Guest post by: Nikka Ann Alejandro
Businesses that want to survive in the ever-growing competitive markets
where technological solutions are changing faster than ever — faster
than many businesses can keep up with — need to be on the forefront of
adopting new technologies. By the time a new software solution has been
implemented, technology could easily have moved on. Under this intense
pace of innovation, a lot of business owners are becoming paralyzed by
fears of making the wrong investment choices.
In truth, staying in stride with innovation is no longer just a
‘nice to have’. It’s very important to compete with companies that adopt
early in your niche and are reaching out to your audiences with
automated marketing solutions. As demand increases for businesses to
perform complex, labor-intensive tasks, the goal is to automate as many
manual processes as possible. Before we get into the 5 innovative ways
to automate your sales processes, let's talk about why you should
automate in the first place.
The Argument for Automation
Automation ensures consistent quality. Automation
ensures that every action is performed identically - resulting in high
quality, reliable results. For example, if you automate your customer
service follow-up process, your customers will consistently experience
the same level and quality of service from your business. While the
guaranteed consistency keeps your customers satisfied, your teams can
spend more time developing higher quality, feature-rich products with
little or no increase in production time and costs.
It saves time. We all know that manual tasks take a
lot of effort and time. Automation reduces the number of tasks you and
your employees would otherwise need to do manually. This gives you an
opportunity to devote more time to tasks that enhance the business,
enabling you to be more creative and increasing your representatives'
levels of motivation. Automation also allows you to get more things done
in the same amount of time, which greatly increases productivity and
efficiency.
It gives you access to accurate data. Maintaining
success in the business sector is dependent on developing and
implementing a high-level strategy. Being ahead of the competition and
constantly monitoring your competitive advantage requires you to always
evaluate these strategies, which are dependent on access to timely and
accurate business data. Automated processes enable precise operations
and a defined timetable within your system. Using them helps ensure your
data output is returning the correct estimates at the correct times, so
you can properly interpret the meaning behind the numbers.Key metrics
can be recorded and reported to provide you with the crucial data you
need for whichever processes you have chosen to automate.
It improves sales efficiency and productivity. Efficiency
reflects how much time, effort, and investment is needed for the
intended task or purpose. Automating sales processes decreases the time
it takes to accomplish a task, the effort needed to tackle it, and the
costs associated with finishing it successfully. Not only does
automation ensure systems run smoothly and efficiently, but it also
makes sure that errors are eliminated and your best customs and
procedures are always utilized.
It reduces costs. Manual tasks, given that they're
performed one at a time and not in parallel, will surely cost more.
Automation enables you to achieve more with fewer assets.
5 Innovative Ways to Automate Your Sales Processes
Now that the case has been made for automation, here are 5 innovative
ways to automate your sales processes to reduce costs, manage data,
save time, and deliver consistent quality:
1. Keep a panoramic perspective of social media chatter.
Never has it been more crucial to monitor what your clients are
saying about your company on social networking sites. Most buyers are
active on multiple social media platforms, particularly when they are
dissatisfied. Transform this into a positive situation for your company
using a software that can monitor and evaluate different social media
channels and prepare sales agents to serve prospects and clients online.
2. Customize user profiles and user-support pages.
B2B companies are betting everything on customized sales procedures,
and some organizations are increasing their conversion rates by up to 36 percent
only by utilizing customized content on their business channels. When a
prospect or client makes a profile on your site, ensure it is
immediately populated with data that is significant to that individual's
experience. This ought to incorporate fundamentals like the person's
name and company information, and additionally ought to include product
recommendations, support materials, relevant content, and their order
history.
3. Automate coaching activities to boost your mid-range performers.
Sales automation isn't only advantageous when it's utilized to
specifically enhance the customer experience. You can utilize similar
standards to mentor your sales reps, and urge them to achieve new
heights. Modern software solutions make it simple for you to record and
analyze the habits of your most astounding performing sales reps, and
after that, reproduce those strategies with other members of your team.
This powerful analysis can also help you devise new systems and
strategies for maximizing your reward structure for individual reps
across different phases of the sales process.
4. Leverage chatbots in value-added ways.
Try not to stress, chatbots are here to help sales representatives,
not supplant them. Clearly, there are numerous interactions with a
client where AI (artificial intelligence) alone is inadequate, however,
that also implies that there are a few cases where it's a perfect fit.
Frequently, clients go to a site searching for a speedy response to a
basic question. Chatbots can help guide them to a specific section in
the FAQ or pull up relevant content to enlighten the issue. When these
sorts of communications are dealt with through automation, it allows
sales reps to concentrate more on activities central to their sales.
5. Boost upsell/referral opportunities through post-sale correspondence.
B2B-oriented companies can learn a great deal from their B2C
counterparts: For example, creative companies like Amazon are frequently
increasing their upsell and referral opportunities by using modern
calculations to prescribe additional products for returning clients.
It’s an unbelievably simple idea, even if it’s based on the analysis of
complex data: Search for new ways to add value to your customers'
experience, while at the same time, encouraging them to buy more from
you. This is a fantastic strategy to drive additional revenue, but you
don’t have to use your confirmation and thank-you emails exclusively for
upselling. You can also auto-populate links to different pieces of
content or incorporate product support information that is relevant to
each customer's purchase.
There are thousands of tools and methods to automate the sales
process, with the end goal of each saving time and money, and ultimately
facilitating more sales. You just need to find the right one.