Sales processes are often complex and labor-intensive, and managing them can be a daunting task. As technology advances, more and more companies are choosing to implement systems that allow them to automate repetitive and often monotonous sales tasks. In this article, you will learn how automating the B2B sales process can help companies in their day-to-day operations and how this technology can facilitate success.
| Sales automation – what is it?
Automating the sales process means using technology to perform sales-related activities, such as contacting customers, creating quotes, generating reports, and monitoring sales progress. Certain activities – with the help of a practical tool, happen automatically, so the team can save a lot of time and energy, and improve sales productivity.
What tasks can be automated?
It is difficult to clearly define which aspect of sales is the most important. It all depends on what we expect from our sales process. The most important thing is that it should be effective and allow us to achieve our business goals. However, automating the sales process is not just about implementing customer service tools. It’s also a whole range of other activities that are designed to make the sales process easier and faster. So what activities can we effectively automate?
- Automated workflow → sending reminders to customers (e.g., about the expiration date of an offer or payment/invoices) and messages with additional content; creating a sequence of emails, along with scoring, which allows automatic or semi-automatic sending of emails – depending on what actions the customer has taken,
- generation of effective and attractive commercial offers → digital offer documents in the form of secure, dynamically generated web pages, created with a few clicks,
- creation and automatic sending of reports with merchant statistics,
- introduction of valuable B2B customers to sales
| Benefits of automating the sales process
Today, sales automation is the key to business success. It helps sales teams achieve their goals, and enables better management of customer relationships. Automating the B2B sales process is therefore essential for any business that wants to grow and succeed.
So what are the benefits associated with sales automation that we can list?
Follow up – when the customer is interested
Follow-up messages are a key part of automating the B2B sales process. Sending emails with templates and predefined content makes it quick and easy to do a follow-up after every phone call or in-person visit. When you perceive that a customer is interested in an offer, you can take additional action to help close the sales process.
With this solution, you can quickly and easily communicate with customers, as well as obtain from them the relevant information needed to complete the transaction. What’s more, automation allows you to better manage customer relationships and track customer activity at every stage of the sales process.
Email templates
Email templates are one of the most effective ways to automate the B2B sales process. They allow you to send messages to potential customers quickly and easily and enable you to better manage your correspondence. Templates can be customized to meet the individual needs and requirements of each company, so you can better match them to your marketing goals. The right system can have pre-filled data about the company, which the salesman does not have to write every time. Everything is included in the already-established layout. Thanks to the predefined email templates included in the repository, they can be used at any time, for any circumstance. Only those using the system have access to them.
High time savings
Saving time, and thus money, are the main benefits of automating the B2B sales process. A tool that supports the automation of sales activities allows the company to manage its time effectively and more efficiently. By minimizing the performance of repetitive activities, employees can focus on other sales-related tasks. Statistics, ongoing reporting, automatic follow-ups, and generating offers and emails are some of the tasks that the right system can do for the sales team, no longer taking up valuable time.
Knowing what happens to the offer sent to the customer
When an offer is sent to a customer, the system automatically generates a report containing information about how the customer reacts to the offer. This allows the vendor to track whether the customer reviews the offer or is interested in buying it. The report also allows the vendor to monitor the effectiveness of its offer on an ongoing basis and adjust it to the customer’s needs. Such knowledge allows you to focus your attention on those customers who are actually interested in the proposal. In the SellStorm+ system, you can optionally add functionality to monitor which element of the offer most piqued the customer’s interest – thanks to the built-in heat maps and logging of page hits. This helps eliminate errors, remove any unnecessary content or add new elements.
Faster appointment setting – calendar/sharing
To streamline the process of scheduling a meeting with a client, which often involves the exchange of several emails, you can make your calendar available. With a single click, the client will set a meeting at a mutually convenient time, and you will automatically be notified. In addition, calendar systems can be configured to remind you of the meeting.
Effective CRM
It allows you to manage customer relationships, track potential customers and conduct sales analysis. This allows you to better match your offerings to customer needs and use each sale as an opportunity to build long-term relationships. A properly implemented system collects all relevant information about customers and their level of interest in your offerings. Such data can prove essential in deciding which customer is most interested and which requires more time and information. The system you choose can also allow you to assess which elements made your customer most curious and thus – find a starting point for continuing conversations. An effective CRM also records emails sent, and any phone calls made, giving you accurate data on your customer correspondences.
If you are using a CRM that provides an API, then we are probably able to integrate it with SellStorm+ so that information about offers and customers synchronizes.
Effectiveness of salespeople in automatically sent reports
If you want to evaluate the effectiveness of your sales team as a whole or as a unit, automatically sent reports that take into account all sales statistics will help you. You will get clear information about the number of prepared offers and how many of them generate real interest among customers. You will be informed about the number of topics started and closed by your salespeople, thus enabling you to forecast sales more effectively.
If you sell through a network of distributors, you can also receive such reports on their statistics through properly configured roles.
| Summary
Nowadays, automation is a key element for companies that want to increase their revenue. Reviewing the market for tools and technologies, we see that more and more companies are choosing to implement automation of the B2B sales process. Sales automation brings a lot of advantages. Firstly, it saves a lot of time and money. In addition, it makes it possible to develop sales strategies faster and monitor the progress of implementation. Sales automation can also help communicate with customers by automatically responding to their questions or requests for information. In this way, it is possible to provide better customer service and build long-term relationships. Automating the sales process also allows you to use modern technology, which allows you to identify target groups more precisely, and thus more effectively match products to their needs.
By automating the sales process, you will be able to focus on activities that will effectively bring you closer to success. Implementing the right solution in your company will save you a lot of time, as well as money, which you will be able to allocate to other important tasks.
Processes, including sales processes, are constantly changing and improving. Sales support systems such as SellStorm+ can, of course, support these processes, but the human being is invariably the most significant.
