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How AEC Firms Can Address Common CRM Challenges with aec360
Transform your CRM experience and improve productivity across your teams
In their pursuit of new opportunities, AEC firms are reliant on their CRM systems for business development, customer relationship management, proposal preparation, and project pipeline optimization. However, many firms using legacy CRM solutions with limitations are getting stuck: they struggle with inefficient workflows, minimal advanced functionality, and user adoption hurdles. Let's review the major obstacles faced by AEC firms when it comes to the effective utilization of their CRM system as well as practical solutions that can significantly change your team's productivity.
Low user adoption
Low user adoption continues to be a leading challenge for firms using outdated, rigid CRM systems. CRM modules featuring unintuitive and clunky interfaces are a turnoff for project managers and technical staff, causing them to abandon these systems altogether. For CRM solutions to be optimally leveraged, they need to be fully adopted by all employees, facilitating the capture of essential data in the system. Missing data leads to gaps in business insights, dragging business development efforts down.
aec360 addresses difficulties surrounding user adoption by integrating CRM into tools that employees are already using daily, such as Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and mobile applications. Through the comprehensive user experience offered by aec360, employees can quickly log activities, view business opportunities, and collaborate on projects without having to navigate to unfamiliar interfaces.
Minimal AI functionality
Today, many firms are disappointed by their CRM's lack of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) functionalities. AEC firms need CRM solutions to not only capture data but also to simplify how that data is being used. Firms that have managed to obtain information through their existing CRM tend to grapple with cumbersome manual processes to extract and use the existing information. AEC firms also struggle with automating other manual processes, such as company report generation, follow-up reminders on potential leads, and pipeline report extraction.
By embedding AI directly into the CRM and within tools like Microsoft Outlook, Teams, and web browsers, aec360 simplifies the end-user experience, making it easier to access data and automate manual tasks. These capabilities save valuable time for business development and marketing teams. With just a few clicks, the system can pull up client summaries, analyze business opportunities, or surface important contacts that have not been engaged for some time.
aec360's integration with Outlook further enhances productivity, enabling users to view CRM data within their inboxes. The AI-powered tool is also accessible through mobile devices and Teams, offering flexibility for teams to manage tasks on the go.
Inefficient workflows
Legacy CRM users commonly report hurdles with workflow inefficiencies, particularly when pursuing new business opportunities. Marketing teams often have to hold ad doc meetings and work with technical staff to manually gather the information required for proposal submission. This cumbersome process leads to wasted time and reduced billable hours.
aec360 offers automated and configurable workflows that manage the entire opportunity pursuit lifecycle, from opportunity tracking to project creation. Within one platform, users can easily access critical information (that is often gathered via the ERP integration) about past projects, team members, and qualifications. aec360 can leverage this data to automatically generate key documents like resumes and project cut sheets, which are essential for AEC firms pursuing new business.
Once an opportunity is closed, aec360 can automatically create a project in designated CRM and ERP systems. This seamless integration saves time and ensures data consistency across departments.
Lack of reporting and analytics
Reporting is another pain point for firms using CRM systems lacking sophistication. The limited analytics capabilities of such CRM systems make it difficult for firms to gain insights into their performance or business pipeline. AEC professionals frequently express frustration about the difficulty of extracting meaningful data from their CRM. Whether generating reports for leadership or simply pulling data into a spreadsheet, these limitations make it challenging to get real-time insights crucial for decision-making.
aec360 leverages integrated tools like Microsoft Power BI and offers robust reporting and analytics capabilities. Users can easily create dynamic dashboards that offer real-time visibility into business performance, slicing data by project manager, market sector, office, geography, or firm-wide metrics, helping AEC firms make informed decisions quickly.
Discover how you can revolutionize your AEC firm with aec360
The challenges of low user adoption, limited AI, inefficient workflows, and weak reporting prevent many AEC firms from getting the full value out of their CRM systems. If your firm is struggling with its current CRM, consider exploring aec360 as a powerful solution designed specifically for the unique needs of AEC firms.
Reach out to HSO to see how aec360 can transform your firm's business development and CRM strategy.