Does your company use different software for CRM and payment processing, resulting in frequent errors and inconsistencies?
The constant juggling between the two systems can be incredibly time-consuming and frustrating.
Hi, my name is AJ! After selling my business for multiple seven figures, I made it my mission to help other entrepreneurs avoid the costly mistakes I made.
When I first started my company, I had two separate platforms for processing payments and managing customer relationships.
However, everything became efficient when we found a CRM system that could do both!
Keep reading if you want to learn the advantages that come with integrating a payment gateway into a CRM platform!
Key Takeaways
-
CRM payments keep everything related to payment processing and e-commerce in one location. -
A CRM with payment processing capabilities improves the buyer’s journey. -
CRM payments allow sales teams to close deals faster and work more efficiently. -
CRM payments give your company access to in-depth sales pipeline data that can improve processes.
Related Reading: Small Business CRM
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What are CRM Payments?
CRM payments are tools that connect the following things in one centralized location:
- E-Commerce
- Payments
- Payment processing
- Customer data
- E-Commerce data
This centralized platform is a more efficient alternative than teams using a bunch of disconnected tools.
CRM payment processing ensures your company offers potential and existing customers a streamlined and positive buying experience!
Benefits of CRM Payments for Your Customers
There are several benefits of CRM payment integration tools, including the following:
- They improve the customer journey
- They offer deeper personalization
- They ensure a real-time payment process
- They allow customers to pay with the method of their choice
Let’s look at these advantages closer!
Improve the Buyers Journey
CRM payment processing revamps the buyer’s journey by offering a seamless and integrated experience.
From browsing to checkout, every step is interconnected, reducing hiccups and ensuring a smoother transaction.
Further, When CRMs can process payments, it eliminates unnecessary steps.
As a result, the purchasing experience is more enjoyable and efficient, which ultimately leads to higher customer satisfaction.
Deep Customer Personalization
CRM payment processing promotes deep customer personalization by gathering and analyzing data from each customer’s purchasing journey.
This information helps businesses understand customer preferences and behaviors.
When teams understand individual preferences, it allows sales and marketing teams to tailor marketing messages and offers to align with each person’s unique needs.
The result is a highly personalized buying experience that resonates with customers, fostering loyalty and encouraging repeat business.
Lastly, this personalization can extend to payment options, letting customers choose their preferred payment method (which I’ll detail later).
Real-Time Payments
Real-time payments are a significant advantage of CRM payment processing.
For instance, when a CRM can process payments, it immediately transfers funds, enhancing customer convenience.
This feature eliminates the waiting period for payment clearance, providing customers with a quicker, more efficient purchasing experience.
Also, real-time payments allow for the following things to happen:
- Customers can see immediate updates to their bank accounts
- Customers can better keep track of their spending
- Businesses can access funds without any delays
- Businesses can experience better cash flow management
Customers Pay With a Method of Their Choice
Allowing customers to pay with their method of choice is a significant benefit of CRMs that process payments.
For instance, being able to accept payments from various outlets offers flexibility and caters to the diverse payment preferences among customers.
As a result, the checkout experience is seamless and frictionless for everyone!
Further, offering more payment gateways instills confidence in buyers, knowing they can transact in a way that aligns with their financial habits and comfort.
As a result, this can lead to the following things:
- Increased customer satisfaction
- More customer loyalty
- Higher sales conversions
When browsing through CRM providers, ensure you choose one that can accept payment from various sources.
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Benefits of CRM Payments for Your Business
Although CRM payment gateways are beneficial for customers, they’re equally beneficial for your company!
Some of these advantages include the following:
- Teams can close deals faster
- The payment process is easier on sales reps
- You ensure your team uses secure payment processors
- You can access more in-depth sales pipeline and payment data
- You can reduce the number of integrations your team uses
Here’s what you need to know about each of these advantages!
Close Deals Quicker
CRM payment processors enable sales reps to close deals faster by streamlining the transaction process.
For instance, these payment gateways allow for immediate payment processing, removing any delays that often happen with traditional payment methods.
Also, built-in payment integration within the CRM software eliminates the need for transferring customer data between platforms, reducing the risk of errors and saving precious time.
Consequently, this expedites the entire sales process, allowing reps to close deals faster!
Easier on Sales Reps
CRM payment integration significantly eases the workload on sales reps by doing the following things:
- Centralizing all customer data
- Centralizing transaction information
- Eliminating the need to switch between multiple platforms
- Allowing teams to gather and organize customer purchasing behavior
Also, a CRM payment gateway automates many aspects of the payment process.
As a result, sales reps can focus on building relationships and closing deals instead of getting overwhelmed by administrative tasks.
Further, a CRM payment integration can help eliminate manual errors in payment processing, enhancing the sales team’s efficiency and reducing risk.
On top of that, real-time payment updates help sales reps keep track of the sales pipeline and buyer behavior.
Lastly, the ability to offer customers their preferred payment methods directly within the CRM can smooth the sales process, enhancing the following aspects:
- Customer satisfaction
- Sales performance
- The organization of payment data
It’s More Secure
Typically, a CRM payment integration offers better security because it adheres to the highest industry standards for every transaction.
As a result, CRM platforms protect sensitive payment data from breaches.
