How to manage business activities in Aptien CRM
Welcome to Aptien. We'll walk you through the basics of the business activities you can do in Aptien CRM. So that you know what is possible in the system and what is not. What you can do and how you can do it. Where it will help you, what it will make easier and where its limits are. Aptien CRM is a simple tool for managing and recording business activities, mainly for the B2B area and will allow you to:
- have an overview of all your business meetings and negotiations with customers
- keep track of business opportunities and their status
- manage tasks arising from sales meetings
Aptien CRM is suitable for small and medium-sized companies or for companies that do not have the need to manage large-scale sales and marketing campaigns and send offers in an automated way. It is particularly suitable for account management based sales activities.
What is Aptien?
It is an application for collaboration and communication of people within the company, keeping various operational company records, company administration, task and work management. It's not just a system for keeping track of business activities, but it's a kind of electronic filing system beyond just keeping track of contracts. Aptien is also a company intranet where people can communicate with each other, a company bulletin board and a desk for people in the office. It's a bit like combining Facebook with contract, project, contract or asset management software. Information from different areas is linked and traceable from one single application.
Unlike traditional apps, Aptien is very flexible, customizable, and can link projects to tasks, allowing you to attach notes and other information so you no longer have to write it on different sticky notes and bits of paper. All this in one pleasant environment.
How will you work as a sales representative in Aptien CRM?
In particular, Aptien will help you to keep track of sales opportunities and record your sales activities for them. In your workspace, you can see the organizers that you need as a sales manager or representative.
- Business Opportunities - here you keep track of all the opportunities and inquiries from customers that are in the sales stage
- Contacts - this is a shared organizer across the business. It is a directory of people outside the company
- Businesses are a directory of companies, i.e. individuals and businesses. It is a shared organizer across your firm from which everyone can draw information about your business partners. You keep your suppliers here
Your work will be primarily in keeping records of business opportunities and also in taking notes of meetings with customers or potential customers.
Basic processes in business
Recording business opportunities
You will maintain key information in the business opportunity organizer. This is where you keep detailed information about the opportunity, its RFI, RFP, submission date or business stage.
Keep track of bid submission dates
When you need to watch for deadlines for submitting a bid or preparing bid documents, you do this by setting the watchdog to "Bid Submission Deadline" in the business opportunity record.
Inquiries and other documents for business opportunities
You can attach any documents, images or other attachments to each business opportunity. These are inquiry documents or other attachments from business meetings. You can further sort the attachments, documents, into folders. You can set permissions for these - who can or cannot access which folder.
> How to create folders for documents in business opportunities
Managing business contacts
To keep business contacts, use the Contacts organizer, which serves as a shared central organizer of contacts across the entire company. From it, you select and assign contacts to individual business opportunities. The advantage is that you have an overview and history of who in the company you are dealing with about what. It's the same in your business meeting minutes. The information is interconnected.
Keeping records of business meetings
You keep records of business meetings with your potential customers in the form of business opportunity notes. This gives you a perfect overview of who you have ever dealt with. The meeting minutes are automatically recorded and attached to the opportunity. The system allows you to conduct different types of business activities:
- Personal meeting minutes
- Phone call
- Email or letter sent
Personal or shared notes on a business opportunity
When you need to attach your personal note to a business opportunity, company or contact, you can create such a note in the notes tab. Only you can see it. For other people, even if they see the opportunity, your note is invisible. You can share it with others if you need to. You do this by setting the note as shared and connecting people to it.
Business Opportunity Tasks
I'm sure your daily business activities bring you situations where you need to create a task. You can create tasks either for individual business opportunities or also from notes.