Double Your Leads and Boost Closing Rates With Shape + leadPops

In this new digital mortgage era, loan officers and mortgage teams are busier than ever before with new lead inquiries. Rates are low and more buyers are looking to purchase—this should be a good problem to have, but what happens when you don’t have a system in place that helps you keep up with demand and stay organized?

Enter the Shape CRM + leadPops seamless integration.

With Shape + leadPops working in harmony, you can say goodbye to low-quality leads while  ensuring your teams have an end-to-end workflow in place that prevents any qualified lead from slipping through the cracks.

Integration Benefits at a Glance

1. Use leadPops to create dynamic and engaging lead funnels

2. Automatically import high-quality leads directly into Shape CRM

3. Use Shape’s relationship management tools to seamlessly nurture new leads

4. Close more deals than ever before!

Better leads. More deals.

With the Shape + leadPops integration you can build engaging lead funnels that send prospect info from your website directly into Shape. Kick off your client relationship on the right foot and never miss out on a new opportunity again.

• Improve lead quality by more easily and accurately defining valuable, qualified leads

• Increase response rates with Shape’s QuickFire Connect, by sending an alert to call a lead and help ensure contact is made quickly and never forgotten

• Get up-to-the-second data on sales activities to better align your marketing and sales goals and initiatives

• Increase quality of positive brand interactions with professional marketing and onboarding content

Grow revenue. Stay organized. 

Having a steady flow of exclusive, free leads is great, but the Shape + leadPops integration takes it a step further by ensuring your team has all the tools they need to stay organized and sustainably grow your revenue for years to come.

• Keep your team on track with a holistic view of all your new leads, all in one place

• Measure marketing campaign effectiveness to maximize your spend and boost ROI

• Gather valuable lead data upfront so you can understand prospect needs and trigger the best communications for their situation

• Improve efficiency in customer service by troubleshooting problems more effectively

Get $100 Off Now

To celebrate this integration, new Shape customers will receive $100 off their setup fee through August 31st, 2020.

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/shape-leadpops

Mortgage Automation: How To 10X Your Business and Win Back Your Time

Automation has changed the mortgage industry for good. But is it for the better?

As a mortgage originator actively closing business in 2020, you know there are some things on the backend you could probably be handling better—but who really has time to plan, execute and update their existing workflows?

For better or worse, automation does take time… at least, in the beginning. But there is good news, with the right systems in place, you can multiply the number of clients you serve, raise the quality of your services, and close loans faster without hiring additional staff.

And the best part? Setting up just one effective automation process today, will continue to help grow your business for years to come.

But there is a catch: the mortgage business is a zero-sum game. If someone closes more loans with automation, someone else closes less.

That’s why it’s paramount to invest in the mortgage automation workflows that are truly the best fit for your business—and it’s critical to do it now, before the competition catches on.

In this article, we’ll cover the main benefits of automating your mortgage processes, as well as the specific workflows you can use to 10X your mortgage business.

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Table of Contents

• What Is Mortgage Automation?

• Top 5 Benefits Of Mortgage Automation You Actually Use

• The A to Z of Mortgage Automation: Grow Your Lending Business With A Scalable System

• The Power Of Smart Automation

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What Is Mortgage Automation?

In a nutshell, mortgage automation allows you to run parts of your mortgage business on autopilot. Using the right combination of automated tools, workflows and software, you can process more loans in less time.

But the real power of automation is that it can be applied to many different aspects of your mortgage business.

• Are you struggling to consistently follow up on your clients? Set up automated campaigns so that no lead in your database is left unnurtured.

• Recipients not opening emails? Automated drip campaigns can boost your open rates by up to 80%

• Loan officers spending too much time on non-selling activities? Automate routine tasks and save up to 55% of the time employers spend on non-selling activities.

And that’s just the beginning. Let’s take a closer look at some of the core benefits of automating your mortgage business, piece by piece.

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Top 5 Benefits Of Mortgage Automation You Actually Use

Benefit #1. Reduce Speed to Lead to Seconds

According to the Harvard Business Review, chances of qualifying a lead when responding within the first five minutes are 21 times higher than when responding within 30 minutes. Yet only 26% of companies manage to respond within 5 minutes.

You can easily outpace the competition by setting up simple automated onboarding emails and texts to instantly greet every new lead as soon as they share their contact details.

If you have a team, automation will also help you distribute incoming leads between your agents so that the ones that are the most qualified are aligned with the right prospects.

Benefit #2. Consistently Nurture Your Leads

The money is in the follow up. In fact, some studies suggest that 80% of sales occur after at least five follow-ups with a prospect.

The good news is, almost every follow-up can be automated. For example, you can send highly-personalized email and text drips to your leads with a predefined cadence. This allows you to nurture relationships and build trust with prospects, even before they decide to do business with you.

Automation helps you easily segment leads based on their location, last action, or areas of interest so with the right system you can follow up with the best offer for a particular client.

Benefit #3. Boost Your Loan Processing Speed

Automation lets you process loans faster. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, lenders reduced loan processing time by around 10 days with a little help from technology. And with the rise of online loan applications, borrowers expect loan processing times to decrease even more.

To supercharge your loan processing speed, you can integrate your CRM system with loan origination software and automatically trigger actions and notifications whenever loan status updates.

Additionally, automation allows you to reduce room for error when processing loans and potentially save thousands of dollars in compliance fines and penalties.

Benefit #4. Increase Your Amount Of Referrals

Ramping up referrals is one of the most powerful lead generation tactics you can employ.

But when you focus on closing as many loans as you can in the moment, keeping in touch with past clients often becomes an afterthought.

And yet 60% of customer referrals happen within the first six months after the loan is closed.

Automated referral campaigns allow you to stay in touch with your past clients and increase your referrals, without lifting a finger. After a loan is closed, simply set up an automated series of post-loan emails designed to keep the client relationship strong and help you stay top of mind.

Benefit #5. Easily Scale Your Mortgage Business

It’s pretty difficult to scale a mortgage business that has many manual workflows—and the last thing you want to do is scale your messy and chaotic systems. People make mistakes, and unfortunately, without the right system in place these mistakes will only multiply as your lead count grows.

In other words, when there are cracks in your systems, you can expect at least some of your leads to slip through them.

On the flip side, when critical aspects of your business are automated, there’s really no limit to how many leads you can work with at the same time.

Even if you decide to invest in new marketing channels or lead databases, you can rest easy knowing that smart automation has your back. If you want to turn your lead flow on full blast, you can easily and automatically qualify and nurture every lead.

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The A to Z of Mortgage Automation: Grow Your Lending Business With A Scalable System

Automated Dialer: Get Your LOs On The Phone With The Right Prospects

Ever thought about how much time you spend punching a dial pad?

With an automated dialer, you and your loan officers can automatically run through a large database of leads in much less time, increasing productivity by 200% to 300% compared to manual dialling.

But how can an automated system possibly know who to call when?

Glad you asked. Some sales platforms (Shape included) offer a smart lead prioritization system, which ensures that every call the system makes for you will be targeted to the most promising lead, at the most optimal time.

At Shape, we use a lead prioritization algorithm that analyzes each lead in your database based on a list of 27 key criteria to instantly connect loan officers with the leads most likely to convert.

Here are just some of the benefits of an automated dialer for your mortgage business:

• Contact more leads in less time. Save hours by making sure your reps aren’t wasting time manually dialing every lead in your database.

• Convert leads faster. Consistently follow up on your hottest leads at exactly the right time.

• Distribute the right leads to the right people. Automatically distribute via Round Robin or your own custom rules to ensure optimal performance across the team.

• Instantly plug in new lead sources. Quickly work through large databases of potential clients and easily scale lead gen and prospecting up or down as needed.

SMS + MMS: Skyrocket Your Opening Rates

According to a Gartner survey, SMS open rates can be as high as 98%, compared to a mere 20% for emails. Additionally, the majority of people respond to SMS within just 90 seconds.

Here’s how you can use automated SMS texts to boost lead conversion rates:

• Improve customer experience. Automatically notify clients with texts whenever their loan status changes by integrating your CRM with your LOS.

• Increase engagement with new offers. Send your best offers via text or MMS to maximize engagement.

• Use top-performing automated sequences. Combine emails and SMS texts into powerful marketing sequences to keep your leads engaged over time.

• Personalize your texts. Customize your SMS texts by directly using contact details pulled directly from your central CRM or sales system

• Stay compliant. Use a fully compliant platform to make sure your messages aren’t being flagged as spam. In Shape, we queue your messages to send just one text every 4 seconds to mimic human texting behavior for maximum engagement.

Automated Email Marketing: Send Emails That Generate Real Business

When it comes to ROI, not many marketing channels beat email. In fact, research shows that every dollar spent on email marketing can yield as much as $42 in return.

