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When a small business uses Gmail as an email provider, there are few places that its sales and support reps are likely to want to send and receive emails from than Google’s Gmail web interface. After all, it’s intuitive, pages load quickly, messages appear instantly, and collaborative tools like hangouts are ready to use at the click of a button.
While for internal collaboration Gmail works perfectly, when customer interaction is involved, a need to research their histories, or add notes, tasks, assignments, or tickets, calls for a foray into a separate CRM application to find related information. This task switching takes its toll on efficiency and productivity when repeated throughout the day.
To eliminate the need to swap back and forth between applications, we’ve developed a Chrome extension for Gmail that lets users view, create, or update the following records related to an email contact from an on-screen widget in Gmail – simplifying how sales reps, support reps, and executives work:
- Leads
- Contacts
- Comments
- Tasks
- Events
- Opportunities
- Tickets
To do this, the widget matches the email sender’s address with the email address registered to a Vtiger lead or contact, and then pulls all of their related information into the on-screen widget. To put its utility into perspective, here are some common scenarios in which we know this’ll come in handy:
Marketing: Get leads assigned to sales instantly
Someone on your marketing team receives an email from a lead that’s ready to talk to your sales team. In the past, getting his information into a CRM and assigned the lead to a sales rep meant switching over from Gmail to a CRM, creating the lead, typing in all of his information, assigning them to a sales rep, and then possibly creating a follow-up task. This takes minutes, at best, and is an untenable waste of time needed for other tasks if repeated throughout the day.
With Vtiger CRM for Gmail, that same marketing rep can create a lead or contact in just a click without leaving Gmail, with the follow-up activity, like a meeting assigned to another sales rep, in just a few more. This saves time and improves the efficiency of internal collaboration.
Support: Track and close tickets from right within Gmail
An email arrives in your customer service inbox. Vtiger transforms it into ticket and assigns it to a customer service representative. That rep then starts an email thread from their own address to address the customer’s need. This request for help doesn’t end with just a single reply, so throughout the day as it’s being dealt with, new threads emerge and the rep’s inbox fills with a flurry of cases. Every time the rep receives a new message, they return to the CRM to review the sender’s history and update the ticket, costing time and mistakes.
With the Gmail plugin, whether it’s a new email that needs to be converted to a ticket, or a thread that calls for an updated ticket, it can all be done from the Gmail interface. The plugin displays the entire customer history, including previous tickets, emails, invoices, quotes, and comments, ensuring that answers happen more quickly, with fewer mistakes caused by task switching. Once the issue is resolved, updating ticket statuses and adding notes to the customer’s CRM record are just a few more clicks away.
Sales: Track customer history and progress from Gmail
Most sales reps spend a huge portion of their day engaging with prospects and customers – it comes with the job, after all. To make productive decisions during each engagement, a sales rep needs to be able to rapidly process the engagement history of each prospect or customer. The need to leave Gmail to search for information in a CRM calls for task switching that takes time and can cause mistakes. With the Gmail widget, all the information that a sales rep needs to take the next step is available right next to an email. Additionally, if the need to add notes, a calendar event, or even a related opportunity, emerges, the sales rep can do it in just a few clicks from the Gmail widget.
Like what you see? Add the Vtiger gadget to your Chrome browser, or to learn more check out our documentation, email us at [email protected], or call us at 877-784-9277.
