SugarCRM is a modern CRM solution that offers both Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) features to assist companies in optimising their sales and service departments. However, there is often confusion about the distinction between Automation and AI and how they can help companies enhance their productivity. As a SugarCRM partner since 2007, we have deployed numerous tailored CRM solutions to meet our customer’s needs and have automated many business processes. Let’s delve into Automation and AI using examples.
What is Automation
In simple terms, Automation is using technology to do tasks without human assistance. This can be simple or complex. Let’s imagine a company spending a lot of money on marketing to get leads from different places. In the past, the sales team had to manually figure out where each lead was from and give it to the right salesperson.
With Automation, a system can do this automatically, giving two big benefits:
- the leads get handled 24/7, and
- the sales team can focus on other important tasks instead of spending time on this routine job.
Let’s take another example,
A company has a large customer base and customers keep connecting with the service team. And allocating the cases to the corresponding service executive based on “least use resource” and sending auto updates to the customer about their case is another example of saving time as well as effort of the support executive.
Here’s another example:
A company with many customers regularly gets calls to the service team. By assigning a case to the least busy service executive and sending automatic updates to customers about the case, time and effort for the support team are saved.
So, Automation helps companies by saving time and being faster.
What is Automation in SugarCRM
The SugarCRM product suite consists of three products – Sugar Sell for Sales Force Automation, Sugar Serve for Customer Service Automation, and Sugar Market for Marketing Automation.
All three products are designed for Automation.
Sugar has integrated a Business Process Management (BPM) component called SugarBPM into Sugar Sell and Sugar Serve. SugarBPM utilises a drag and drop BPM language compatible tool to create multiple automation processes, allocating the system to handle many routine tasks of the sales and service team.
Sugar Market also automatically scores leads and send drip emails based on observer conditions. This automation with SugarCRM allows the sales, service and marketing teams to free up their time for core activities.
Contact us for any CRM review or implementation needs!
What is Artificial Intelligence / AI
Artificial Intelligence is slightly more advanced than Automation.
While Automation only handles operational and repetitive tasks automatically without applying any intelligence, Artificial Intelligence involves the intelligence of software or machines that can process large amounts of data and draw conclusions.
From a CRM perspective, let’s consider an example to illustrate this. Imagine a company that sells certain products, and one of the salespeople has been with the company for quite some time.Over time, they have observed that leads from individuals aged 40 to 50 are highly likely to convert. When a 45-year-old lead comes in, the salesperson uses human intelligence to predict this a good lead. And he gives priority to the lead. However, if a machine or software recognizes this pattern and alerts the salesperson that the new lead is promising based on previously observed patterns, this would be considered Artificial Intelligence.
In numerous companies salespeople may come and go, but when a company utilises CRM, the data remains accessible, allowing for the application of Artificial Intelligence to extract such insights,
Another common application of Artificial Intelligence involves generating content for email responses to prospects.
What is AI in SugarCRM
SugarCRM is an AI-enabled CRM platform that offers data-driven insights to support the sales team. SugarPredict which is the AI component of SugarCRM helps lead insights. In order to enable Sugar to accurately predict the right type of lead, it’s essential to provide the system with an “Ideal Lead Profile” and the parameters that define the ideal prospect.
Once the Ideal Lead Profile is provided, past data from the last 6 months and above can be fed into the system. Ater using the system for 6 months, it will start providing ratings for each lead. Theserating will assist salespersons in prioritising ideal prospects over less ideal profiles.
Based on the type of words used by the customer in email communications, Sugar provides sentiment analysis in Customer Support Automation, which assist management in addressing the identified issues.
Automation and AI to optimise processes
SugarCRM’s automation features help sales and support team members save time on routine tasks, allowing them to focus on core activities. Additionally, SugarPredict and other AI capabilities support salespeople and the support team in making informed decisions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, by combining Automation and AI, SugarCRM optimises processes for Sales and Support teams. This allows them to focus more on core activities while the system handles routine tasks and provides valuable insights for decision-making.
Bhea is SugarCRM partner for more than a decade and guides organisations with the whole SugarCRM Implementation process.
Contact us for demo of SugarCRM.
