By now, most businesses know that automation can be a valuable tool to help achieve business goals. But most businesses — particularly smaller ones — have turned to automation in their marketing and accounting processes and not much else.
But there's another way they could be using automation, and it could have a dramatic impact on the bottom line: by automating their sales processes. The use of automation in sales processes can free up salespeople to handle more work and drive better results. And there are a variety of ways that businesses can be doing it right now. To illustrate that, here are five ways businesses can use automation in their sales workflows.
Creating Prospect and Customer Records
Modern sales workflows depend on data. And that data gets collected through multiple touchpoints and throughout direct interactions over time. But the trouble is, salespeople have to spend an awful lot of their time entering all of that data into their sales software to build up a profile of every prospect and customer.
Instead, businesses can turn to automation to relieve their salespeople of that administrative burden. There are sales automation systems that use call transcription software to extract useful data about sales interactions. They can take that information — as well as existing data from major CRM systems and other inputs — to create prospect and customer records without sales reps having to lift a finger.
Automating Outreach Efforts
Since salespeople spend the majority of their time reaching out to potential and existing customers, anything that can optimize the process is worth doing. And automation can help in this area, too. Through the combination of a call scheduling system and automated dialing software, salespeople can minimize their downtime between calls and connect with more prospects in less time.
They can also automate some of their email outreach operations, too. By creating email contact schedules and using personalization software, businesses can stay fresh in the minds of prospects without tying up their sales staff.
Automating Post-Sale Onboarding
For most salespeople, the most important task is to get to a yes. That means they've gotten a prospect to agree to make a purchase or do business with their company. But the sales process doesn't end there. Afterward, they still have to onboard the customer and help them navigate the purchase process.
But this is another area of the sales workflow that businesses can automate. They can create customizable onboarding routines that walk new customers through the purchase process with limited manual intervention. That frees up sales representatives to move on to another prospect and work toward another sale right away.
Auto-Populating Sales Tracking
To create an ongoing sales pipeline, it's essential for businesses to keep careful track of current and historical sales trends. And that means they need to have accurate data about their sales agreements and closed deals at all times. But this is another area where salespeople have to spend valuable time on data entry.
Instead, they can turn to automated data ingestion to work with their sales tracking software and further minimize the data entry tasks of their sales staff. Doing so not only saves time but also minimizes the human error that's often associated with manual sales tracking processes. And since that leads to more reliable data sets, it's a double win for any sales operation.
Automating Follow-Ups
Onboarding isn't the only thing that sales staff have to worry about after they make a sale. They also need to make sure they follow up with their new customer to see that they're happy with their purchase. It's a key part of building the long-term relationships that make for thriving sales pipelines.
By adding automation to the mix, businesses can improve their results by standardizing and augmenting their sales follow-ups. Sales staff can create a series of automated emails that can help them keep track of client satisfaction. And they can also automate the process of scheduling follow-up calls based on predetermined criteria, such as sales size, type, or value.
The Takeaway
The truth is, there's no end to the ways that businesses can use automation to improve their sales workflows. The examples listed here are only the beginning. And as automation technology continues to improve, these opportunities will multiply. But that's no reason to wait — businesses should start exploring these opportunities today. There's plenty to gain and no reason to delay.