Further, CRMs employ encryption methods to secure customer data transfer between different systems.
Also, since all customer and payment information is centralized and stored in one platform, CRM payment gateways reduce the risk of data loss or misplacement!
Lastly, a CRM payment integration often includes fraud detection mechanisms, providing another layer of security to transactions.
You’ll Get Full Sales Pipeline Data
Complete sales pipeline data is crucial for businesses because it provides comprehensive insights into the sales process and customer journey.
With this information, companies can do the following things:
- Identify bottlenecks
- Uncover sales opportunities
- Make informed decisions to optimize conversion rates
On top of that, the ability to track every touchpoint in the sales pipeline enables businesses to personalize their approach.
And when companies offer personalization, it improves customer satisfaction and fosters loyalty.
Lastly, comprehensive sales pipeline data can aid in accurate sales forecasting, helping organizations align their sales strategies with business goals!
You Can Reduce the Number of Software Your Use
Reducing the number of software your company uses can streamline operations.
For example, eliminating the need to bounce back and forth between a CRM system and a payment gateway boosts productivity and efficiency.
Also, reducing the number of platforms teams use reduces the probability of human error in data transfer and communication lapses that could occur due to scattered information across multiple systems.
Further, investing in CRM with a payment integration can significantly cut costs, as maintaining and subscribing to several software solutions can financially tax businesses.
A Note on CRM Autopayments
In some instances, implementing an auto-payment feature is beneficial.
For example, customers have recurring payments when companies offer a service like music streaming.
Fortunately, you can set up (most) CRM systems for auto payments.
When billing and payment gateways are directly integrated with a CRM system, teams can do the following things:
- Set up recurring payments
- Determine payment frequency
- Add customer start and end dates for customers to pay invoices
- Pause credit or debit card transactions
- Access recurring payments via a contact card
Why are automatic payment gateways beneficial?
Most customers love being able to set up automatic payments and forget about them.
Therefore, when you accept automatic payments, you can take advantage of the convenience that most customers look for in a business!
Is setting up automatic billing cycles beneficial for companies? Yes!
Some advantages businesses can enjoy when they create automatic payments include the following:
- Greater predictability in cash flow
- Better customer retention
- More freedom to concentrate on tasks that aren’t related to preparing invoices
Put simply, accepting recurring payments is beneficial for both your business AND its customers!
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Top CRMs With Payment Processing
Lastly, I’ll show you a couple of examples of customer relationship management (CRM) systems with the best payment integration software.
These CRMs include the following providers:
- HubSpot CRM
- Zoho CRM
While HubSpot or Zoho may not be your final choice in CRM provider, it’s still helpful to understand the features and systems available in the industry.
Here’s everything you need to know about each of these providers!
HubSpot CRM
HubSpot is the best CRM for B2B companies looking to secure and share one-time and recurring payments.
The price of HubSpot’s payment processor includes the following rates:
- Credit and debit cards: Customers pay a flat 2.9% per transaction
- ACH payments: Customers pay 0.5% of the transaction amount (capped at $10 per transaction)
One excellent feature of HubSpot’s payment integration is the fact that users can add one-time or recurring payment links inside personalized quotes!
Therefore, as soon as a customer receives your quote, they can pay immediately in a self-service portal.
Another aspect that makes HubSpot’s CRM system unique from others is that the CRM powers customer payments.
As a result, customer profiles automatically update when the following things occur:
- A sales rep adds new contact information
- The sales team records new communication details
- Teams add quote details
- Customers add payment information
Why is having CRM and payment history in one place beneficial for your team?
When everything is under one roof, your team can easily personalize things like:
- Marketing efforts
- Various aspects of the customer experience
- Communication
Further, centralized CRM and payment integrations make it easier to automate workflows.
On top of that, you can automate workflows related to where your customers are in the payment process.
As a result, you promote more team productivity and make it easier for sales reps to satisfy customers!
Check out our extensive HubSpot CRM review to learn more!
Zoho CRM
Zoho’s payment processor tool is best for businesses with worldwide operations.
With this CRM software, teams ensure they remain tax-compliant even when they bill and accept payments around the world.
Zoho’s pricing plan is as follows:
- Free to $249 per organization per month (billed annually)
- Custom plans for larger enterprises
Zoho is a cloud-based CRM system that offers subscription billing software.
With this payment integration, teams can do the following things:
- Manage customer subscriptions
- Use sales automation features
- Automate recurring billing
- Ensure invoices are tax-compliant (regardless of where you’re sending them)
- Set up billing cycles and payment frequencies for customers
- Store customer credit and debit cards securely
Further, Zoho allows companies to collect payments online AND offline through popular payment gateways, including the following:
- PayPal
- Stripe
Lastly, this CRM platform allows you to give customers access to their subscription information via a self-service portal!
Take a look at our full Zoho CRM review!
Final Thoughts on CRM Payments
As you have seen, ensuring your CRM can process payments is beneficial for numerous reasons!
The primary advantage of this feature is that companies improve the buyer journey.
On top of that, employees prefer CRM payments because everything is in one location rather than spread out across multiple software.
Will your company use Zoho or HubSpot for payment processing? Let us know in the comments section!
The post Benefits & Use Cases for CRM Payments (2023) appeared first on Small Business Bonfire.
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