One of the benefits of having a customizable CRM is that you can tweak it to fit the way you work. After all, your CRM account should fit you and your business, not the other way around. Having a CRM tailored to your preferences not only makes your work easier, but it makes it more enjoyable to spend time in the CRM. And when you use a product every day to enter notes, schedule meetings, and track leads, it's important to like what you see!
In addition to customizing your groups, custom fields, and pipelines, below are 3 small, quick ways you can personalize your CRM. I'll also explain how I use each personalization feature, in case you need inspiration!
1. Create and color-code your calendars.
Less Annoying CRM has a feature that you can use to create different color-coded calendars for different kinds of events. For example, you can have personal and work calendars so that you can see your entire schedule in LACRM. You can also choose to make a calendar private or public to the rest of your team.
How we use this feature
- Public Work: this is where customer and colleague meetings go, in addition to vacation and sick days. It's public so that we don't accidentally double book, and everyone knows who is available when.
- Project Work: CRM Coaches use a calendar like this to track internal project tasks, like hiring or creating content. These types of calendars are private, so it doesn’t clog up anyone else’s view of the calendar.
- Marketing Schedule: our marketing coordinator uses a calendar like this to track every newsletter and blog post to easily get a month to month view of our editorial calendar.
- Personal: this is for non-work events, like seeing a movie with friends or getting a haircut.
Check out this tutorial to learn how to create additional calendars (we also include ideas if you're not sure how to use this feature for your business!).
2. Tweak your calendar reminders to fit the way you work.
Change your default event reminders by mousing over “Settings” and selecting “Notifications” in the menu. Under the “Default event reminders” section you can change your default event reminders for each calendar. For example, you might want to receive a 15 minute email reminder for work-related events, and a 30 minute text message reminder for personal events. When you update event reminders, you’ll also have an option to update your reminders for all existing events, or just new events created in the future.
Please note: SMS notifications are currently only supported in the US, Canada, and the UK.
How we use this feature
CRM Coaches receive email reminders for all work-related events, and many choose to receive text message reminders for any personal events. Our marketing coordinator receives email reminders for the “Public Work” calendar, but turns off reminders for the “Marketing Schedule” calendar, since those events aren’t action based.
3. Update your other notifications.
Determine what kind of notifications you’d like to receive on the Notifications page under Settings. Select what time you’d like to receive your daily agenda, which includes a list of all events and tasks for the day.
If you work on a team, you can also select what notifications you’d like from other users on the account. You may want to talk to your manager before turning these notifications off, in case you’re expected to receive any specific notifications.
How we use this feature
Our team highly recommends receiving the daily agenda email! The entire company receives a daily agenda email to stay updated on their schedule for the day. CRM Coaches also receive reminders if someone else adds a task or event to our calendar so we know about any schedule changes.
For admins and owners: change the name upload your logo to the CRM.
Change the color of the CRM and upload your business logo by mousing over “Settings” and select “Company branding.” You can select a color scheme from the list for your sidebars. Upload a company logo to appear in the upper left corner of the CRM to further personalize your account.
Please note: only users with admin privileges can change the appearance of the CRM account.
How we use this feature
Our team changes our account color every few months! Usually, the color is based on the season: a nice warm red in Fall, a bright green in Spring, etc. Since we spend all day in the CRM, it's fun to keep it fresh.
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