Best CRM software for manufacturing industry

The manufacturing landscape is constantly evolving, adapting to technological advancements, fluctuating material costs, and ever-shifting customer demands. With the advent of Manufacturing 4.0, manufacturing companies are focusing on digital technologies, automation, data-driven decision-making, and improved collaboration across all aspects of the supply chain process. 

Most manufacturers operate on B2B models, with distributors and retailers as their primary customer base. The manufacturing sales process involves a multi-stage journey with numerous stakeholders and touchpoints. From lead generation to opportunity evaluation, the sales teams collaborate across multiple departments like production, marketing, engineering, and more.

Why do you need manufacturing CRM software?

Today's manufacturing industry is more dynamic than ever. From production to purchase, it is an intricate web of processes, diverse customer demands, and a global network of suppliers. 

Between this long chain of distributors and complex sales processes, your sales teams must understand distributor requirements, forecast demand accurately, and balance production accordingly. But managing all these moving parts effectively can become overwhelming, especially as you scale. 

Customer data gets siloed, communication between teams breaks down, and inefficiencies creep in. This hinders your ability to deliver exceptional customer experience and achieve operational excellence. These bottlenecks usually arise because different teams rely on multiple tools or disconnected ERP systems, leading to fragmented information, complicating decision-making, and slowing down deal progress. To overcome these challenges, consider investing in the best CRM for small business to streamline processes and unify data across teams.

In such a scenario, the best way manufacturing companies can simplify order management, streamline business operations, and boost customer satisfaction is to adopt a modern CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software custom-built for the manufacturing industry. 

Why Freshsales is well-suited for the manufacturing business

Freshsales is a modern, AI-powered CRM that helps manufacturing companies track inventory, forecast demand, and streamline operations at every stage of the supply chain, all from a single platform. Freddy AI in Freshsales offers actionable insights to boost productivity from shop floor to sales.

• Easy-to-use: Freshsales is built on a modern and intuitive platform. With its simple UI and user-friendly onboarding, get started in hours and achieve tangible ROI in weeks. 

• Powered by AI: Freddy’s powerful AI capabilities help you understand your distributors and make data-backed decisions based on insights, predictions, and recommendations.

• Scalable: With all the capabilities you need in a single platform, Freshsales scales and adapts to your changing manufacturing business requirements and simplifies the tech stack as you grow. 

What do you get with Freshsales?

1. Understand your customers with a unified view

The manufacturing industry requires end-to-end management of a global network of distributors, retailers, and suppliers - each with unique needs and buying behaviors. This makes it essential for you to have a CRM system that eliminates data silos and gives you a holistic picture of your potential customers to tailor customer interactions better. With the modern UI in a manufacturing CRM like Freshsales, you can:

• Centralize distributor details and surface important data as highlights so you have all the information you need for contextual customer engagement. 

• Get a 360-degree view of their interactions with your business across various touchpoints along the customer journey, like emails, chat conversations, website visits, phone calls, etc. Understand distributors’ interests to tailor your outreach strategy and communication accordingly.

• Automatically enrich your contacts with their social and publicly listed information and save time combing social media for information and performing manual data entry. 

• Freddy AI, your personal AI-powered sales assistant, scores contacts based on their engagement with your business. This helps you to focus your resources on the right leads and increase conversions. 

• Engage with distributors right from the Mobile-friendly CRM through the channel of their choice - phone, email, or chat - without switching tools or tabs.

2. Streamline your sales with automation 

Manufacturing often involves complex processes, intricate specifications, and multiple approval chains. Keeping track of all these moving parts while managing redundant, time-consuming tasks like sending out emails, setting reminders, and adding tasks takes your focus away from selling. With manufacturing CRM software like Freshsales, you can put your sales teams ahead of schedule. 

• Automate lead generation and qualification with chatbots and web forms. Grab the attention of your website visitors with engaging chatbots, capture their details, and seamlessly transfer this valuable data directly to Freshsales—all without the hassle of manual data entry.

• Match the right distributor with the right sales rep based on territory, industry, and product focus to optimize lead distribution and improve lead response time. 

• Give your sales team a head start with ready-to-use workflow automation templates to streamline processes, save time, and focus better on building relationships with new and existing customers. For example, when a distributor does not answer your call, you can automatically set up a reminder to follow up with them the next day. 

