales processes.
Workflow automation
A list of must-have CRM features won’t be complete without automation. Financial services CRMs don’t just let you automate routine tasks like data entry. Instead, they offer tools to automate entire sales workflows.
For instance, Act! allows you to build automated email drip campaigns to nurture qualified leads. When a lead opens an email and visits a product page on your website, the software can automatically schedule a follow-up call the next day. It can even assign the task to the right sales rep and send a reminder before the call.
Similarly, you can schedule automated follow-up emails or text messages after specific intervals. Such automation gives sales reps time to focus on more critical tasks, such as improving retention rates.
Marketing and personalization
Financial services CRM software usually comes with built-in marketing features. For instance, Act! CRM lets you create email marketing campaigns to engage leads and drive conversions. You can even segment your email list and implement hyper-targeted campaigns to impress customers with personalized content and product recommendations.
Many CRMs even support integration with social media platforms, letting you monitor customer activity and personalize marketing campaigns.
You also get pre-designed landing page templates that come in handy for lead generation. You can customize these templates to fit your branding and publish them right away. The best part? When a prospect submits their contact details, the information is automatically added to the CRM.
Analytics and reporting
Here’s the thing—collecting client data isn’t enough. Marketing, sales, and customer support teams must be able to use that data to derive actionable insights. The best financial services CRMs let you do that with robust built-in analytics dashboards.
You can track marketing and sales performance metrics in real time to understand whether your strategies are working as desired. This allows you to implement the necessary corrective actions at the right time. These insights also come in handy for evaluating your company’s overall financial health and generating revenue projections.
With a robust CRM like Act! CRM, you can even convert these insights into easy-to-understand reports.
Integration with your existing tech stack
Running a financial services firm in 2023 means you’re likely using different software solutions to manage business operations. Look for CRM tools that are compatible with other software in your tech stack.
For instance, finance CRM integrates with a wide array of software, from email, calendar, and productivity tools to e-commerce platforms and accounting software. Such integrations enable seamless transfer of data between the platforms and eliminate the need to keep switching between them.