But achieving the highest possible ROI is only doable if you send the right email to the right person at the right time. Thankfully, this is something automation can help you achieve.

Here are just some of the benefits of automated email marketing: 

• Higher open rates. Set up automated emails triggered by specific user actions and get up to 141.6% higher open rates than your standard business-as-usual emails.

• Boost revenue with automated lead segmentation. The right mortgage CRM will help you segment your leads based on your own custom criteria and send highly-personalized emails that drive 18X more revenue.

• Create powerful email drip campaigns. According to KissMetrics, marketing automation paired with sequenced email campaigns leads to up to 20% more sales.

• Convert more leads by personalizing your emails. Personalized emails deliver 6X higher transactional rates. Use your CRM system to automatically personalize relevant emails for every lead.

Call Recording: The Power Of Tracking From A Central System

According to Hubspot, the majority of businesses use call recording mainly as a way to increase customer quality service or dispute controversial events. But there are other benefits that call recording provides for mortgage businesses.

Here’s why it’s important to have an automated call recording system for your mortgage business:

• Focused sales. Allows your sales reps to focus on the prospects and actively engage with their pain points rather than taking notes during conversations.

• Advanced training. Your CRM gives you a full history of conversations with every lead across all channels so that new agents have the full context for every recorded call.

• Protect your business. Stay compliant and avoid potentially paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in regulatory fines by monitoring all marketing and sales activities from one central, compliant platform.

eSignature: Make Document Management As Seamless As Possible

According to Fannie Mae, 66% of homebuyers would prefer to handle their mortgages entirely online.

No wonder the number of eSignature transactions has increased tenfold within just five years.

Integrate e-signatures directly into your loan management process to gain the following benefits:

• Save time on paperwork for you and your clients. Add and edit eSignature documents directly from within your CRM

• Process loans faster. Automatically change lead status in your systems as soon as your lead signs, automatically schedule follow up actions in your calendar.

• Improve customer satisfaction rates. Trigger emails and follow-ups based on a change in eSignature status to keep the transaction pipeline moving.

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The Power Of Smart Automation

The mortgage industry is changing fast. Loan officers are no longer competing based on who has the best offers or personalities.

These days, it’s all about the system and service.

Clearly, the role of automation in separating the best from the rest will be crucial. And yes, automation does take time and effort upfront. But after you set your processes in place, it’s only a matter of making small adjustments that make a very big impact for your clients and your business as an expert loan originator.

Ready to see for yourself? Find out how an automated mortgage marketing and sales platform can remove the bottlenecks from your transaction pipeline and help you consistently generate more leads.

Sign up for your free trial of Shape today!

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/mortgage-automation

Sales Training for Student Recruitment: 5 Simple Steps to Boost Your College Admission Team’s Productivity Starting Now

Don’t pour thousands of dollars into student recruitment staff training. Check out these five simple steps to take your higher ed admissions team to the next level.

For some higher ed institutions, problems with inexperienced staff have plagued recruitment efforts for years. Now, as students become more and more selective about where they attend school, a lack of experience in student recruitment is a problem that must be solved.

While many higher education businesses can afford to pour tens of thousands of dollars into training their 8, most universities simply lack the resources and knowledge to do the same.

And the cycle of want can be vicious.

In an equation? Less resources to train sales staff equals less trained staff, less students recruited, and, consequently less resources to train sales staff. 

(After all, a mere 37% of colleges met their recruitment goals in 2019.)

As they battle shrinking budgets and declining enrollment rates, many private colleges and universities simply don’t know how to break this cycle.

So, if you’re the Head of Enrollment at a higher ed organization, how can you establish an effective sales training strategy and transform an inexperienced admissions workforce into top-level sales agents, without going bankrupt along the way?

There are many wrong answers, but fortunately, there’s also a right one:

Stop wasting money on training sales staff, and create a repeatable system that produces top performing recruiters out of new hires on autopilot.

It’s not an easy ride, but with the right tools and consistent approach, you can methodically build

A student recruitment system that works.

Here’s how to do it.

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How to recruit more students in 2020:

1. Create a Student Recruitment Plan

2. Train Your Staff The Right Way

3. Upgrade Your Student Recruitment Outreach Templates

4. Automate Your Recruitment Bottlenecks

5. Merge All The Student Recruitment Workflows into a Cohesive System

Step 1: Create a Student Recruitment Plan

If you want a high-performing student recruitment team, first get clear on what you really need from them.

This is where a student recruitment plan comes in. This can be a simple 1-5 page document that includes your enrollment goals and ideally, a set of specific actions that help you achieve these goals.

A good plan helps you understand in detail what currently works for you and your staff, and where your resources are best spent. In fact, just the mere act of preparing this plan might reveal enrollment opportunities you didn’t notice before. Let’s dive in.

Here’s what you need to know to prepare a successful student recruitment plan:

• What already works. Who are your best students? Where do they live, what are their demographics, and how did you recruit them? It’s important to learn what works for you now so that you can scale these strategies later.

• Enrollment trends. Has the 2020 crisis affected student demography? What’s the latest app every student is using? Any information that impacts your current student profile goes here.

• Your goals. Is sheer number of applicants your top priority? Would you like to recruit a certain demographic? This information will help your recruiters focus their efforts.

After covering these questions, you can form two very specific documents that will become a part of your student recruitment plan and greatly increase the efficiency of your sales personnel:

1. Target student persona. A target student persona is a highly-specific description of your perfect students. If your university or trade school generally attracts men in their 30’s, you’ll have more success if your recruiters focus on this specific demographic.

2. Recruiter goals. Recruiters are much more efficient when they know there’s a particular objective they need to achieve. Sales quotas have been a driving force for businesses for years, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t use them as well.

Pro Tip: Regularly update your student recruitment plan based on the data your recruiters gather about engaged prospects and profitable lead sources so that you can adapt your recruitment policies and tactics based on the latest market changes. 

Shape allows recruiters to analyze lead sources over time and get actionable insights on the types of students they recruit most effectively and where they can find these prospects.

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Step 2: Train Your Staff The Right Way

With a plan in place, it’s time to start training your recruiters. Of course, there is a small problem with the traditional way of doing this: professional sales training can cost thousands of dollars. While some institutions provide their staff with superficial training and others neglect training altogether (usually due to the cost barrier), there are ways to effectively and affordably train your college recruiting team.

Here’s how you can train your recruiters without spending a fortune:

• eLearning. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on inviting the latest sales superstars to educate your workforce. With the current advancement of online learning platforms, you can get access to top industry minds at an affordable price.

• Re-use critical information. If you end up inviting consultants or participating in expensive masterclasses, make sure to share the knowledge with your sales agents: record webinars, create guides and ebooks. Strive to create an inner knowledge platform that can continue to serve your staff for years to come.

• Create a strategic onboarding policy. It’s important to set the right expectations between your institution and recruiters from the start, and to detail each team member’s goals and clear expectations about the ways in which they achieve them. The onboarding period is also a great time to educate people in your sales processes.

Remember, you are not training sales stars on your team, so don’t pour thousands of dollars into training individual salespeople. As business often goes, your stars are usually the ones that will be off to new positions before you know it anyway.

Instead, focus on proper onboarding and creating inner knowledge systems. This way,  even newly hired recruiters will get instant access to your most efficient workflows and be able to operate on a high level shortly after their start.

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Step 3: Upgrade Your Student Recruitment Outreach Templates

There’s a good reason the sales industry has been using templates and scripts for decades: they work.

Highly-converting templates and scripts are a direct continuation of your inner knowledge system. They let your new hires quickly get on par with more experienced colleagues. Plus, there’s no better way of transforming inexperienced recruiters into top industry performers than by leveraging templated strategies that already work.

But let’s face it: not every script or template will do. You’ll find plenty of sales scripts for real estate agents and talent recruiters, but those just aren’t relevant to the kinds of conversations your staff needs to be having with future students.

Here’s how to ensure your templates will work wonders for your higher ed recruitment process:

• Make sure they are specifically developed for education. Simply taking the usual sales scripts and replacing every “client” with “student” won’t work. The best templates should be those extensively tested in the education recruitment field.

• Make sure there are templates for every channel of communication. Although the sales process is similar everywhere, the most effective words for every channel (email, SMS, phone) will be different. Make sure you have templates for each.

• Improve your templates regularly. There’s no template that works forever, so you’ll need to adjust what your recruiters say based on current enrollment trends, your programs, and changes in student demographics. Schedule an automated reminder to adjust your templates and scripts on a regular basis.

Having relevant and up-to-date templates will help keep your recruiters ahead of the competition, but how do you make sure they are actually using them?

