Sales productivity has taken a nosedive given the many tasks sales reps have to fulfill on a daily basis. They have to do client presentations, make calls, send emails, generate leads, attend meetings, create reports, manage accounts, attend to clients, negotiate, close deals, and more.
Clearly, salespeople need help in working more efficiently and effectively. If you’re a business with sales reps struggling to perform their many tasks and deliver on their targets, then you know that automation is for you.
A lot of the repetitive, time-consuming tasks that inundate sales reps can be automated. Sales reps will then have more time and energy to focus on the more important things such as converting leads and making lucrative deals.
All they need is an intelligent, highly efficient CRM and sales reps can automate these processes to achieve peak sales performance:
1. Calling / Dialing
Making calls can eat up a lot of time. Imagine the calls list sales reps have to go through on a daily basis. They can make the process more efficient by calling each prospect with just one click. They can also use a power dialer to dial the numbers for you. The CRM can likewise record the call, note the information or notes from the call, and even schedule a follow-up email or call for them.
And sales reps don’t need to waste time making the same calls or calling the wrong leads. Know who and when to call using the system’s data analyzing capabilities.
2. Emails
When nurturing leads, sales reps don’t need long hours writing emails and sending them (and in some instances, making mental notes to send them). They can automate their emails in a segmented drip campaign. They can set up the whole thing in the CRM: identify the target audience, choose the email to be sent from the templates previously created, set the time of delivery, and automate the release of these emails. (Here’s how you can automate your email workflows.)
They can even track the performance of these emails, or do A/B testing to see which email works better for the intended market and/or purpose.
Aside from lead nurturing emails, they can also automate emails to existing customers, especially when grooming them for customer retention.
3. Data Entry and Management
Manual entry is not only time-consuming, it also creates the risk for human error. Automating data entry is not only more efficient, it also allows for more exhaustive data collection. For example: a CRM not only does a better job at entering data on all potential and existing clients, it can collect all relevant data—demographics, psychographics, behavior, engagement—to make more comprehensive profiles for prospects and customers.
The same is true for data entry and management of all other sales activities and processes—from sales team’s activities to the more intricate business data.
4. Reports Creation
Why drown in Excel sheets when sales reps can create custom reports from their CRM's dashboard? They can choose from existing templates or create their own reports with custom dimensions and values.
They can also generate the reports they need from the CRM; analyze data with custom metrics; and get real-time reporting—all from their custom dashboard.
5. Lead Scoring
Lead scoring ranks prospects against a scale that represents the perceived value each lead represents to the organization. You score leads based on demographic information and engagement/activity.
The practice vets the high-quality, best-fit prospects for the sales team—so members don’t waste their time pursuing leads that won’t convert. Sales teams should have a lead scoring system in place and have the CRM rank their leads based on implicit and explicit data.
6. Messaging
Working with a team means having to constantly communicate with every member. Why not automate some of these messages?
Sales reps can create templates for messages usually sent and set them to private or public (for the whole team). They can also send text messages in bulk and not have to create separate messages for all team members.
This simple act of simplifying sending and receiving of messages saves sales reps a lot of time.
7. Task Building
When you have a lot of things to do, you need an efficient system for listing and monitoring all these tasks. Have sales reps create their list of tasks for your workflow from the CRM. They can also set reminders so they don’t forget to send that important email or make a return call to a waiting client.
8. Appointment Scheduling
It’s hard for sales reps to keep track of all the meetings they have to attend. Don’t miss any presentation, sales call, or any appointment—arrange and track meetings through the CRM and have it send the all-too important reminders.
Sales managers or group heads can set a team meeting and send the invite to the attendees through the system as well. And it’s easy to sync your Google Calendar with the system to keep track of all these events.
Automating tasks is definitely a huge help for sales teams, but be careful not to fully depend on automation for everything. Use automation in moderation, and use it thoughtfully. Besides, certain tasks will still need the human touch.
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