What do you need to know about The Sales Automation Process in 2022?
It's 2022, and sales processes in the largest and most successful organizations are becoming more efficient with sales automation software. This allows sales reps to spend more time selling.
However, sales teams still spend half of their time on tasks that can be automated.
Sales automation can help you close more sales by freeing up time for routine tasks so that you can use it to do high-value activities that generate revenue.
It's easy to automate and assign leads with powerful tools such as automated email campaigns, follow-up emails, visual sales pipeline, and automated segmentation.
What is Sales Automation?
Customer relationship management refers to technology that automates sales processes and tasks.
Sales automation makes it possible to share the sales process with partners, customers, sales teams, distributor channels, and partners. This allows salespeople to concentrate more on closing deals with high-value prospects and maintaining customer relationships.
Sales automation allows sales professionals to save time and automate administrative tasks such as updating contact information, managing calendars, processing opportunities, and other functions without manually entering data into their CRM system.
Sales professionals can manage sales pipelines in real-time with the help of pre-built apps that are integrated into their software. As a result, they can proactively follow up on leads rather than waiting for them to contact, record touchpoints, and close more sales quickly.
Most sales companies use sales automation software to create sales funnels that track each prospect's journey, from when they are first identified to when they become customers.
The sales funnel involves activities such as identifying prospects ( prospecting), finding contact info for those prospects (lead generator), following up with leads, moving qualified leads forward through lead nurturing, converting these leads to opportunities, and closing deals.
Sales teams can automate repetitive tasks related to each stage of their sales pipeline by embedding these in their CRM Platform or linking to their sales data so that all members have access to the correct information.
How does sales automation work?
The sales automation process consists of seven steps:
- Automated guidance
- Lead management automation
- Communication automation
- Automated data entry
- Automated research
- Automated activity log
- Automated record generation
Let's get to the details.
Automated guidance
This form of automation allows the sales team to receive reminders from the sales automation software. This helps reps stay on task and keeps them from losing essential prospects that could lead to paying customers.
Lead management automation
Lead management automation is a way to convert prospects into customers.
This step in automation allows the sales executive to use rules and filters to create a more targeted list of leads.
Your sales automation software can segment and score leads based on their behavior and characteristics, such as email opens, click-throughs, and social search results. It can also divide them into lists or buckets to help you work.
Communication automation
Communication automation is important.
- Sales reps can record a message for their leads or customers at any time with automated voicemails. This saves the agent the hassle of coming up with answers on the spot.
- Your sales representatives can quickly and easily schedule meetings with customers using appointment scheduling. The software does all the tracking, so no one has to take notes. The software also sends reminders out to customers and sales reps.
- Customers can continue to receive critical information via personalized sales emails.
- Sales email automation also automates tasks such as unsubscribing inactive subscribers to the email list. This saves time, reduces bounce rates, and helps to avoid spam complaints.
Automated data entry
Although data entry can be tedious and time-consuming, it is essential. This was before sales automation tools.
Sales automation software automates sales data, such as prices, product details, and contact details for leads or customers. This streamlines contact management and saves sales reps precious time every day.
Automated research
Sales automation software is more than just a sales team's human abilities. It can shake down the web and social media to provide critical information about prospects and customers.
It uses this information to create and maintain lead profiles, score leads based on their win probability, identify hot selling opportunities.
This is a huge time saver for sales reps and keeps them updated on all the latest prospects and contacts.
All of this information is kept in one central repository so that all sales staff members can easily access it.
Automated activity log
All sales emails, phone calls, and in-person visits need to be recorded in real-time so that other reps can see how far one representative has come with a potential customer.
Agents can save time by automating activity logging. This allows them to concentrate on closing deals and lead generation.
Automated record generation
Sales teams can scan business cards and confirm their newsletter subscriptions to let the software create new records.
Because of automated record creation, sales reps can now focus on closing deals with hot leads. Instead, they can focus on closing deals with hot leads the software automatically identifies.
The 4 Stages of Automating the Sales Process
Although you know you want to automate sales processes, you might not know-how. This section will show you how to automate sales processes in four stages.
This is how your sales process automation should look:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Take the decision
- Take Action
Here's what you need to know:
Awareness
Potential customers might find your business via a Google search or a paid advertisement on a site or social media. Or even a guest post on your blog.
The lead doesn't know much about your company.
It's best to offer excellent sales offers for a short period via SMS or email to engage leads and elicit more interest.
Interest
You move on to the next stage if the lead is interested in your products.
This stage requires that the lead contact a sales representative from your company. For example, they must have signed up for an email newsletter or called for a quote.
Once you have their attention, you need to keep it. This means giving them information about your products and services.
Whitepapers, eBooks, and blog content are all great resources.
Automate the sending of a series of welcome emails. Automated reminders can be set up to remind sales reps to call leads who click on the emails.
Automation can help save a lot of time at this stage.
Take the decision
Your lead now moves to the third stage, the decision stage.
You want to save time here and use automation to stay in touch with them, share important information about your products, and send confidential information, such as product documentation, pricing agreements, invoice details, etc.
Sales automation tools allow you to automate the process of updating, storing, and sharing documents. This can be done with minimal effort by your sales reps.
Take Action
Last but not least, payment and confirmation of the order, sending the product to new customers, or getting them started using your company's services.
This step of the sales funnel, as you probably know, can consume a lot more time than necessary, which makes it challenging to contact new leads.
Software that automates sales can track all transactions, payments, and customer information. For example, the software can show you the number of completed deals and who needs to pay or receive their products.
An automated billing system reduces administrative work, improves cash flow, and simplifies subscription management.
You can track your revenue by the type of product or service you offer, whether monthly, weekly, or quarterly.
Conclusion
Sales automation, in short, refers to the use of cloud-based software to streamline sales processes. It also allows salespeople to automate repetitive tasks.
Sales automation saves time by eliminating the manual tasks salespeople would have to perform in a CRM system. This includes changing contact information, scheduling meetings, and solving potential sales.