Here’s where CRM software can play a crucial role.The right higher ed CRM ensures every member of your staff always has the appropriate script or template in front of them, exactly when they need it. Of course, there are also several other advantages of using a CRM:

• Get the right template for the right medium. Whenever recruiters contact their prospects using a CRM, the most relevant templates can pop up automatically depending on the medium of communication and stage of the recruiting process.

• Centrally manage your templates and scripts. Updating sales scripts is a tough task, and eventually all recruiters might be using different templates or worse, some random combination. A CRM allows you to easily update all your templates at once or add new ones.

• Access the best student recruitment templates. Shape is the only CRM that partners with leading education organizations like Woz U and SCI to offer institutions the best-performing templates for engaging prospects and converting them into students.

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Step 4: Automate Your Recruitment Bottlenecks

No matter how well you train your recruitment staff, there’s always a chance that things won’t go as intended. A missed email, a misspelled name, an unwelcome phone call—sometimes even the smallest mistakes can lead to lost prospects and ruin weeks of marketing efforts.

That’s why one of the most powerful ways to prevent potential students from slipping through the cracks is to automate specific parts of your sales process.

Here are some of the ways you can automate your student recruitment process and keep prospects from slipping through the cracks:

• Automated email campaigns. The goal of email marketing is to send the right message at the right time. A timely automated email with information about your programs or school culture will effectively keep prospects engaged.

• Personalized messages. A well-designed CRM system will allow you to easily send personalized marketing messages to your prospects by automatically inserting their data into designated templates.

• Triggers and events. The right message is half the win, but sending the right message at the right time is the perfect combo. Send important information to your prospects right after they perform certain actions on your website or campaigns.

• Prioritize your leads. One of the main areas that both experienced and new recruiters struggle with is how to prioritize their leads. Shape is the only higher ed CRM that provides recruiters with sorted lists of leads based on a comprehensive 28-rule algorithm.

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Step 5: Merge All Student Recruitment Workflows into a Cohesive System

Investing in training a team of student recruiters will boost your enrollment rates for one semester, but investing in recruitment processes and systems is a surefire way to improve recruitment rates for the long term.

An airtight student recruitment plan makes sure that no matter how many people leave or join your team, your staff always knows exactly which steps to follow to boost student enrollment.

A well thought-out enrollment plan, proper onboarding policy, proven industry templates and smart, natural automation can allow you to quickly transform inexperienced recruiters into top performers.

Additionally, these steps and systems help you quickly adjust your enrollment goals however you’d like, and consistently fulfill admissions quota while staying ahead of your competition.

If you’re looking for a system that will supply your recruiters with the most effective sales workflows to date, try Shape.

With our best-of-breed templates, easy-to-use automation, and full customization, you’ll start to see improvements in your student recruitment process within the first two weeks.

We’re ready to back up this claim by giving you a free 14-day trial so you can experience the power of our platform for yourself.

Ready to recruit more students and finally hit your student enrollment goals? Try Shape today! 

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/sales-training-for-student-recruitment-5-simple-steps-to-boost-your-college-admission-teams-productivity-starting-now

How CRMs With E-signature Solutions Can Help Your Law Firm

The use of e-signature solutions once felt as revolutionary as email, and if your law firm used any kind of e-signature software, you felt at least a half-step ahead of the competition. Now, though, everyone from real estate companies to financial institutions to your competition has caught up, meaning it’s important to take that next step. To continue as a client-first practice with an up-to-date toolset, as well as improve your relationship with your clients, you must combine e-signature solutions with your customer relationship management software.

Quicker Document Turnaround

Even if your firm is new to e-signature software, there’s no better introduction than a system that combines everything you’ll need in one platform. Often the largest holdup to finalizing a contract or beginning work for a client is aligning schedules for a client to come in or complete their intake packet. With e-signatures, that issue is erased, and clients can sign your fee agreements or other documents just as they would agree to terms and conditions on a website. Simple, quick, and a great experience for your future clients every single time.

When was the last time you could deliver consistently great customer service without lifting a finger?

By keeping your CRM and e-signature software programs apart, you’re doing your law firm a disservice (and wasting some cash, too). With separate solutions to what’s mostly the same problem, you’ll find yourself devoting time to manually updating these systems or employing yet another program to run an error-prone sync. A CRM that offers e-signature means that when the client signs, you are as well.

Improved Client Experience

A perhaps too-little mentioned cause of bad client experiences is the spam folder. It sits there, so close to the email inbox yet seemingly so far away, gobbling up mass emails, marketing promos, and, unfortunately often, important emails and documents that arrive from the unexpected email address of your intake staff.

By utilizing an all-in-one legal CRM program with e-signature offerings, your clients don’t need to go through and manually whitelist an entire array of email addresses. Not only does that improve turnaround time, it means clients won’t sit there staring at their email inbox, seething about a missing email that is lying undiscovered in their spam folder. After all – the #1 complaint to the ABA from clients is about lack of communication from their lawyer.

Better, More Secure Data Management

No doubt about it, one of the most prominent problems firms face is software that does 80 percent of what they need. This causes a need for additional programs, which may not integrate seamlessly with your current system, which can lead to a complex patchwork of data that can be difficult to manage, navigate, and export to you a case management tool — and that’s if the data doesn’t have matching errors or needless data tables.

With an all-in-one system, you’ll be able to manage your entire relationship lifecycle with clients, from when they were a mere potential lead to post-case referrals. You’ll also be able to quickly and securely access their data in one place, without the need of learning dense database query languages.

How Shape Software Can Help

Shape Software is an ideal tool for law firms of all sizes. Its online marketing, lead management, and intake tools allow you to capture leads and move them through an organized sales pipeline, and help your teams collaborate to offer the best to your clients. Every Shape account not only includes tons of integrations like e-signature, but also a centralized storage for accounts, contracts, and documents so your team can access them when needed. Learn more about our industry specific Law Firm CRM.

If you need an all-in-one CRM tool that includes e-signature solutions, call us today at 888-762-7211 to or book a free demo to see how we can meet your firm’s needs.

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/how-crms-with-e-signature-solutions-can-help-your-law-firm

20 Ways Shape Software Will Grow Your Mortgage Business

Did you know that in 2018, 78% of homes were purchased with a mortgage here in the U.S.? In other words, the mortgage industry is booming. Smart brokers and teams know that to stay competitive you’ve got to keep up with the latest trends and technology. Follow these 20 proven insider tips on how to grow and improve your mortgage business in this thriving marketplace.

1 – Save hours on administrative work every day.

Mortgage loan officers are responsible for a variety of paperwork, tasks, and client interactions at any given moment. These procedures are often both complex and dynamic. A paper and pencil system no longer makes sense.

Not only does it make sense to adopt a modern, upgraded business management system – it’s what your mortgage clients have come to expect. Use software like Shape Mortgage to automate your daily to-do list and spend more time helping your clients.

2 – Increase the productivity of your entire workforce.

Managing a team of loan officers means dealing with the many messages, replies, and comments they have daily. It can often be challenging to get everyone on the same page and all too often, important client details or new leads slip through the cracks.

A centralized online hub for your business needs provides a single location where your employees can share updates, import files, and document their progress. Shape’s cloud-based tool offers maximum accessibility and user permissions to help you manage sensitive data.

3 – Strengthen relationships with prospects and clients.

Relationship building used to require a lot of time and energy. Thanks to marketing automation software included in Shape, creating or improving relationships can be automated, authentic, and successful. Shape offers features that help you streamline relationship building via email, social media, and text messaging.

4 – Automate follow ups.

Fact: Following up with prospects helps you win more business. About 80% of sales require five follow up touch points. For busy mortgage professionals, following up with every lead that many times isn’t sustainable.

At least not without the right software. A proper mortgage software system can send perfectly timed follow-ups at any stage of the sales lifecycle. Customizable templates and automated email delivery triggers make those five follow ups a snap.

5 – Build email drip marketing campaigns.

Open rates for drip email marketing campaigns are 80% higher than single emails! Drip messages also have a click through rate that’s three times higher than their one-off counterparts. Building these campaigns doesn’t have to challenging or even time consuming. Shape actually can be configured with pre-built templates, or you can design your own campaigns, to nurture effectively based on status, lifecycle, and more.

6 – Provide timely status updates.

Sometimes the process of acquiring a mortgage takes longer than you would like. Keep prospects reassured with status updates you can set and forget. They’ll be alerted to any new signatures required, paperwork requests, or follow up meetings as they come up. With Shape’s client portal, you can even build a robust welcome center where they can upload those documents, read more about your business, get status updates, and more.

Putting prospects’ minds at ease is one major way you can stand out from the competition through excellent customer service.

7 – Calculate amortization payments with ease.

