Last week the CEO of Bitrix24 Sergey Ryzhikov presented new Bitrix24.Dubai. In this release, the company has included a lot of long waited updates and a couple of unexpected (and stunning!) surprises that take the product to the next level.
Keep reading and learn more about the key new features of the upcoming release :).
Mobile app
The mobile app has gotten several important updates. First, now users can choose the main tool they use most frequently in the mobile app (Tasks, Activity stream, Chat, etc.) and make it the default one.
Second, one can change the configuration of the task card. Users can select the fields they want to see in the card. It helps not to overburden the instrument and keep it functional at the same time.
Third, the functionality of checklists in tasks is getting wider. Now one can tag people and attach pics and charts in every single item of the list, create multiple checklists in one task and monitor them separately.
Finally, there are technical and interface changes in Mobile chat: new engine, smooth scrolling, increased saving of processing, storage, and battery resources, quoting initiated by swiping, grouping of unread messages, etc. Also, now users can exchange voice messages.
Office
The navigation system is updated. Now one can hide the left side menu and refer to it only when needed. The menu appears as a pop-up side panel. This mode is designed for those who work mainly with Tasks and CRM. This way you can fill your screen workspace with useful info only.
The view and content of the employee profile have changed as well. Now you can find there not only contact info and general data, but also personal info, i.e. something that an employee considers important to share about him/herself. For more, now you can customize the profile and include only those fields that are essential for your company.
The Worktime tool got fully restructured.
Now it has 4 user scenarios:
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shift schedule — where you can specify the time and place of work for each employee (you can set up to 6 shifts per day);
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hourly schedule — for those companies who want to track output per hour;
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fixed schedule — mostly the way the Worktime tool has been used up till this day;
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mixed mode — for those companies whose employees work in different modes.
Also, the absence charts can be integrated with official documents — you can get an appropriate timesheet right from Bitrix24.
Finally, it's now possible to clock out after 00:00 and start the day with the face recognition tool.
Calendar and Drive got updated as well. We will not dwell in detail, let's just mention that calendars can now be synchronized (by companies, favorites, groups, and tasks) and you can invite to them external users. Also, there's a united search that permits searching through the documents, tasks, CRM and elsewhere according to one's access rights.
Tasks
In this release, the team has improved the efficiency calculation mechanism.
Furthermore, there are new robots:
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binding to CRM;
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creating a task with a checklist;
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customizing task fields;
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finishing a task.
And triggers:
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checking off items from a checklist;
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finishing a task,
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starting a task;
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pausing a task.
Soon it will be possible to work with Google Assistant — it can make an appointment, set a task, text a message, and so on.
Contact Center
The new Contact Center has finally and completely incorporated the Open lines. Inside Contact Center, you can see both the full chat history and the stats on all your communications (load by channels, response time, reaction dynamics, etc.).
Among the Telephony updates are the following ones: new interface, possibility to manage groups of numbers and buy numbers by packages.
Now the Contact Center includes all means of client communication: email, phone, all key messengers and social networks. In this release, the company has updated the connector to Instagram. Now all comments become Deals, and all answers get to corresponding comments with correct references. The same is true for Facebook as well.
To work with Whatsapp and Instagram through Bitrix24, the company recommends installing apps from the Marketplace. Then these chats can be processed as a regular open line.
CRM
Now you can customize the number and purpose of fields that are used to create a quick deal (it's configured separately for each funnel and by the administrator for all employees). Also, you can customize the view of the Deal card in kanban — display only the most valuable fields, and search by filter right in the card's timeline.
There's a new mode in CRM that allows merging the deals from different pipelines. It's especially convenient for those who work without leads.
New CRM robots include:
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finishing a task;
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creating a task with a checklist;
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choosing a legal entity in CRM Documents;
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shortcut filling of a CRM form, if you have enough customer data.
Also, there are new triggers:
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checking items in a checklist;
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finishing a task;
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starting a task;
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pausing a task.
End-to-end analytics now allows tracking offline ads, calculating marketing ROI, manually indicating costs and sources. And visual markers for campaigns evaluation will help swiftly assess the efficiency of advertising channels.
Bitrix24 is the first CRM in the world that tracks the efficiency of advertising costs.
Sales tunnels
It's one of the key new features of this release.
The key to successful CRM implementation is to create short sales funnels designed for various deals stages. The funnels may involve actions for both sales and marketing departments. Thus, one of the main tasks is to establish ties between the departments and to learn how to set up the funnels separately and relative to each other. To meet this challenge Bitrix24 introduces a new tool — Sales Tunnels.
For instance, you create three funnels: Sales, Installation, and Service, and set them up so that all won entities from the last Sales stage are transferred to the first stage of the Installation funnel. All won entities from the last Installation stage go further to the Service funnel, and all the lost ones are transferred to the first stage of the Sales funnel.
You can create any scenario that suits your processes and link the stages as you wish. As mentioned above, some funnels can be related only to marketing tasks. For example, a funnel's ultimate goal can be to bring a customer to an event. When the final goal is complete (the client came to the event), the client will be redirected to the Sales funnel.
Sites
The Bitrix24 team is constantly working on one of the key sales tools, and this release includes a whole range of technical updates. From the users' point of view the main changes are:
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new blocks, which means new opportunities for the lead generation;
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updated news feed — now when you add a post to the group's Activity Stream, it will immediately appear in your site's news feed.
Also, now you can set access rights to Sites, transfer sites between different Bitrix24 portals and between Sites and Stores.
Sales Center
This is a brand new section in Bitrix24. As for now, it has only one block — Sales in Chat, that allows you to send a customer a ready-made link so that he could learn more about the product, order a product or a service or pay for it right in the chat. In the future, the system will work with Apple Pay and Google Pay.
At this point, Chat is becoming a full-scale sales center.
