How Could Salesforce Automation Help Me?
If you’re not automating your sales process, you’re losing sales. Sales automation products have become a staple in many industries, especially when collecting large amounts of data is mandatory.
Why? Because the less time salespeople and customer service managers spend analyzing that data, the more time they can spend using it to close deals and boost sales.
Many excellent sales automation products exist, but the automation process provided by Salesforce has become an industry standard. To understand why, let’s look at its benefits and how it can help you increase your business.
How Does Salesforce Automation Work, Exactly?
Before we get into the benefits of Salesforce automation as a process, let’s step back and define sales force automation.
Simply put, it’s the process of using software to completely automate or reduce the time required to perform as many functions associated with sales as possible.
Typically, this includes all sales funnel stages, including prospecting, lead generation, data preparation for demos and meetings, analysis, customer service, and follow-up.
Sales force automation is typically implemented throughout the entire sales pipeline to optimize each stage so that organizations can reap the full benefits of this kind of automation.
The Sales Automation Benefits
The most crucial benefit of how Salesforce implements automation is also the most direct—it increases sales. Studies have shown that this increase can be as high as 30 percent, which means more revenue, not to mention a more productive sales team.
The productivity increase you can get from Salesforce automation and the process it provides is just as significant. You can increase productivity by as much as 30 percent, and the reasons are relatively basic.
If your sales force doesn’t have to do the manual data-oriented tasks associated with the sales process, they can spend more time talking to customers and cultivating relationships. That means closing deals and making more sales.
Another benefit of Salesforce automation is that it increases productivity and is a mobility factor. You can implement the process and functions on any mobile device, which means your sales force doesn’t have to be stuck at the office tabulating data or waiting for it to arrive. They can be out on the road meeting customers using accurate data instantaneously.
The Salesforce Efficiency Benefits
While increased revenue is a huge benefit, it doesn’t mean nearly as much if the cost of acquisition and analysis ends up eating your profits.
The good news is that the Salesforce automation process can prevent that from happening. Once you install various functions and do a full implementation, you’ll see sales force members and admin employees become more efficient, reducing the cost of each sale.
Data will become more accurate, too, and this will help your sales force identify the best and most qualified candidates rather than having to sift through an array of adequately unqualified leads.
In addition, the automation functions and processes embodied in Salesforce automation have a predictive element incorporated into the software, which means the targeting and recommendations you get will become more accurate with each successive iteration of the sales cycle.
The automation system as a whole will learn your customers’ purchase history and buying habits, which will make the lead qualification process faster and more accurate.
That will also reduce the response time of your sales force. Rather than waiting for leads to be fully qualified, they’ll have them in hand immediately, which means you can offer the most relevant products and services to your best customers exactly when they need them.
The Data Collection and Analysis Benefit
Accurate record-keeping is an essential part of an effective sales process, but many companies don’t do it all that well, and some are so inefficient that it sometimes looks like they don’t do it at all.
The Salesforce automation process can solve that problem, too. It will simplify and standardize your record keeping so that everyone in your sales force and the other departments in your company will be dealing with the same data, and that data will be timely and accurate.
Reducing human error is another benefit that’s often directly related to record keeping. Every salesperson has lost sales due to a notification or a piece of information they didn’t receive in time. Still, the Salesforce automation process takes this risk out of both the data collection and subsequent analysis.
The Cost Benefit
We’ve already talked about the benefits of increased efficiency and how it can reduce your cost per sale. Still, another separate cost benefit can also save you a lot of money—the reduced implementation price.
The way this works is relatively simple. If you’re installing a sales software system on multiple devices and that system has to be used by several departments, that’s a huge undertaking. It can be time-consuming and full of setbacks, but the Salesforce automation process is implemented as a cloud-based system that eliminates those possibilities.
Because Salesforce is a cloud-based system, software, and data changes are done automatically without the need to access individual devices. That’s a considerable saving that will impact your bottom line, and it also means you’ll never have to do a device-based software installation again.
Using the Salesforce Automation Process Correctly
There are a couple of caveats you should know about if you use Salesforce for automation.
First, software training during and after installation is essential. It would be best if you also had a clear idea of how your sales process works, as this will make the automation process go much faster.
Also, it’s essential to integrate Salesforce with your existing CRM system effectively. It may take time to ensure that these two systems are fully compatible, but it’s well worth the effort when you know how well the automation works and you see the benefits on the back end.
Finally, keeping the personal touch intact within your sales process is essential. It’s easy to get blinded by data, so ensure your sales force can still add or maintain any personal touches along the way.
Get the Salesforce Automation Process Right the First Time. . .
At Brainsell, we’re experts at installing, using, and getting the full array of benefits from Salesforce, and we can get you through the entire automation process smoothly and seamlessly.
To learn more, connect with us and let us show you how you can successfully use Salesforce to get all the automation benefits we’ve just outlined here.