Accurate and real-time payment data is critical for your business. After all, it’s what’s used to make some of your most important decisions. Plus, your customers have come to expect quick results so having a handy system for crunching these numbers is a necessity. Shape comes loaded with the calculators your mortgage business needs to always give the most accurate data available.

8 – Improve your intake process.

The hope most people have when they first adopt mortgage software like Shape is that the program will cut down the time they spend on everyday tasks. The intake process can be time consuming when done manually. But it’s one of your most powerful customer service tools. Automate the process with e-Signature capabilities, reminders, and status updates sent for you.

Mortgage businesses who automate parts of their onboarding see turnaround times shrink from weeks to hours.

9 – Organize company wide communication with one central hub.

Taking notes on paper that can get lost or thrown out is not a great way to maintain compliance or run a mortgage business. With Shape, mortgage professionals can keep each other up to date with real-time data, comments, and information. If someone on your team needs to quickly reference a client projects they can quickly log into Shape to view notes from their colleagues.

Shape also allows you to assign leads and tasks on the fly to team members, so no to-do ever slips through the cracks again.

10 – Score your leads by quality.

What if you could have a system that seamlessly reviewed every new prospect, assess their needs, and generate a score based on their interest and urgency? Add it to the list of all the other amazing features Shape has to offer.

Shape Mortgage Software will automatically score your leads based on data from your company as well as any specific parameters you can set and manage at any time. Once your leads are scored you can concentrate your efforts on reaching out to those with the highest ROIs first or even automatically assign them to marketing campaigns.  

11 – Eliminate duplicate leads for better customer communication.

Let’s say you have multiple files for the same lead. One has their nickname and phone number. Another has their full name and business email. And yet another one has their name, LinkedIn profile, and notes on your last meeting. Annoying is a nice way to put this problem.

If you or your employees look up this lead, there’s no way of knowing which version they’ll choose. Which means that notes added to one file might not make it over to the other. So your lead might be getting repeat sales calls from different reps. This kind of sloppy customer service can be remedied with features like Shape’s automatic duplicate merger.

Even if a team member accidentally creates a new file for someone already in the system, Shape can scan, detect, and merge them so all your information remains in one place. This will save you tons of time and headaches over the lifetime of your account.

12 – Sync your loan process with your other favorite apps.

Exporting to Fannie Mae 3.2 File or bi-directionally syncing with your LOS makes the whole process quick and easy. It also eliminates the need for extra administrative work. Shape Mortgage Software does this, as you may have already guessed, automatically after you’ve synced your accounts.

13 – Keep an eye on your website analytics.

Experts recommend that you track and review your website analytics if you want to grow your mortgage business. See which CTA button colors and placement get the most clicks. Or find new ways to improve the overall user experience. Shape helps you create custom forms and automatically collect data from your website visitors.

14 – Record and store phone conversations for future reference.

Whether you need to review information for compliance or reference it as a great case example for the future, recording and storing phone conversations is a valuable tool for your mortgage business. Utilizing Shape’s best-in-class integrated dialer with call scripting and recording is one of the best ways to improve your mortgage business. And, as long as you have their permission, your clients will appreciate your attention to detail.

15 – Prioritize client communication via SMS messaging.

Mortgage lenders can use texting in lots of great ways. And according to Ellie Mae, borrowers seem to prefer it more and more. Keep up with these shifting consumer preferences by adding Shape’s SMS messaging capabilities to your mortgage business tool box. Send one-off messages to your prospects and clients or build SMS into your next big marketing campaign with ease.

16 – Automatically organize lead overflow.

Yet another magic trick Shape can perform for you! If you often get backlogged when new leads come in you can use Shape’s intelligent overflow management interface to gather and prioritize it all. They’ll be sorted based on status or timeframe so you can concentrate on high priority items.

17 – Use a CRM.

If you’re not already using a CRM, it will transform your business. Especially if you run a one with multiple employees which most mortgage companies do. CRMs like the kind Shape Mortgage Software offers give you full transparency and visibility into your entire database of clients, prospects, and referrals. Keep more accurate records of your clients, search prospects, store documents in one central place, and so much more.

18 – Sync your email with your calendar.

It’s a small task but when you’re planning multiple meetings every week that involve different groups of people, manually adding it all to your calendar gets time consuming. Syncing your email to your calendar saves you the trouble of having to weed through old email chains to find someone’s information. It also makes it easy to add, confirm, and remind meeting participants without having to exit your business management platform.

Shape’s meeting scheduler will also keep your team in sync and your clients from missing any important calls.

19 – Use advance reporting to review the health of your business.

While Shape Mortgage Software does help you with the important day to day details, it also keeps you focused on the big picture. Advanced analytics and reporting helps you take a deep dive into what’s working for your business and what’s not. You can keep track of things like cash flow, lead sources, and open cases in real time.

Wondering what the ROI of your last big marketing campaign was? Shape can even run reporting for sales and marketing, which will allow you to properly invest your time (and money!) into business decisions that actually move the needle.

20 – Integrate your business management software with your tools you use every day.

Adopting a system like Shape doesn’t mean you have to give up your other favorite business tools you rely on. In fact, you can seamlessly integrate apps like Zillow, MailChimp, and many others in just a few simple steps. It all seamlessly comes together to form a collaborative ecosystem of mortgage business tools so you can achieve maximum efficiency and productivity.

 Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/20-ways-shape-software-will-grow-your-mortgage-business

Shape Legal Named Top CRM by The Lawyerist

It’s no secret that there are dozens of tools out there to make law firms more efficient and improve the client process. From intake to scheduling to practice and case management, you may find your firm racking up an incredible amount of monthly fees with all the software required to get the job done.

Luckily, the legal software experts over at Lawyerist agree that “It’s a good match for nearly any sized law firm including solo practitioners” to run their entire practice on.

Read the full review of Shape Software on Lawyerist

Managing the ins and outs of every prospect and client can be a delicate juggle for any sized firm, even the most experienced. With some cases requiring multiple check ins, documents, and updates, it can be a full time job just keeping your clients in the loop. The Lawyerist team suggests firms adopt Shape’s “project management tools [to] help you centralize prospective clients and manage existing accounts and contacts,” and that with our “ a native Android and iOS mobile app … you can complete tasks and manage your business from anywhere.”

Switching to new software can be difficult. Your firm may have been running for years on a combination of legacy tools that do just enough of what you need. But is just enough going to help you and your partners reach your financial goals? Is it going to make life a lot easier for your support staff? Why not try a tool that was designed with your practice’s needs in mind? 

When it comes to implementation and onboarding, the Lawyerist team agreed that Shape was simple to adopt for almost any firm.

“The user experience and set up of triggers and drip campaigns is very intuitive. Even setting up workflows seems very plug-and-play. Your firm can get its on-boarding, relationship management, client service workflows and other processes very specific to your firm’s needs.”

Shape Legal is more than just case and client management – every plan comes packed with award-winning features to help simplify even the most frustrating parts of running a business, like billing. 

“Shape CRM is the only known CRM for law firms with built-in online invoicing. Task and time tracking can be managed on the platform which translates to billing and invoicing relatively seamlessly, while keeping everything in one place.”

Isn’t it time you made the switch to an all-in-one system designed to make running a law firm easier? Get your free demo with our legal consultants today!

Read Lawyerist’s full review of Shape Software here > 

 Article Source:-  https://setshape.com/blog/shape-legal-named-top-crm-by-the-lawyerist

5 Ways New Law Firms Can Benefit from a CRM

Whether you’re venturing off from partners or fresh out of law school, every new law firm needs the same two tools to compete in today’s market: the right software and the right processes. 

For every bar complaint made by clients about lack of communication from their attorney, there is a firm creating a seamless and high-touch experience without doing any heavy lifting. 

Which one would you rather be?

Why Process Matters 

Ever misplaced a client’s information in a pile of paperwork on your desk? Forgot to follow up after you sent out an intake form? These are everyday mistakes we all make as busy attorneys. The problem is that without proper data and workflow management (AKA “process”), we leave ourselves exposed to hiccups that can cause major disruptions to our business (AKA cash flow). 

Process is much more than how you think a new DUI client or probate case: it’s documenting and implementing it in a way that becomes easily repeatable for anyone. Great process documentation means fewer errors, happier clients, and a lot of time saved. 

Do you have processes documented for any of the following?

• New client inquiries
• Getting documents sent, signed, and received
• Assigning tasks to your support staff
• Billing and payments
• Managing a client’s case work and data
• Marketing, client updates, and seeking referrals
• And the list goes on…

Why the Right Software Matters

As lawyers, we are no strangers to the galaxy of specialized software catering to us, promising to make our lives easier, better, shinier. The reality is, not every tool is needed for your law firm. Racking up a ton of monthly subscription fees isn’t exactly the best way to launch a new law firm. 

