Sales Automation: What Are the Benefits?

Sales Automation What Are the Benefits

Sales automation is probably one of the greatest marketing inventions known to man. It has so many benefits that it’s mind-boggling. The software saves a huge amount of time and effort, and it’s a win-win experience for you and your customers. 

Whether generating reports, using filters to find the perfect client or generating new leads, sales automation software can handle it. 

In this post, we’ll cover the following as it relates to sales automation and its benefits:

What is Sales Automation?

Sales automation involves the processing of documentation, contracts, email and other repetitive tasks. These tasks and much more are taken care of by software instead of workers sifting through loads of data manually. 

Sales automation boosts productivity as well as morale. The software is designed for sales teams and managers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a major role in sales automation. AI is especially powerful when used to help increase lead volume and increase sales. The technology is extremely good at helping to discern a good lead from a bad one.  

What does the software automate

What Does the Software Automate:

The automated software is designed to relieve you of tasks that would normally eat up a huge amount of productive time. Another benefit of the software is it ensures you don’t forget anything when you contact leads.

The potential for sales automation is nearly limitless. Anything from generating reports and contracts to locating the perfect lead in the perfect region is possible.  

Some great examples of software automation are:

  • Email reminders
  • Pricing
  • Inventory control
  • Regular documentation
  • Standard contracts

The Danger of Sales Automation

There’s no shame in saying that sales automation isn’t perfect. You’d do well to remember not to over-complicate your sales automation plan. Automation is a great thing, but it doesn’t mean you need to automate every single task.

It’s your business, so make sure that there’s a bit of “you” included in your sales marketing plan. Add some humanity to your automated communications. This will make sure your prospects can relate to your message.  

If your best email pitches and marketing documents feel and read like they were written by an outdated robot, your prospects will be turned off faster than a defective lightbulb.

Sales Process Automation

Think of sales process automation as the key steps that will be automated for your sales reps. This allows them to focus their efforts on revenue-generating tasks. 

Automation leaves the sales reps to concentrate on getting your deals closed and presenting to clients.

Your team’s sales process is going to probably be the most important part of your business plan. A certain set of rules for everyone on your team to go by makes it easier for everyone to understand how things are supposed to work. 

This also allows you to take a good look at how well the process works and where things can be tweaked.   

Sales Automation CRM

Another extremely important step in your sales automation plan is called CRM. It stands for Customer Relationship Management. 

Your CRM tool is able to gather things such as interactions with customers. This includes normal information such as name, number and email. 

It could also include collecting information during phone calls, showing progress for sales, or even interactions with a chatbot. It’s really up to you what you want this powerful tool to accomplish for you. 

Sales Automation Software (Sales Rep)

Your sales reps already have plenty to do to support your sales efforts. Sales Automation Software seeks to reallocate some of the workloads, benefitting your sales reps.  

This portion of your automation software allows your reps to create custom reports and filters according to what they actually need instead of a bunch of fluff they can’t use. 

Lead Enrichment

Lead Enrichment lets you gather the most important information about prospective clients and their businesses. Specifically, this means gathering information about a company’s social media presence, size and influence. Who a company may be aligned to or partnered with is quite valuable knowledge.

The more knowledge that’s gathered about a prospect, the better. Once that data becomes part of your software automation, your reps can get to work finding the best leads.

Prospecting

Looking for just the right personnel, business or potential client can sometimes be a daunting task. That’s where the “prospecting” part of sales automation comes in. It allows you to collect information by using filters. 

For example, you can automate the task of choosing the ideal leads and weeding out others through a few simple clicks. 

By setting up custom filter criteria, your sales automation software can have nearly any requested information sent straight to your inbox. 

This automated task will save a massive amount of time and effort for your sales reps instead of having them sift through mountains of useless information.

Contact and Deal Creation

Once you learn how to correctly set up workflows, you’ll understand what your CRM tool can do. Imagine being able to define things like what a prospect looks at on a certain page on your website, or click on a particular button. 

This automated workflow is certainly possible to create. When you learn what your prospects are looking for or what information they are accessing on your site, you can even add that to your filters and have a report sent to you.  

Email Templates

When creating email templates, remember that you need to include a bit of personalization to them. Don’t just keep sending the same tired message each time. And stay away from heavy use of copy/paste. 

Make your email templates adaptable. Write out a few “master” emails and then save those as your templates. Then, when you need to send out new emails, you can quickly personalize them and blast them out in no time.    

Sales Email Automation

Say you want to send your prospects a series of emails, but only in a controlled way. Sales email automation can take care of that. Email automation lets you create timed messages with certain progressive steps specifically aimed at potential prospects.

