What do you, as a commercial manager, think when we talk about sales force automation? There are several applications for this type of tool within commercial operations.
Therefore, it is essential to understand in more detail what sales force automation is to carry out this process efficiently and obtain the best results.
In short, we can conceptualize sales force automation as any technology or solution that replaces human work with an automatic process.
With this, it is clear that this innovation is a valuable resource to increase the productivity of commercial operations and salespeople, helping to achieve high team performance and increase sales.
But What Is Sales Force Automation In Practice?
Before understanding automation better, let’s talk about the sales force. This term encompasses everything involving your commercial team’s efforts in operations and contacts with potential customers.
In other words, it represents the sales professionals who offer your company’s services or solutions to buyers who may be interested. In addition, it also encompasses the processes, strategies, and practices developed to prospect such customers and communicate with them throughout the purchase journey.
It is worth noting that the sales force needs to be qualified and trained to carry out this sale, knowing the processes above and strategies, the products offered, and the profile of the potential customer in-depth, identifying their pain points and challenges.
All these characteristics increase lead capture, ensure better qualification, and build approaches, cadence flows, and sales pitches with greater assertiveness, so that leads evolve naturally in the funnel and reach the closing of the deal.
So, from the context seen comes the concept of sales force automation. Therefore, to facilitate the commercial team’s routine, it is up to managers and leaders to provide the best possible tools and resources for automating sales processes.
Thus, it is possible to optimize the work of sales professionals, increase the speed of tasks, reduce commercial cycle time and even ensure a better relationship with potential customers.
How Do These Sales Force Automation Solutions Work?
Sales force automation works from the integration of tools and software to make processes automated.
Such resources can carry out the most specific, repetitive, and bureaucratic commercial operations. Meanwhile, the human salesforce focuses on the most strategic part.
Another exciting piece of data shows that more than 60% of sales leaders value sales force automation as an essential ally in achieving objectives and fostering growth in the sector.
But when talking about sales automation, many people think of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. And yes, this solution is precious. However, other processes can be automated with the support of more tools.
Five Benefits Of Using A Sales Automation System
In practice, sales force automation applications and functionalities guarantee a more fluid, dynamic, integrated commercial process that brings more results. See more benefits:
Productivity Increase
With the use of software to carry out bureaucratic tasks, the sales force can focus on what is most essential: the commercial approach, understanding leads, qualification, active listening, and overcoming objections, among others: speech details and dealings.
Elimination Of Rework
In all business sectors, manual work generates errors and redactions. In business, it’s no different. When creating a customer prospecting list manually, there may be incorrect or invalid leads. Therefore, it is possible to minimize and even eliminate such risks with automation.
A Greater Understanding Of The Customer’s Reality
As we mentioned earlier, with sales representatives acting more strategically, it is possible to focus on more critical activities, such as researching and understanding potential customers’ needs, pain points, and challenges.
Thus, with a better understanding of reality, and knowledge of the habits and preferences of the lead profile, sellers can show how their solution or service solves such problems and difficulties.
More Accessible Communication With The Customer
It is also worth remembering that 45% of people prefer to avoid repeating their information, considering this aspect the main reason for a bad sales experience, according to Zendesk research.
So, sales force automation allows professionals to fully understand who they are talking to and have all the necessary and how to communicate with these leads powerfully.
Availability Of Reports And Performance Indicators
Finally, from the implementation of automation, another very relevant advantage is the availability of automatic reports with data on the performance of the commercial team, the different sales KPIs, and the goals achieved, among others.
Also Read: WFH: What You Need To Know About This Trend
