Automating Sales Processes

Industry experience indicates that sales representatives spend a significant proportion of their time on nonsales activities. By automating routine administrative tasks and putting relevant information on the desktop, you can free your sales team to spend more time on productive selling.

Sales automation tools allow your sales representatives to quickly identify promising leads, then coordinate the sales team efforts to close the deal. They help you lower your cost of sales, respond faster to customer inquiries, and share information across your entire company.

For example, sales teams can use automation tools to gather up-to-the-minute customer information over the Internet before calling on potential customers. They can then use this data to customize product offers or provide quotes in real time during the sales calls. They can then instantly forward orders over the Internet to headquarters. This speeds delivery and accounting processes, and increases sales teams' ability to respond to customer needs.

Sales automation tools support key aspects of the selling process, including marketing, contact management, account management, prospecting, order fulfillment, and customer service. By implementing Internet-based sales automation tools companies can:

• streamline sales processes;
• boost sales force knowledge;
• enhance collaborative selling;
• improve customer relationships;
• reduce quote times;
• increase sales force morale.

Sales automation tools handle repetitive and time-consuming activities such as capturing Web Site leads, qualifying buyers, and triggering follow-up. They also make data rekeying unnecessary by automatically disseminating information to appropriate departments, which reduces errors and saves time.

Online product catalogs can be updated the moment a new product or service is available. Sales representatives have product-specification information at their fingertips. These electronic catalogs can also be set up to alert sales representatives to complementary products and promotions, immediately creating other selling opportunities.

An online sales library can provide staff access to updated price lists, presentations, and brochures created by your marketing department. This information can also be e-mailed to customers and prospects. The system can also incorporate a knowledge base which has information about product issues and modifications.

The system can help to improve sales force performance by providing comprehensive sales support information. It can provide the sales force with a wide range of information that builds a complete picture of customers and the way they respond to sales and marketing initiatives. The system can be used to provide the following information:

• customer profile and contact information
• customer purchasing history
• any known problems
• individual sales or direct marketing initiatives and the response
• wider communications programs or promotional activity within the customer's sector
• competitive activity on the account
• profitability of the account

This kind of information improves productivity by focusing the sales force on the most important customers and prospects.

All users of your sales automation system share access to a single data source, which supports better teamwork between sales, marketing, and customer support. The system capabilities can be extended to include sales teams from your distribution partners.

Sales automation systems can be configured to communicate information to your customers based on their specific needs and keep existing customers abreast of product updates. They also support online customer service, including automated help and access to information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Your sales representatives can use automation tools to determine customer requirements and immediately provide a complete proposal after a single meeting, cutting days or even weeks from the selling cycle. Some systems incorporate accounting links that enable the sales team to service customers faster by providing access to up-to-date information on customers' credit limits and balances, recent quotations, and invoices. The system can also create estimates, orders, and up-to-date price lists automatically.

Sales automation applications reduce the time your staff spends on low-level business functions. They create a more flexible work environment by allowing employees to use the Internet to access information when and where they need it, whether working from home, on the road, or in your office.

The system can manage incoming e-mail inquiries using rules to scan messages for keywords and route the e-mails to the appropriate person. This ensures that no inquiry goes unanswered. The system can also monitor incoming e-mail messages, identify the customer's record and attach the e-mail to the customer record. The system can send an automatic response to the sender based on the message content so they know that you are actively investigating their inquiry.

Automation systems incorporate a powerful opportunity management system, so that sales managers can easily track performance and accurately forecast sales. They provide your sales managers with a range of important benefits by:

• offering real visibility into sales performance as a basis for managing and training a sales team;
• incorporating step-by-step, repeatable sales processes that are proven to succeed;
• providing tools the sales force needs to succeed;
• creating collaborative sales processes that harness sales, service, and partner resources to win deals.

The automated tools allow managers to apply best practice processes to increase the win ratio. Some systems include tools to evaluate success factors for an accurate probability of close. They also create action plans that can increase the opportunity to win more deals.

The tools incorporate features that enable your sales force to manage their contact program effectively. They provide full information on deals in progress, marketing campaigns, and open cases in one central location. Sales representatives and managers can access up-to-the-minute information from anywhere—on the desktop in the office or remotely on a laptop or other mobile device. The systems can also integrate with software such as Microsoft Outlook® or Microsoft Exchange®, allowing the sales team to synchronize contacts and calendars and schedule meetings quickly and easily.

Sales automation systems incorporate extensive reporting tools that enable sales managers to monitor performance and create accurate forecasts. The manager can review sales proposals in progress, wins, and lost deals. The systems provide a wide range of standard reports including analysis of the sales pipeline, summary of leads, and performance by individual representative. Most systems allow you to customize reports to meet your own requirements. The system can schedule reports so that sales managers automatically receive the reports they need to see based on a weekly or monthly schedule. It can also be set to trigger and distribute reports when a certain action occurs. For example, if a sales representative abandons or loses more than five opportunities in one week, the system would send a revised forecast and activity report to the sales manager for follow-up.

The reports can be used to improve sales force control by providing information on team and individual performance, sales costs and the effectiveness of sales support programs. This information can be used as a basis for allocating sales resources, training, territory planning and" developing other forms of support such as telesales. The reports could be formatted to provide the following management information:

• the performance of different sales representatives
• the overall performance of the sales team
• the comparative performance of different sales channels such as field sales, telephone sales, distributors, or agents
• the impact of marketing campaigns on sales performance
• cost of sales
• the effectiveness of different call patterns.

You can utilize automated processes to import and manage leads from the Internet. You can quickly assign leads to the appropriate sales representative and monitor follow-up. Automated alerts enable your sales manager to monitor sales progress and act quickly if there is a problem. For example, the system can automatically identify leads that have not been followed up or deals that have not been closed within an agreed time frame and notify the manager by e-mail. It also reminds the manager to schedule a follow-up call with the appropriate sales representative. This ensures that all leads are followed up in a timely way.

If you market your products and services through distributors or other partners, you can use automation tools to support their sales efforts. For example, you can assign leads and opportunities to partners and automatically send an e-mail alert so they can check details on a secure Web Site. The system will also provide sales updates, helping to create a more accurate sales forecast in real-time.

Sales automation systems have made an important contribution to sales productivity and efficiency. However, the vast amount of data and reporting available from the systems can result in information overload. It is important to use the system selectively and to customize the reports and the facilities to provide the level of sales support that is right for your business.

Calvin, Robert J., Sales Management. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.

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