NetSuite CRM is a cloud-based solution that allows companies to manage customer, prospective customer, partner, vendor information, and more, all in one location. It also offers the common functionality of other traditional CRM solutions, such as marketing automation, sales force, and customer service management.  Users can manage and track relationships, forecasts, quotes, and commissions. NetSuite CRM provides an efficient mechanism for managing information across the entire lifecycle of customers and partners. 

Despite being a highly effective location for managing business information, maximizing the use of NetSuite requires that users add relevant information to the CRM. If the information is not there, many of the benefits NetSuite provides cannot be realized by an organization. Unfortunately, businesses often struggle with motivating their users to do this. To the user, it can often feel like it takes extra time that they do not have to ensure the information gets added because if they are spending most of their day working from their inbox for example, and not logging into NetSuite, it requires extra steps. In addition, if they do not see the value of allowing other internal teams to see their interactions with a customer or partner so that decisions can be made faster, it will be difficult to get them to spend time doing this. 

Businesses are in a position where they need to figure out how to make adding information to the CRM so easy that their users do not have to think about it. There are many reasons why it’s essential to do this, and if addressed, all of them can have a positive impact on business operations.

• No More Wasted Time Toggling Between Applications

The first reason that directly impacts user productivity is putting an end to wasting time toggling between applications. If CRM users spend most of their time communicating within their inbox, providing them a way to manage NetSuite records from there will save time and increase compliance. 

In a recent study by Harvard Business Review, it was discovered after studying 20 teams, totaling 137 users, across three Fortune 500 companies for up to five weeks that workers toggled roughly 1,200 times each day, which adds up to just under four hours each week reorienting themselves after toggling — roughly 9% of their time at work. This statistic might be written off by some companies but it equates to almost an hour a day of wasted time. If users had the ability to access a contact record in their inbox and quickly change a phone number, sync an email or file, or schedule a meeting, CRM data would be more comprehensive and more accurate as a result. 

• Better Data Accuracy

The CRM can only be as accurate as the data that gets added by users. If a customer or vendor record is blank and the person typically working with that person or company is out, how do others find out what has taken place if they need to? They would not know what email address to use, phone number to call, or address is relevant. It would be a very difficult, time-consuming task to find all of that information, potentially requiring a lot of phone calls and digging. This is not necessary if users have a better way to add information about vendors or customers into the CRM. By providing a way for them to do this on the go where they already work every day, a company is ensuring that they will not be in a situation where records are incomplete, not actionable, and unable to help them make decisions faster. 

• Faster Decision Making 

Typically organizations want to put processes and systems in place so that decisions can be made as efficiently as possible. NetSuite CRM is an important component of that, allowing the business to have a central location to house their data. The organization’s responsibility does not stop there though. They must be committed to ensuring NetSuite is the single source of truth. Typically for this to be effective it must come from the highest levels of leadership within the business and flow down throughout the users. This allows NetSuite to be trusted as the place to find this important information and help get to a satisfactory outcome for the customer or vendor in the fastest way possible. The positive outcome that results can be measured in customer satisfaction, time to resolution, and employee satisfaction when not required to do significant amounts of manual work  

Tying it All Together

CloudExtend Outlook or Google Workspace provides a solution for business users to create/edit NetSuite records and sync emails, files, or calendar events to NetSuite right from their email inbox. Organizations can also save on NetSuite storage costs by using CloudExtend to save files to SharePoint, OneDrive or Google Drive. It allows the value of NetSuite to be maximized by ensuring users are not toggling between applications, can trust the accuracy of CRM data, and make decisions faster.