The emails can be sent at a certain time of day to ensure the prospect will have a chance to not only see, but respond to them.

Sales Calls

When you think about it, being able to break down your sales calls is a powerful tool in itself. Thankfully, there are services and platforms that do just that. 

The ability to listen and learn from your sales calls is quite useful. You’ll learn what you did right to secure a sale, what steps you might’ve missed, and how you can improve your sales game. 

Proposals

Let the power of sales automation software handle your proposals. CRM software integrates extremely well with other tools that can produce quotes and proposals by pulling any information you request. 

Proposals are where the reps will really shine. Clients will be impressed with how quickly and professionally their forms look.  

Sales Automation for ManagersSales Automation for Managers

Sales managers will naturally have more tools than their reps. Managers need to be able to monitor their reps’ progress and many more tasks. Automation software once again comes to the rescue.

The great news is that managers will be very pleased with how well the sales automation software works for them. There are tools for every part of team management. 

The generating tools for reports are fantastic as well. The AI can quickly assess any situation concerning data and assist the manager as needed.

Lead Rotation

Your Customer Relation Manager (CMR) software can easily help you capture customer leads. By using lead rotation, a manager can better control which sales rep gets which lead. 

For example, a sales rep can be assigned a lead by geographic region or even by area code. Lead rotation is extremely useful and versatile for sales managers. 

Reporting

Reporting can be handled easily through sales automation. Managers are able to generate very specific reports with different criteria, and then blast those reports to anyone or any group they so choose. 

Reps can also produce reports as needed concerning leads, sales or anything else.

Lead Scoring

Lead Scoring is a really effective tool, depending on how you use it. The tool harnesses behavioral and demographic data, so reps can focus on leads determined to be a priority. 

Normally, a manager will use it for teams of reps who have plenty of potential leads in their area. It’s not recommended for those teams of reps who don’t have enough leads to go around in the first place. 

What Are the Benefits of Sales Automation

Allows You To Learn About the Customers

Knowledge is truly king when it comes to learning as much about your customers as you can. Sales automation is designed to collect as much data about your customer as possible. It will help you build your business plan way more effective than trying to do it manually. 

The AI does a phenomenal job of keeping things organized. The more it learns about the data being added to it, the better suggestions it can make. Use AI to determine things like priority leads or even how and when to approach a potential customer.

Focus on Real Leads and Not the Fakers

Your reps will be able to save tons of time and effort by using the data that the sales automation software generates. By taking full advantage of the built-in filters, managers and reps can focus on real leads. 

Focusing on your genuine leads lets you know things like important likes and dislikes, what to expect from the customer’s point of view and so much more.  

No more chasing after leads that won’t convert into real customers. 

Customize Contract and Document Creation

You’ll never have to worry about being able to generate the right documents and contracts with sales automation software. All details, including terms and conditions, can be presented to the customer and explained on the spot. 

Electronic signatures can also be added to contracts. Quick information, such as timed reminders, can also be generated and sent to the customer to remind them about any type of renewals. 

Keep customer relationship a priorityKeep Customer Relationship a Priority

Use sales automation to keep customers up to date regarding important information. Payment collection and reminders, ebooks, downloads, emails and more can be set up through the software. 

Then, direct your sales rep to send all relevant information to the customer at a date or time that the rep decides on.

Examine Sales Calls

Instruct your sales rep to rely on this to find out what was and wasn’t done correctly during the sales call. Practice makes perfect. 

Professional Proposal Creation

Generate fast and effective proposals very quickly by entering a bit of information about your client. They will look extremely professional each and every time. You’ll be able to send your customers the documents within minutes.

Reliable and Accurate Data

Time is money. When your reps need accurate information quickly, software automation steps in to ensure they have everything they need. 

Products, pricing and more are at the rep’s fingertips. Plus, they can modify prices if they need to.

Reports Done Right

Using the Customer Relations Manager (CRM), reps and managers can send automated reports, emails and much more to each other. The software automation process will gather all relevant information much faster than writing everything out.

CONCLUSION

Sales automation will save the day more times than you can count. The ability to take literally hours off your workday and eliminate many manual tasks is amazing. 

Automating repetitive tasks has saved many businesses from dealing with stressful manual situations. By working smarter, you and your team can be much more productive and happy.

If you need assistance with developing the right sales automation systems, we have the perfect solutions for you. Contact us today at Selling Revolution to learn more about how we can help. Ready to get started? Schedule your first 20-minute consultation today.