Instead of stringing together a bunch of disparate tools, we recommend that new and growing law firms adopt a powerful and complete CRM solution for a variety of reasons: 

• Stay organized – create     workflows for all the processes we mentioned above to keep you consistent     and your clients happy
• Save money – you don’t need a tool for e-signature,     documents, billing, intake, marketing, and more – a good CRM combines all     those in one package
• Grow profit – 65% of law     firms who use a CRM meet or exceed their sales and revenue forecasting – starting     out with a CRM as your firm’s backbone gives you this advantage

5 Key Features of a CRM That Will Help Your New Law Firm 

1. Online Documents

Build and send custom intake forms, generate fee agreements or contracts with e-signature, send invoices, and accept online payments. All documents seamlessly sync to your client’s matters, so you always have a paper trail. 

2. Matter & Case Management

Assign tasks to your support staff, automate case status updates via SMS/email, log client communications, and keep all your client details in one secure place.

3. Client Portal

Provide a secure portal where clients can log in, upload documents, check on their case status, review your policies and procedures, and take care of essential admin (all from their phone or desktop).

4. Email & SMS Automation

Streamline your email communication with in-depth email & SMS drip campaigns, nurture leads to higher conversion rates, and keep your clients in the loop. 

5. Appointment Scheduling & Reminders

Schedule appointments in a click and send automated appointment reminders, so your leads and clients never miss a meeting with you again. Make the most of every billable hour!

Interested to learn more about how you can implement these (and many more) features of a CRM for just $79 a month?

Schedule a free consultation with one of our law firm software consultants today!

Article Source:-  https://setshape.com/blog/5-ways-new-law-firms-can-benefit-from-a-crm

Shape Legal Named One of the Best Practice Management Tools

Practice management and case management are two essential parts of every law firm’s workflow. However, many law firms choose to go without a dedicated tool for the former and leave a glaring gap in their workflow.

Without the proper practice management tool in place, your firm doesn’t have the essential tools it needs to process take on new clients. The right tool is end-to-end and includes online intake for potential new clients, ability to respond to new client inquiries, getting necessary documents and agreements signed, scheduling appointments, and helping you stay on top of project management.

Shape has built one of the most powerful and end-to-end law firm practice management solutions on the market, and the legal marketing experts at Inbound Law Marketing agree:

“Shape Legal is a powerful all-in-one software that combines client and case management with sales and marketing automation to streamline, organize, and grow your law firm.”

Inbound’s roundup gathered the top 14 practice management tools, and they had this to say about Shape:

“Pros: [Shape has] end-to-end client and case management. Includes online documents, client portal, mobile app, invoicing, marketing and sales automation, SMS, dozens of 3rd party integrations, workflow automation, assign tasks to support staff, reporting, e-signature, custom configurations available.”

Read the full rundown and Shape review here >>>

The team over at Inbound Law Marketing have been working with a wide variety of law firms for years and know the ins and outs of how to build a growing practice through marketing. In addition to helping law firms with SEO, building websites, and optimizing web performance, they also consult on a number of tools that law firms needs to thrive. Read more about them here. 

 Article Source:-  https://setshape.com/blog/shape-legal-named-one-of-the-best-practice-management-tools

CRM For Higher Education: The Complete Buyer’s Guide

A CRM can increase your enrollment and graduation rates. But which one is the right one for you? This guide will help you find the best CRM for your higher-ed org.

Last year there were 2.3 million fewer students enrolled in higher education institutions compared to 2011. Despite the fact that this number keeps going down, the price tag for tuition has increased by almost eightfold since 1989. Couple that with crippling student loan debt and it’s no wonder students are thinking twice before enrolling.

As a higher-ed practitioner, you already know you should take greater accountability for student outcomes and adapt to the new normal in higher education. However, this is easier said than done.

Despite the stark decrease in enrollment rates, application processes are still incredibly long. Higher-ed businesses can’t afford to let prospects slip through the cracks due to red tape procedures, or risk student attrition just because one faculty department has no idea what the other one is doing.

If you want to stay in business, you must stay in close contact with students, prospects, and applicants, and harness your organization to make the right decisions for your college or university.

A smart CRM can help. In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at what a higher-education CRM is and how to choose the one that will help you increase student enrollment and retention while providing an excellent experience for every name in your database.

Table Of Contents

• What Is A CRM? And How Can You Use One to Grow Your Higher-Ed Organization
• Why A CRM Is No Longer A Luxury In Higher Ed
• How Much Does A CRM For Higher Education Cost?
• Best Higher Education CRM: Which One Should You Choose?
• Higher Education CRM: The Complete Feature Checklist

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What Is A CRM System? And How Can You Use One to Grow Your Higher-Ed Organization

CRM stands for ‘customer relationship management’.

In the higher-education industry, a CRM is a platform that allows you to integrate all your educational processes in one place, giving you a full view of every constituent linked to your organization.

A well-designed CRM system also elevates your marketing and generates more opportunities to attract new students, without putting pressure on your existing resources.Here are a few examples of how a CRM is used in higher education:

• Recruiters can act on inquiries within seconds and stay in touch with applicants via automated follow-ups and email campaigns, increasing your inquiry to applicant rates.
• Enrollment leaders can track the best-performing marketing campaigns to double down productive channels and improve marketing ROI.
• Integrate with your student information system (SIS) to drive student engagement and take proactive measures to reduce attrition and improve graduation rates.
• Visualize the full communication history with every student to build effective educational processes using the right data and reporting tools.

These are just some of the ways a CRM can help your higher-ed organization build better relationships with students, help them achieve their goals, and increase the overall performance of your institution.

Why A CRM Is No Longer a Luxury In Higher Ed

There once was a time when universities could get away with attracting students using more analog systems and traditional sales techniques, but those days are long gone. According to the Social Admissions Report, more than 60% of students followed a college on social media before considering enrollment. So, what does that mean for you?

Universities and colleges must do a better job of tracking and converting online prospects.

Hyper-personalized Netflix and Amazon experiences are fast becoming the norm with the new generation of students. If you want to cement your best-in-class status as a university, you’ll need to learn more about your students in order to provide them with the best experience possible.

As if that weren’t enough, technology is developing at breakneck speed and new industries and opportunities are being created on the fly. Universities who want to be at the front of the pack will need data-driven insights to identify and capitalize on new, revenue-generating trends.

The good news is, a CRM can do all that and more. 

If you want the healthy bottom line that comes from building lasting relationships with students, you need a system that lets you put them at the forefront (without putting additional strain on your team).

Simply put, using a CRM in higher education is no longer a luxury, it’s a must. And the good news is, not all CRMs come with the luxury price tag you’re accustomed to seeing.

How Much Does CRM For Higher Education Cost?

We understand that it sometimes comes down to the dollars and cents, especially when it comes to software since the cost of a higher-ed CRM can vary depending on the pricing model:

• Per-user: The typical cost ranges from $30 per month, per user for an entry-level system up to several hundreds of dollars for more advanced solutions. This is the most optimal model for higher-education organizations, although it requires a thorough inspection of how many people will be using the system and what features you get for the price.
• Per-storage: Some CRM solutions charge per resource used, but this pricing model is not very not common in higher education.
• Fixed fee: With this pricing model, institutions are usually charged a hefty sum every month, although there are no limits to the number of staff workers that can use the system.

Now that you know what a CRM system does and how much it can cost your organization, let’s take a closer look at how to choose the best CRM for your needs.

Best Higher-Education CRM: Which One Should You Choose?

Although there are many CRM solutions available for higher education, they generally fall into three main types that are vastly different from each other

Built-in CRM 

Many higher-education organizations use tools such as an SIS, learning management systems (LMS), and others.

These solutions are primarily focused on bringing data insights into the learning process, with less of a focus on attracting, engaging, and enrolling new applicants. However, some systems will include limited functionality that does some of what a CRM does, such as the ability to contact students or create certain types of activity reports.

A built-in CRM may be a good starting point to get the feel of what a CRM can do for your organization, but it’s vastly reduced in its enrollment and revenue-generating capabilities. For example, built-in CRM systems can’t be integrated with other services and rarely support automated workflows for contacting prospects and applicants.

All-in-one CRM Systems

All-one-one CRMs can be used for higher education purposes, but often are built with enterprise companies in mind.When applying an all-in-one system to a higher-ed institution, there are two main issues:

• Limited functionality – Universities will have to pay extra for integration with the systems they already use. If you need to use another tool that does not integrate with your all-in-one CRM, you may even be forced to switch CRMs completely which is a time and resource-intensive process.
• Lack of higher-education workflows – Additional work might be needed to make these blanket systems work for your higher-ed org. Because these systems are geared towards enterprise companies, additional customer support can cost you extra.

