Any organization dealing with customers day in and day out is familiar with the Salesforce CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform. It is the #1 choice for businesses to initiate and maintain relationships with potential clients. Salesforce is an intuitive tool that helps companies to streamline sales processes and increase productivity.
While CRM offers solutions to handle the entire customer lifecycle, it falls behind on contract management. It does not have the tools or agility to manage the contracting process. But thanks to technology, businesses can evolve platforms to suit their needs. Integrating Salesforce with Contract Lifecycle Management empowers users with infinite possibilities. Organizations can use the assets of both platforms to streamline the contracting and sales processes. Keep scrolling to discover what Salesforce contract management has to offer.
Significance of contracts in the Sales Process
Businesses must have a solid legal foundation to establish and maintain a successful customer relationship. The actualization of a deal is not possible without an efficient sales agreement. The salespeople require contracts to close, renew, or upsell a sales opportunity.
Moreover, no organization can retain clients if they do not adhere to the contractual terms. That is why the sales team must religiously follow the written agreement. And they cannot do all that from a CRM system. So even if you have the dynamic Salesforce platform to nurture clients, it will not do you any good without specific faculties to handle your contract management. Successful integration between Salesforce and Contract Lifecycle Management enables the sales team to request, create, and manage contracts within the CRM platform.
Integrate Contract Lifecycle Management into Salesforce CRM
Irresponsible contract generation and management can lead to distrust and tiresome experience for all the parties involved. But with tasks and values spread across various platforms, it is hard to keep track of everything. There are bound to be some oversights in the contract management process.
CMS-integrated Salesforce enables organizations to utilize a centralized system to manage contract lifecycle. It empowers the sales team to handle contracts from the platform they know best. Some of the benefits of Salesforce for contract management include:
- Accelerated sales and contracting process
Salesforce contract management empowers salespeople to create, share, negotiate, and sign contracts on the CRM platform. Consequently, the entire contract lifecycle can progress to execution without much delay. An accelerated contracting process speeds up the sales process too. As a result, the sales team can get approved sales agreements to clients faster.
- Sales productivity
The CMS-integrated Salesforce system allows sales teams to improve sales opportunities by managing sales agreements. Moreover, quick sales processes mean the sales team can close more deals. The integrated system enables salespeople to enhance customer experience through seamless sales operations. Thus, the sales reps can enjoy surging productivity.
- Client retention
Retaining clients is all about providing them with a painless experience. Whether it is a proposal, contract negotiation, or customer service, the customers must get quick and efficient results. With a single system, the salespeople can serve customers better and ensure retention.
In the next part, we will discuss how Salesforce contract management improves the contracting process.
How to utilize Salesforce for contract management
Imagine the sales team depending solely on the legal department for sales agreements. It would mean the clients are waiting endlessly to sign on the dotted line. We cannot have that. Fortunately, Salesforce contract management optimizes the entire contract lifecycle to guarantee the best customer experience. Here is how you can improve your contracting process with CMS-integrated Salesforce:
Contract authoring
The contract lifecycle starts with contract request and authoring. As this stage establishes the tone for the rest of the contracting process, kicking off with an effective legal document is crucial. In an integrated system, the salespeople may instantly draft and process sales agreements within Salesforce. It empowers the sales team to self-service contracts using contract templates and clause library available through CMS (Contract Management Software) integration.
Moreover, users can simply upload customer data from the Salesforce platform to build sales agreements. The two-way data sync adds data accuracy and compliance to the contracting process. As the entire contract authoring process is possible through the CRM platform, the sales team can work from a platform they know best and improve their performance. Also, access to CMS tools provides salespeople with the confidence to generate compliant and efficient contracts.
Negotiation
After contract authoring, all the stakeholders go through the legal agreement to discuss terms and stipulations. The main aim of the negotiation process is to agree upon a mutually beneficially contractual document. Consequently, companies need all the help they can get to ensure that all the parties are on the same page. The parties involved can work together in real-time on the contract using the Salesforce contract management system.
The sales team gains a shared platform for seamless communication by adopting Salesforce for contract management. It is a critical part of the contract lifecycle as these back-and-forth negotiations allow the stakeholders to finalize a contract draft. Consistent dialogue with stakeholders gives clear insight into their expectations and demands. They can utilize automated contract redlining offered by CMS to keep track of changes in the legal agreement. The integrated technology makes it possible to create client-centric contracts since all the involved parties have access to the contract drafts.
Contract approval
Once everyone is satisfied with the final draft, it goes through the approval process. Salesforce contract management allows the sales team to initiate tailored approval workflows suited to their needs. The salespeople can automate the process and assign approvers specific duties and responsibilities. It ensures that the contract approval workflow progresses smoothly without delays.
Generally, the approvers include legal counsel, the finance team, etc. In a CMS-integrated Salesforce system, cross-functional visibility ensures all the invested parties have access to the legal document. Improved transparency means all the approvers stay inside the loop, and there is no miscommunication or misunderstanding. The integrated system’s up-to-date document version and easily accessible contracts optimize the approval process. Consequently, only the contracts that meet compliance and organization standards make it to the signing.
Contract execution
During the execution stage, personnel with authority sign the finalized sales agreement. The executed sales contract establishes a contractual relationship between the organization and the customer. An inefficient and time-consuming signing process can delay the whole sales process. As Salesforce contract management makes for a user-friendly and dynamic system, the salespeople can get the contracts straight to customers.
The contract lifecycle management comes with e-signature integrations like DocuSign, Adobe Sign, and Sertifi. It enables the customers to sign sales agreements remotely, securely, and in bulk form. Thanks to Salesforce contract management, the sales team can quickly close deals.
Contract Compliance
After contract execution, all parties must observe the predetermined stipulations, terms, and milestones. To do so, the salespeople must have easy access to all the information related to a client on a single platform. Manually tracking contractual obligations and key dates is a strenuous task for any organization. Salesforce for contract management offers the concerned stakeholders a comprehensive overview of the contract lifecycle.
Complete transparency enables the sales and legal teams to ensure timely task completion. Moreover, through the integrated system, the users can set automated obligation tasks in CMS to monitor and manage specific contractual obligations and milestones. Salesforce for contract management also provides salespeople access to executed contracts to establish compliance. As a result, organizations do not end up missing deadlines, payments, and other essential clauses.
Contract renewal
The last stage of most contract lifecycle management is renewal. If the business relationship between the customer and the organization is beneficial, they can renew the contracts. Salesforce for contract management comes with reminders for renewal or expiry. As the salespeople will get timely notifications through the integrated system, the business will not miss out on retaining clients. It is a great starting point for the contracting team to initiate contract renegotiations.
Apart from lost sales opportunities, renewal alerts also save organizations from financial and legal pitfalls. Also, the CMS and CRM integration provides a central location to store and access all the customer and contract data. The users can leverage data to get actionable insights to improve contract performance and sales productivity.
In short
The sales and legal teams manage different aspects of the contract lifecycle. It often causes miscommunication and friction between the two departments. But with Salesforce contract management, both teams can successfully collaborate from a single platform.
An integrated system can boost data consistency and accuracy by giving users a central location to access customer and contract records. Having a single source of information ensures that everyone involved is on the same page and is always in the know. By coupling CMS with Salesforce CRM, organizations can truly experience seamless contract management.
Start exploring the benefits of contract management software today with a live demo.
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