If you have ever worked in sales, you probably know how tedious and repetitive some tasks and processes are: sending emails, entering data into CRM systems, drafting offers, or providing leads with information before the sale.
Yet the core of sales should actually be selling and not administration. At the same time, good sales are based on the above-mentioned points and on correct and qualified data: both sales staff and customers must have sufficient information to be able to sell or buy well. Nevertheless, data maintenance must not take up more time than the sale itself. To optimize sales, it is therefore essential to take a closer look at existing processes and ask yourself:
Do these recurring tasks necessarily have to be carried out by my employees?
The answer is no. If you want to optimize your sales, this is exactly when automation can be the solution. In this blog post, we use five specific examples to show you exactly how this works and how much potential you may currently be leaving untapped.
Sales automation is nothing more than the mechanization of tedious, everyday tasks. By linking sales processes using software, it constitutes the next step after digitalization. For example, you use various sals tools every day, such as email programs, CRM systems and databases. Accounting software also often shares data with the CRM. But instead of manually entering the same information into several tools or searching for a long time, these data flows can also run automatically.
This allows sales employees to focus on other important tasks and goals related to sales. Automation is well suited to sales, as these processes are often linear and recurring.
This also has several advantages:
But how can you automate recurring sales tasks to optimize sales? Fortunately, there are a variety of options available to companies today that are powerful, affordable and not too technically demanding. These options are based on cloud automation, which connects various cloud software via programming interfaces, known as APIs. This enables you to exchange data across different applications and run defined sales processes automatically.
Appropriate tools, such as Zapier or Make, provide you with a platform that combines a wide variety of applications into one workflow. This allows you to connect CRM systems (Pipedrive, HubSpot), email programs (Outlook, Gmail), accounting software (lexoffice, sevDesk), newsletter marketing tools (Brevo, Mailchimp) or your website (WordPress, Webflow) together with forms (Typeform, Jotform).
You can learn more about Zapier and more about Make in these blog posts.
The following five specific examples illustrate exactly how you can optimize your sales through automation. The processes mentioned here are only examples and cannot, of course, be applied directly to every company. Nevertheless, these ideas can serve as inspiration for your own company.
Essentially, the information that is entered into a CRM system consists largely of copy-and-paste entries. For example, information from social media is added to create as comprehensive a profile of your customers as possible: City and state, previous companies or even shared connections. Automation can optimize sales by replacing precisely such data entries with an automatic data query.
In this way, information, e.g. from LinkedIn, is automatically added to the CRM for the associated contact – without any manual copying and pasting. As a result, your leads are nurtured, and you save valuable time that you can use to further improve your sales process.
Contracts, offers, marketing materials, presentations, invoices, brochures: all documents that can be sent to your customers in the course of a sales process and are usually prepared individually. These documents are necessary, but shouldn't your team focus on maintaining the relationship with customers instead of just creating documents?
This is exactly where sales automation comes in and allows such documents to be created automatically. For example, an invoice or contract template can be generated from the information in the CRM or database. Product catalogs can also be created automatically based on a template that represents the current stock.
If the sales process has not yet been completed, timing is extremely important. That's why quick responses to inquiries are the first step towards successful lead generation. Chatbots are now a tried and tested tool for this. Contrary to the assumption that they are impersonal and far too general, they can be a great help in sorting inquiries in the first step. They can automatically provide initial information, process complaints or questions or establish contact with your team.
However, the majority of communication with customers most likely takes place via email. Fortunately, there are numerous automation options for this too. For example, automatic emails can be sent to your leads at defined times – depending on their current status in your CRM system. Has a lead not contacted you for a while? Reminder emails can remind them of the offer again in a polite and unobtrusive way.
Customer data required for individual offers can also be automatically recorded and processed. For example, customers can use a web form to answer questions or upload documents, which are then processed and made available to your sales team or used directly to create a quote.
It should never happen, but it certainly does: A call or an appointment has been forgotten. The more meetings and appointments are arranged, the greater the likelihood that they will be forgotten. In sales, however, this can be crucial. Presentations, sales meetings, follow-ups or team meetings can quickly fill up the calendar. Automation helps here (of course): no matter which calendar or channel is used to enter appointments, synchronizing tools or automatic reminders can create structure and organization.
It has happened, a prospect has become a lead and then a buyer. But the sales funnel should not end once the purchase or project has been completed. Structured follow-up can not only benefit quality management, but also build a long-term relationship with customers. Automated emails can also help here, as your customers may be at a different stage depending on how long it has been since the last contact. After a few weeks, a first email can ask about satisfaction. Is everything alright, are there any defects or complications?
After a few more weeks or months, asking for a review on the usual platforms can help to improve your reputation, but also to remind people of you and your company once again. After a few more months, you can ask again about satisfaction and possible interest in further conversations.
Although we love automation, we also know its limitations. For one thing, successful automation can only be built on good, stable processes that have to be defined and, if necessary, standardized beforehand. On the other hand, there are tasks in sales that simply require people and their attention. That's why we have a few rules that we would like to share with you:
A good rule of thumb is to start with something easy - if it works, you can take the next step. In this way, automation can free up a lot of time and resources for human interaction, relationships and value creation. Because optimizing and automating sales doesn't mean making people redundant, it means empowering them.
If you are curious and would like to find out whether your processes and tools are also suitable for sales automation, feel free to contact us.
We provide you with independent advice and are happy to offer you our support.
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