Sales automation is a hot topic for any business that sells — well — just about anything. And artificial intelligence is changing the automation game. It allows machines to take on more and more of the routine tasks that previously ate up big chunks of sales reps’ time.
In fact, sales and customer service automation is the second-most common area where business executives say they use generative AI.
Source: eMarketer
Keep in mind that sales automation is not about replacing sales reps with machines. Instead, it’s about handing off basic and repetitive tasks to automated tools. This allows sales reps to be more productive. It can also provide greater job satisfaction.
After all, reps want to spend their time selling, not crunching numbers and performing basic data entry tasks.
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What is sales automation?
Sales automation is the use of automated tools to complete sales processes and streamline manual tasks.
For example, automated tools can take care of lead-nurturing email sequences and answer many customer questions. These administrative tasks can take up a huge amount of valuable employee time. And they often need to be done monthly, weekly, or even daily.
Outsourcing these tasks to sales automation software increases the productivity of your team. It allows more time for high-value tasks like prospecting and closing deals. And it costs a lot less than hiring a new assistant who happens to love repetitive labor. McKinsey found that it’s possible to automate up to one-third of all sales tasks.
In the social media sphere, sales automation tools connect the leads, prospects, and customers that come in through social channels with your sales team and your CRM. Sales automation tools don’t replace your sales team. Instead, they allow your team to make the most out of your sales pipeline by focusing on the most valuable elements of their work.
8 ways to use sales automation to grow your business
1. Sales process automation
Sales automation software increases your productivity and revenues. Businesses that use sales automation have reported a 10 to 15% increase in efficiency, and up to 10% higher sales.
That’s because sales and marketing automation tools can tackle important (but time-consuming) parts of the sales process, such as:
* identifying potential leads through social media listening
* sending personalized prospecting and follow-up emails
* scheduling meetings, appointments, and sales calls
* creating and monitoring proposals and contracts
* answering initial inquiries and common questions
* making product recommendations
When performed by humans, all of these tasks take away time from sales reps’ primary job: selling. When you offload the process-oriented work to automation tools and AI, you give your reps more time to do what they do best (and what they love).
You also avoid the potential human errors that happen when reps copy-and-paste messages to customers and prospects. We’d guess almost every sales rep out there has accidentally pasted the wrong name into an email salutation. Or forgotten to follow-up with a prospect in a timely manner. Or missed critical details about a lead’s personal or business situation when creating a contract. Sales process automation tools use templates and CR integrations to avoid these embarrassing errors.
2. Data collection and centralization
Collecting and managing data is crucial, but time-consuming. Sales automation software can take care of your customer and lead data automatically behind the scenes.
You’ll want a tool that integrates with all your lead sources and your customer service software. This creates one unified database that keeps all the important details in one place. That way all departments can build on one another’s efforts instead of stepping on one another’s toes.
This automated integration ensures you always have access to the most up-to-date data and conversations each customer and prospect has had with every member of your team. No matter which department spoke to them last. You can always determine which attributes your sales reps have access to and in which order.
Automating your data entry also ensures you have consistent records, with no duplicates.
3. Lead scoring
Only 10-15% of your leads will turn into sales. To maximize your ROI, you want to focus your efforts on the most valuable leads. Sales automation tools can help you with lead generation and lead scoring. This directs your efforts where they’re most likely to pay off in the sales funnel.
Sales automation tools track every interaction a lead has with your brand, whether it’s public or private. You can learn what they like, what they don’t, and spot trends that help you understand their purchasing behaviors and cycles.
This gives you a valuable, personalized knowledge base on each of your leads. You can identify when it’s time for an automated sales prompt and when it’s time for a sales rep to reach out.
When you connect, you’ll have a detailed profile based on multiple social channels and interactions. You’ll have everything you need to steer your conversation and guide your sales approach.
Your sales automation tools should also allow agents and admins to tag conversations either manually or automatically to prioritize the hottest leads.
4. Lead distribution
Sales automation tools use the contents of conversations to assign incoming leads to the most relevant sales rep. You can add skill sets within the automation tool so it knows which rep is the best fit for each type of inquiry.
Source: Hootsuite Inbox
This makes the lead distribution process more fair while ensuring leads get the most accurate response to their queries.
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