Choosing an all-in-one CRM system for your organization is justified when you have access for free or for a lower price, and if you have spare IT resources to help you customize the system to your needs.

Standalone Higher-Education CRM

Standalone CRM systems are typically a better option for higher-education organizations because they can be customized to the specific needs of an educational institution and can integrate freely with other tools, like your SIS, LMS, invoicing software, etc.

When integrated with your other software, a standalone CRM acts as a digital command center for your entire enrollment operation, letting your sales and enrollment teams, admin, and faculty easily access, manage, scale, and automate complex workflows from one place.

In most scenarios, going with a standalone CRM built specifically for higher education is the best course of action, as long as the pricing model makes sense, and customer support is strong.

7 Crucial Benefits Of Using A CRM In Higher Education

Universities and state-run colleges are complex organizations that rely on dozens of people and systems in order to maintain recruitment and admissions. In most cases, adopting a fully-functional CRM is the perfect solution for increasing visibility and improving coordination across the board of your institution.

However, if you’re looking for additional justification, here are four key benefits of using a CRM in higher education.

Benefit #1: More student applications

The right CRM enables focused, automated lead generation and nurturing processes, allowing colleges and universities to form deeper relationships with prospects before they even apply. University recruiters can spend weeks, or even months, gathering information about applicants from disparate sources, but with a CRM they have all the data they need right in front of them and can make decisions within minutes.

Benefit #2: Better enrollment marketing

Recruiting departments without a reliable system in place can quickly become overwhelmed with the amount of applicants and inquiries they have to track. So, how do they handle it?

More often than not, they ignore 90% of their list and focus only on those students who are determined to enroll. But what about the hundreds of other potential students who just need more information?

Look for a CRM that includes remarketing features. With the right remarketing tool, you can automatically target prospects who have already interacted with your website, email campaigns, and social media and nurture those prospects until they’re ready to act.

You’ll also be able to arm your team with data-driven insights about which of your marketing activities are actually moving the needle on your enrollment goals.

Benefit #3: Always know exactly who to call and when

It’s physically impossible to contact everyone in your database. Without the right insights, your enrollment staff is forced to leave it to guesswork or pure chance to decide who they are going to call next.

And your conversion rates will suffer as a result.

Every CRM will give you a list to call, but only the best-in-class sales platforms will provide your agents with a complete breakdown of the best prospects to call and the exact order they should follow. At Shape, we use a deep prioritization algorithm tested across a database of over 20,000 potential applicants for schools like Woz U and SCI.

Enrolling a new student shouldn’t feel like winning the lottery. It should be the result of consistent, predictable, data-driven efforts—and that’s exactly what the right CRM will give you.

Benefit #4: Arm your staff to lead better conversations

The right higher ed CRM will make it a breeze to access all the details and the full interaction history with every applicant and student. Your staff doesn’t need to call students multiple times to get additional information or update their status in your SIS. Everything is synchronized and updated across all departments in real-time.

This drastically reduces the number of duplicate operations that different faculties or offices perform and saves campuses a ton of time wasted navigating disconnected systems.

Finally, the right CRM will include proven templates based on industry best practices across all platforms—email, SMS, or phone call. Now even your inexperienced staff members can be on par with industry pros who have decades of experience under their belts.

Benefit #5: Increased graduation rates

A CRM gives campuses the ability to track student progress with laser focus.

With all the latest student data in one place, teachers and staff have the full picture of how every student is performing. Now they can motivate students by recognizing their success in certain disciplines and lend a helping hand in areas where students are struggling.

The right CRM will also allow educators to set up bespoke follow-ups, email campaigns, and notifications that can be triggered by various SIS data. For example, a drop in GPA or change in course load could trigger an automatic email check in to offer students additional support or information.

Benefit #6: Stay compliant (without even trying)

Templates and drip campaigns are great, but the right CRM will give you a modeled business strategy for optimal enrollment results.

And that includes compliance.

Unfortunately, many CRMs simply don’t care if you land in legal hot water. They’ll happily blast an unlimited number of emails using your SMTP server. But with tens of thousands of emails leaving your SMTP server every day or week, it’s only a matter of time before the ISPs start routing all of your emails to spam.

You shouldn’t have to put your entire domain at risk just to boost your enrollment rates.

Same goes for phone and text. With robocall fines now reaching a whopping $10,000, no amount of unlimited calling can make up for non-compliance on your marketing automation system. That’s without even touching the fact that people are hardwired to ignore any email, text or phone call that shows up as ‘spam’ on their devices.

Bottom line? It’s just not worth it.

If you’re considering using a CRM that offers unlimited email, always ask how the tool addresses compliance with the latest FTC rules and regulations. At Shape, we have set parameters in place to help keep you safe and compliant whether you’re using text, email or dialer.

Benefit #7: Futureproof your org

The education landscape is changing fast and higher-ed organizations must learn to think on their feet if they want to keep up.

A great CRM helps universities become data-driven, not opinion-driven. Armed with relevant marketing, recruitment, and performance data, stakeholders can help educators and administrators visualize what’s working and what isn’t.

Education at large, and higher education especially, are due for a major technological shakeup in the next few decades. Your CRM is a crucial tool for staying ahead of the curve.

13 Questions To Lead You To The Right CRM For Your College Or University

Now that you know the core benefits of a higher-ed CRM, the only question is: which one should you choose?

Here are some questions that will help you to choose the right CRM for your institution:

1. How important is it for you to build and sustain relationships with your students and alums?
2. How well does the CRM integrate with the other platforms you use (e.g. SIS, Campus Cloud, Tableau, and others)?
3. Can you monitor and review the entire student lifecycle in one place?
4. How flexible and customizable is the platform? How easily can you adjust it to your existing processes?
5. Does the CRM facilitate a collaborative environment where all your departments and teachers can work towards the same goal?
6. Does it support custom reporting so that you can spot the departmental bottlenecks in your prospecting, conversion, and productivity workflows?
7. Can you automatically import data from external applications and services, like prospect databases, marketing campaigns, and enrollment data?
8. How secure is student and teacher data? What security protocols are in place?
9. How easy is the CRM system to use? Can your staff start using the platform without spending days or weeks on additional training?
10. Does it provide extensive customer support in case you experience technical issues or need additional help to set the system up and/or extend its functionality?
11. Can you streamline and automate prospecting and lead nurturing processes to enroll more students?
12. How flexible and transparent is the pricing policy?
13. Does the CRM offer a free trial version so you can see for yourself if it fits?

Higher-Education CRM: The Complete Feature Checklist

Despite having common regulations and standards, every higher-ed institution has developed its own unique set of best practices and methods over the years of working with students and staff. Your organization has its own culture, values and processes—and these things must factor into your choice of CRM.

Use this list of CRM features to see whether your shortlisted CRM solutions include all the necessary features you need to attract new students and ensure they have a great learning experience from first contact until graduation.

Attracting new students

• Email & SMS integration and automation
• Inquiry tracking
• Inquiry management
• Prospect routing & interactive voice response
• Contact management
• Referral tracking
• Inbound & outbound calling
• Status tracking
• Call recording & call scripts
• Integrated dialer

Optimizing staff performance

• Prospect filtration
• Duplication management
• Customizable reporting and analytics
• Support chat & intra-company chat
• Automated tasks & actions
• Role-based permissions
• Customizable user permissions
• Invoicing

Improving student experience

• Calendar and email syncing
• Automated drip campaigns
• Automated student status updates
• Mobile support
• Integrations with external platforms and SIS
• eSignatures
• API support
• Student portal

Why Choose Shape?

Shape is a standalone CRM that simplifies and streamlines the entire student admissions lifecycle and integrates with your SIS to give you a comprehensive view of your higher-ed org, in one user-friendly platform.

We tested our edu platform extensively with some of the nation’s leading higher education organizations before bringing it to market.

With Shape, not only do you get all the features and capabilities of any best-in-class CRM—you also get plug-and-play enrollment strategies based on what’s currently working for the best and brightest players in the industry.

And with industry-proven prioritization logic, templates, drip campaigns, remarketing, and built-in compliance, your enrollment staff always know who to call and what to say. Whether you’re an online university, trade school or Ivy League, now you can finally get proactive about taking your institution to the next level.

At Shape, we know it’s critical to have just the right features for your higher-ed org. That’s why we offer a free trial with access to everything our CRM has to offer, including our extensive support team.

We’ll help you set up customized workflows inside your CRM, but more importantly, we’ll be the first to notice if you need any support to help you get the most out of our system—for free, with no hassle, hidden fees or annual contracts.

