Employees in all departments can lose valuable time while manually gathering and storing data. Technological advances continue to revolutionize how employees perform tasks and how companies collect information, promote products, and serve clients. Unfortunately, companies typically allocate 90% of their sales budgets to personnel instead of investing in the technology that can support their sales teams. This prevents sales staff from meeting quotas because they’re performing time-consuming research and administrative tasks. Sales automation reduces the time employees have to spend performing administrative tasks, enabling sales staff to focus on customer service and sales.
Automations that streamline the sales process save companies time and money and increase data accuracy. Companies can improve operational efficiency using these automations.
Sales Emails
Email automation allows you to create email templates to reduce the amount of time you spend contacting clients. Emails are a critical component of newsletter marketing, one of the most cost-effective promotional strategies companies can implement. When you collect email addresses from existing clients and people interested in your company’s services, you can tailor your marketing strategy directly to those consumers. With a newsletter, you can introduce new products and features and offer discounts and loyalty rewards to returning customers.
Your company’s communication system can automatically issue notifications and reminders. For example, a customer who purchases a new electronic device can be automatically registered for their warranty at the point of sale. Automated communication programs can inform consumers about their warranty coverage and remind them when their warranty is due to expire. Regardless of the type of event or shipping information that you need to communicate with your customers about, it will all be streamlined by using an email template. These often have a theme editor that you can use to personal your newsletters, and they contain analytics that allow you to learn even more about your customers.
Data Collection
Businesses with online stores can gather data for their sales team that is submitted by consumers and use analytics to increase sales and revenue. For example, clients who shop from companies using a Shopify store will navigate the Shopify checkout page themselves. The company’s online store offers consumers the ability to navigate to the checkout, even providing a custom checkout for a personalized checkout experience. The Shopify checkout page is logically designed and prompts customers to enter their name and appropriate contact information, including their shipping address, email address, and telephone number, which provides this critical information to he merchant. One of the critical advantages of using an online sales platform such as Shopify is that it has a practical layout that walks customers through the event stream while ensuring they remain connected to the company they’re doing business with.
Shopify also collates data on your consumers. Your sales team will have information about returning customers, first-time clients, and the location of your clientele. Data analytics can then be used to customize marketing for location-based promotions. You can also integrate this data and activate automated follow-up emails with new clients and provide contact information if they need assistance or have questions about their purchase.
Event-Driven Architecture
With event-driven programs, an action determines available options or triggers appropriate responses within the system. For example, the components of an event-driven architecture (EDA) software program can track merchandise. When a consumer goes to the website’s checkout page the system is prompted to provide an order summary. Once the client provides their credit card information and purchases an item, that type of event automatically triggers the program to remove the item from the company’s inventory in real time. With EDA software, sales staff won’t be searching for stock they no longer have, improving their efficiency when serving clients.
EDA software can also inform Salesforce integration strategies and enable sales staff to identify at-risk clients who may need specific information before initiating a purchase. The software can keep logs tracking consumer activity to determine what products they may be interested in, which can determine what promotional materials could be sent to the client to prompt a sale.
Companies can also use EDA software to automate tasks based on the actions of external companies. For example, a company selling a series of toys based on a new television show may have promotional materials automatically distributed when the show airs.
EDA software can also be programmed to notify clients when orders are delivered or provide status updates if the delivery is delayed. With EDA software, sales staff don’t manually confirm events. Automations initiate promotional campaigns or communication with clients, ensuring sales staff can remain focused on selling additional products to new consumers.
Sales Prospecting
Systems can be used to search for potential clients that fit specific parameters. When implemented, the sales prospecting system identifies new companies or clients in the market for the products or services your team sells. Automated sales prospecting can be connected to your apps, email, or communication platforms, such as Slack, allowing you to be notified immediately when new clients are identified. This automation saves you time searching for potential new markets to explore and helps plan scalability while retaining a streamlined workflow.