• Drive engagement and nurture customers with an automated and personalized series of sales touchpoints based on triggers and recipient behavior. For example, you can automate welcome emails to your distributors once they purchase your products. 

• Craft high-converting and personalized marketing campaigns for prospecting with Freddy as your content writer. From subject lines to text, Freddy gives you multiple options to best suit your business tone and deliver engaging customer experiences. 

3. Build Freshsales around your manufacturing industry needs

A manufacturing business process is highly customized based on the products it manufactures and its unique business needs. This means large-scale orders, diverse customer demands, and industry-specific regulations must be met. A generic CRM simply won't cut it for the precision and efficiency your business demands. A CRM for manufacturing like Freshsales offers key features to tailor the software for your industry.

• Understand buyer journeys and track progress with customized lifecycle stages relevant to your manufacturing process. This could include stages like ‘Prototype Approval,’ ‘Raw Material Sourcing,’ or ‘Quality Control Inspection.’ 

• Create custom fields and modules to capture industry-specific data points, like order specifications, minimum order quantities, or preferred lead times. 

• Define user roles with granular permissions to manage and regulate access to specific customer data in your manufacturing business. For example, you can create a ‘Quality Control Inspector’ role with access to relevant customer order details and quality control data but restrict access to sensitive pricing information.

• Create multiple pipelines with customized stages and probabilities that reflect the unique stages of your manufacturing process. Track each pipeline’s status with custom filters and views. 

• Cater to your global distributor base and seamlessly manage international transactions across multiple currencies. Monitor currency exchange rates with automation and view deal values in your local currency. 

• Personalize Freshsales to view and manage data in the language of your choice and make your account more user-friendly. Communicate effectively with customers worldwide in over 10 languages to send emails, track metrics, analyze reports, and more.

4. Have a bird’s eye view of every product and deal

Manufacturing CRM systems like Freshsales are designed to optimize your manufacturing deal pipeline, streamline product management, and ensure accurate forecasting for maximum success.

• Visualize and track all your deals in one place to gauge your business performance. Organize your deals in table and kanban views across different stages of the buying process. 

• Configure a comprehensive product catalog with product descriptions, specifications, associated custom pricing, and discount structures. This empowers your sales reps to provide accurate product information to distributors, leading to smoother deal cycles.

• Create error-free documents and quotes with document templates. You can customize templates to include product configurations, pricing structures, and terms and conditions relevant to your manufacturing business. 

• Streamline your quote process with secure and compliant eSignatures. Draw, type, or upload your signature, set the signing order and signatories, and view their status on the activity timeline.

• Identify opportunities to target and accelerate your sales cycle with Freddy’s deal insights. Freddy analyzes historical data, highlights deals that have higher chances of conversion, and provides real-time recommendations, empowering you to take the next best actions to boost sales. 

• Assign probability percentages to each stage of your sales pipeline to automatically calculate the likelihood of successful conversion for each deal and forecast future sales with accuracy.

5. Make data-driven decisions with valuable insights

In a manufacturing company, precision is paramount and every decision can impact your bottom line. From optimizing production processes to identifying high-value opportunities, having access to actionable data is crucial. Manufacturing CRMs like Freshsales empower your sales team to leverage data analytics and make smart decisions.

• Identify trends in your sales cycles and pinpoint bottlenecks with detailed reports on key performance indicators relevant to your business in real time. With pre-loaded report templates, analyze sales metrics by product category, customer segment, or even individual salesperson. 

• Create custom sales dashboards to keep track of reports that you use often, analyze trends, and get a holistic view of your business performance. 

• With Freddy AI, you can confidently identify the right deals to commit, manage revenue, and forecast sales better. Freddy analyzes past winnings, deal activity, and current pipeline trends to highlight deals that are likely to close. 

• Assign clear and measurable goals for your team based on the number of closed deals, activities completed, and revenue earned on a daily, weekly, or quarterly basis. Track their progress, identify challenges, and modify strategies to set your team up for success.

Get one step closer to your customers with the best CRM for manufacturing

Freshsales empowers your manufacturing company to simplify selling and grow revenue with productivity, collaboration, and insights. Optimize lead generation, get end-to-end visibility into your distributors’ and retailers’ journey, and manage personalized communication right from the CRM platform. Freshsales also helps you streamline processes, target the right leads, and deliver exceptional customer experiences. This not only helps boost your revenue but also creates an edge over your competitors by always staying two steps ahead in the game.