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/crm-for-higher-education-the-complete-buyers-guide

7 Tips to choose a customer relationship management software for your business

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is one of the most effective ways to maintain good relationships with customers. Size(small or large) of your business hardly plays a role in deciding if you should or you should not employ CRM for your business since CRM has impeccable benefits for all businesses irrespective of their size. As businessmen by using CRM software you are in a better position to reap the benefits of the CRM along with the efforts put in by your sales and marketing team. CRM Software play an important role to manage the database of your customers and you can easily access information about your customers whenever and wherever you want.  In simple words, by using CRM Software you can easily manage your clients and easily build a strong relationship with them. Nowadays CRM has become more popular due to the cut throat competition and the various features available in various CRM’s. If you want to get a competitive advantage over your competitors using a CRM software then you need to choose it carefully. Here are 7 tips that will help you to choose the Best CRM software for your business.

Know your business goals

Before choosing any kind of CRM software for your business first you need to know your goals. If we are talking about a crm software then at present there are different types of CRM software’s available in market. Choose one software for the business can be very tough. That is why, if you want to get the benefits of using a CRM software then you need to know your business goals inside out. You need to be clear whether you want to increase productivity or profitability? You want access your client information? How you are going to use that information once you have it? Different kinds of businesses have different goals. Thus, before choosing any crm software you need to know your business goals. It will help you to choose the best crm software for your business.

Find best CRM software Provider Company

Finding the best CRM Software Company is not an easy task.  As mentioned above, at present there are many companies available in the market that provide CRM software. If you want to deal with the best CRM software Provider Company you need to undertake some research such as check the company’s past history, check their services, prices, and reviews. You can also communicate with their past customers. They will help you to take the right decision.

Ease of use

It is very important when you are looking for a CRM software for your business. Always choose a CRM software that you and your team can easily understand. It is more important to choose a CRM software that is easy to use and can be used to deliver the deliverable even by the least trained person in your company. If you are choosing a complex CRM software then it very tough for you to use it and apart from that you are not able to explain to your team how you can work with CRM software.  That is why; choose a CRM software that is suitable to work for you and your team.

Flexibility

Don’t choose a CRM software that is only fulfilling your present requirements.  Nowadays we can see that things are quickly changing. Therefore, when you are thinking of buying a CRM software for your business then think about the upcoming needs and keep them in consideration. Keep the scalability of the CRM in mind before actually finalizing it. In simple words, choose a CRM software that will not only fulfill your present requirements but will meet your future requirements. It is not only helpful to grow your business but will also save your money.

Choose a CRM software that helps to generate leads

As a businessman you want to get profits. To get profits we are doing so many things such as we are reaching our customers via advertisements.  If we talk about CRM software then it will be helpful for you to build strong relationships with your customers. Definitely if a customer trusts you then he/she will always connect with you. Therefore, when you are looking for a CRM software then you need to see the especial features that will help you to get the positive responses for your customers and increase your sales.

Help you to communicate quickly with customers

As mentioned above, the main focus of businessmen is to increase sales and get profits. Therefore one thing that is most important that is need to be considered is if you want to increase your product sales or promote your business then you need to communicate with your customers at a proper time. Thus, choosing a CRM software that works quickly and makes your conversation soothing with your customers is worth buying.

Automation

CRM software automation is good for your business it will be helpful to achieve your goals. Automation is one of the important things, when you think of buying a CRM software for your business. It not only saves your precious time but also reduces your burden.

12 Reasons Why You Need a Cannabis CRM

Cannabis producers and processors take note: as we move towards the future of cannabis retail, we’ve got to remember our past and what has worked for other industries before us. Traditional business methods might make or break your ability to stay competitive for the long haul.

Shape offers you even more specific features that are tailored to the unique challenges of the cannabis industry. Using advanced technology, CRMs especially, could be the key to priming your company for continued growth.

Shape Cannabis CRM

Using advanced technology, CRMs especially, could be the key to priming your company for continued growth. The good news is there are some CRMs already available that have a proven track record. The even better news? A few of these same companies, like Shape, have expanded to offer you even more specific features that are tailored to the unique challenges of the cannabis industry.

While most of these suggestions may seem familiar to you, we assure you that they’ll help keep you organized, productive, and ahead of the competition for years to come. Using these will maximize the effectiveness of your CRM and your business as a whole.

1. Plan quarterly branding meetings. Stay on top of how your clients interact with your business using marketing tools and analytics.
2. Hire specialized staff to bridge entrepreneurial gaps. Positions like Account Management will be a vital step towards legitimizing your market presence.
3. Add data reports to your decision making process. Use CRM software to automatically capture, assess, and analyze real information that you can use to better understand your current positions.
4. Formalize your sample process. By creating an easy to follow flow chart of events, tracking the effectiveness of valuable marketing tools will become a breeze for employees and management alike.
5. Establish clear lines of communication with retail locations. One easy way to set yourself apart from the competition is by having extremely organized lines of communication. CRMs can help you and retailers store, view, and reference info without missing a beat.
6. Keep track of deliveries for when retailers ask for updates. Stuff happens. Know when it does so you can keep a smile on the faces of your vendors.
7. Oversee all communications. CRMs have the ability to function as one launchpad for every single project, location, distributor, and all other aspects of your business. By streamlining communication to a single platform you can keep an eye on things like customer service and satisfaction.
8. Automatically gather and collect data for future analytics reports. Making decisions for your business based on best guesses is an express lane to failure. Use a CRM to capture things like form data, merge duplicates, and run real-time reports.
9. Remain compliant with state regulations. Maintaining your license depends on it. Be sure to a business management solution that offers end-to-end visibility on your product.
10. Use established marketing tactics like email newsletters to stay in touch with your network of clients. These can even be personalized, templated, and distributed right from your CRM.
11. Get into the content marketing game. Beyond sales and news, use your marketing outlets to provide additional value to your customers. Storing these client details in your CRM keeps this info right at your fingertips.
12. Manage production workflows. Manage expectations and get everyone on the same page. CRMs offer a few different tools for making sure tasks get done by the right people at the right time.

Creating the perfect marriage of old school solutions tailored to fit your new school business is a difficult task. Luckily there are plenty of options available, like Shape, that do just that.

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/cannabis-crm

Using Shape’s Phone, Remotely!

Shape Software is aware of the need for many businesses to rapidly evolve to working remotely in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As we all adjust to working from home, we know that many of you will be using Shape Software to make and receive phone calls from remote locations.

One of the many benefits of Shape SAAS solution is that it’s cloud-based, meaning you can access Shape online from any computer with an Internet connection. Use Shape’s webphone for browser-based calling or forward calls to a mobile phone or landline! Here’s an overview of using Shape’s calling services if you’re looking to transition to calling through Shape during this time.

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Shape Phone Overview

Add calling, messaging, and phone numbers to roll out new ways to communicate with your clients and for your customers to contact you. Enable Shape’s phone settings to make calls, receive calls, record calls, and send and receive text messages in your Shape Software system.

Get a phone number directly in the system under the “Manage Call Settings” page and choosing your area code of choice. Your Shape Phone number is multi-functional and supports calling, SMS, and MMS all on the same number.

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Masking Phone Numbers: Using Caller ID Settings

An existing non-Shape phone number, like the number to a wireless phone or a landline in your home or office, can be validated by an admin in the Manage Call Settings page. Once the caller ID number is verified, you can mask your assigned Shape phone number in the system with your phone number of choice when making outbound calls. You can always use a phone number registered with the system as well.

Enter in your phone number and press “Verify Caller ID” to receive your verification code. You will immediately get a call to the phone entered to register the caller ID number with your validation code provided. If the caller ID is verified, you can mask your assigned Shape phone number in the system with your phone number of choice.

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Local Presence Preferences & Settings

Local presence enables callers to automatically dial records using local area codes. Local presence dialers can lift call connection rates by up to 400%, because prospects tend to be far more likely to answer unknown calls from local numbers, rather than toll-free or long distance phone numbers.

Pick and choose which phone numbers are associated with each state in Shape’s local presence settings.

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Choosing your Phone Preference: Web Calling or Personal Device

Choose the method in which you would like to make and receive calls from your system. Select web phone for calling directly in your browser window. Please note that you must be logged in to Shape to use the web phone. Want to use an alternate phone? Use call forwarding to enter in a direct dial phone number to use outside of a browser. For text messaging, select your preferred text message number. Note that text messages numbers must be a Shape phone number.

Choose whether you’d like to use your internet browser for calling or if you prefer an actual mobile device or landline. This is a user preference and can be adjusted as needed in the profile settings.

Click to call using your list, benefit from call scripts, disposition your calls, view note history, etc.

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Using the Web Phone

Call directly from your CRM through your web browser. No phones, other hardware, or apps necessary for inbound or outbound calls. Headset recommended.

Keep in mind the following when working remotely using the web phone: When working remotely, it’s important to remember that the web phone operates through the web browser and requires a consistent and strong internet connection, or else you may experience poor call quality or latency. If you are using the WiFi in your home and others are also using the same connection streaming videos, playing games, or doing a lot of downloading or uploading, it may impact your bandwidth and the quality of your phone calls. Still, the web phone should be a solid choice.

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Using Call Forwarding

If you prefer to route calls to a cell or landline, choose the call forwarding preference in Shape. Set up call forwarding in seconds to divert calls to your personal or business number and never miss a business call again.

Keep in mind the following when working remotely using a cell phone: When you are using a cell phone, there may be some locations where the signal is weaker than others. You should try to position yourself to get as strong a signal as possible. Depending on signal strength and other variables, such as your provider, there is always a chance that call quality for cell phones will be inconsistent. Some carriers can also experience latency. 

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There are a number of options at your disposal to support remote workers. Your ongoing success and continuity during this volatile time is our number one priority.  Please visit our resource center for under the “Resources” dropdown on our website for additional details.

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/using-shapes-phone-remotely

The Importance of CRM Integration with Encompass LOS

From starting the loan origination to completing the loan request, the process for a loan can be messy, especially without proper organization. Loan officers know this well, which is why ICE Mortgage Technology created Encompass, a Loan Origination System (LOS) capable of integrating with CRM software such as Shape’s Mortgage CRM, to help organize the process of applying for a loan.

What is a Loan Origination System (LOS)?

A Loan Origination System (LOS) is a software used by loan officers to manage the steps of a mortgage loan transaction, starting with the origination of the loan. Once the origination is completed, a typical LOS will also handle the pricing, fulfillment, eligibility, and document management of the loan. In general, a LOS will work in a step-by-step basis, guiding both the lender and borrower through the complete loan process.

What Is CRM Software?

In case you are unfamiliar with the term, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software refers to a cloud-based management system that connects all aspects of your business in one easy-to-use interface. Any member of your business can access real-time client data, allowing for seamless interaction between various sections of your company. CRM software can be downloaded from anywhere, so employees working from home can use the software and still access client data from the cloud. If you still have questions about CRM software, you can check out Shape CRM{link to informational page about Shape CRM} an in-depth look at what CRM software can do.

What is Encompass?

Encompass is a Loan Origination System (LOS) made by ICE Mortgage Technology, designed to assist loan officers through the loan application process. Through the use of artificial intelligence and next-generation data security, Encompass gives both lenders and borrowers a sense of security, while also streamlining the lending process to maximize efficiency. Encompass also provides GSE integration, which includes Freddie Mac’s Loan Product Advisor and Fannie Mae’s Day 1 Certainty initiatives.

Why use Encompass LOS for your lending business? 

According to the MBA, loan origination costs the lender an average of $8,000 per loan. This means that until the loan is finalized, the lending process is losing you money, and depending on the size of your clientele this amount may not be small. Encompass was designed with this in mind, speeding up the lending process to ensure faster ROI. To test this, MarketWise Advisors recently performed an independent study on Encompass LOS [https://www.icemortgagetechnology.com/roi/], which concluded that, on average, lenders using Encompass:

• Saw an annual ROI of 687%
• Saved $813 per loan
• Spent 23.5 less hours per loan
• Saw a payback period of 1.92 months

Overall, most of these benefits were attributed to the increased productivity Encompass provided its users. In the words of Jordan Brown, CEO of MarketWise Advisors, LLC, “this study provides clear evidence that Encompass’ compliance capabilities, process automation, third-party service integrations and interoperability of a single system have a marked impact on the cost of origination.” 

Ellie Mae president and CEO Jonathan Corr also had praise for Encompass, claiming that “by using technology to automate the complex mortgage process, study participants realized an annual return of 697 percent, that’s nearly seven dollars for every dollar invested. In many cases, that’s the difference between profit and loss for lenders.”

Encompass is URLA ready

With the recent changes to the Universal Residential Loan Application (URLA), some people might hesitate to spend money on Encompass. This stems from the fear that if Encompass struggles to adapt to the changes in the loan industry, the many benefits it brings your lending business will be irrelevant. 

Although this is a valid concern, you can rest assured with Encompass, as the support team at ICE Mortgage Technology strives to stay ahead of the curve—including the new URLA. Encompass is fully compatible with the new URLA, and ICE Mortgage Technology intends to constantly update its system and adapt to any upcoming changes in the loan industry.

Benefits of Encompass LOS + CRM Software

Speaking of compatible, Encompass allows for complete integration with third-party CRM software, including Shape CRM. Although a LOS can still improve loan management without CRM software, using the two together gives your lenders even more control over the loan process.

Encompass + Shape Software Mortgage CRM is Bidirectional

Arguably the biggest benefit of using these two services together is the bi-directionality of the pair. Although some work better than others, Encompass was designed to seamlessly integrate with any CRM software, allowing all information to be easily transferred between the two. For how this benefits you, consider the act of data entry. Anytime your business interacts with a lead, client, or business partner, a certain amount of data needs to be entered or updated within your system. Contact information, loan applications, loan status, business data, or anything else relevant to these people will need to be properly documented. Without integrating a CRM software with Encompass, all of this data must be recorded separately in both Encompass and your company’s management system. Not only will this take time out of your day, but it could also lead to:

• Duplicate data
• Missing data
• Errors in the data

Any of these mistakes could cost you both time and money, and CRM integration with Encompass is an easy way to fix this.

The bi-directionality of CRM software and Encompass can also benefit both your marketing and sales.

For any business, being proficient at lead generation and management is the first step in closing deals. This should be obvious, but if you don’t supply your sales team with quality leads, it can be challenging for them to sell your product or service. With CRM integration in Encompass, your marketing team will instantly receive a notification whenever someone submits a loan application, which will include the contact information of that person for outreach purposes. Applying for a loan is one of the best leads you can hope for in the lending business, so capitalizing on these leads is imperative. CRM integration can also automatically text or email the loan applier at specific points during the application process, further increasing the likelihood of a conversion. 

For a short example of how Encompass with CRM integration can be used, consider the journey a potential customer may take after applying for a loan.

First, the customer submits their loan application, alerting your marketing team of a high-quality new lead. With Encompass + CRM, your marketing team can easily track the progress of this lead through the origination process, supporting it as they see fit.  This could mean sending out automated texts and emails at certain points in the process, or even automatically responding to inbound calls to maintain a good relationship with the lead. Sending messages expresses to the lead that you care about them personally, which is often more successful than generic outreach. CRM software makes this process effortless. 

Once the lead passes through the marketing funnel and becomes fully qualified, it’s handed off to your sales team, where they attempt to close the deal. With CRM integration, not only will all of the information available on the lead be maintained, but the transfer happens instantaneously. This means that your sales team can immediately begin targeting this qualified lead—a surefire way to increase sales. 

If your sales team is able to capitalize on the lead and close the deal, the CRM software will then assist you in onboarding your new client. Depending on your needs and the specific software that you are using, this can be done through custom forms, proposals, or contracts. For payment, most CRM software support invoices, while also giving automated payment reminders.

For lenders, CRM software often goes hand-in-hand with a Loan Origination System. They both improve your company’s overall business, however CRM software focuses on the framework of your company (communication, client management, marketing), while a LOS focuses on the actual service your company provides (loan process). All-in-all, CRM and LOS software compliment each other well, and work best when paired.

Using Shape CRM with Encompass LOS

Encompass was designed to work with all types of CRM software, however some integrate better than others, such as Shape CRM. Unlike other CRM software, Shape CRM was developed with Loan Origination in mind, so it seamlessly integrates with LOS software, Encompass included. Because of this, your lenders can gain even more control of the loan origination process, saving your company both time and money.

The Benefits

Compared to other CRM software, Shape CRM integrates much smoother with Encompass. For example, a new Encompass loan file can be created within a Shape contact record instantly, either through a press of a button or an automated trigger from a status change. Creating a loan file this way saves more user information, while also allowing your marketing team to initiate follow-up drip campaigns immediately. 

Shape CRM also allows for milestone tracking in Encompass. In short, Shape CRM can synchronize with the loan status of anyone applying through Encompass, giving your team updates whenever a certain milestone is hit. Shape CRM comes with several preset milestones, including but not limited to:

• Started
• Processing
• Submittal 
• Approval
• Docs Requested
• Docs Signing
• Funding
• Post Closing
• Completed

Shape CRM is highly customizable, so if there is a milestone you would like to be tracked that is not provided by default, Shape CRM will work with you to have that created.

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/the-importance-of-crm-integration-with-encompass-los