Tuesday, November 11, 2014

What to Look for in Sales Force Automation Software



Sales force automation is an important part of customer relationship management tools. Sales force automation allows your organization to track sales cycles, manage leads and keep all departments up to date on specific customer interactions.

The most important thing that sales force automation does, of course, is grow your sales. Research conducted by the Aberdeen Group indicated that best-in-class users of sales force automation experienced an increase in the size of their sales by an average of 27 percent. These results occurred while the sales reps also reduced their time in administrative tasks by 14 percent. Whatever your other goals are as a company, increasing sales through sales force automation should be included. Here are a few requirements for your sales force automation software:

Sales Force Automation Software Should Save Time

When you choose sales force automation software, look for one that can send follow-up letters or emails, update sales opportunities, schedule sales meetings and track contacts. These are time-consuming activities that every sales rep needs to complete. With the right software, however, you can greatly reduce the number of office hours your sales reps require each week.

The sales rep will also have information available, such as details about an order that is running late, and can be proactive with contacting the customer and maintaining a positive relationship.

Sales Force Automation Software Should Make Customer Service Seamless

When a customer complains your sales reps should not have to make multiple phone calls to customer service reps and operations personnel to repeat the customer’s complaint. With sales force automation software, customer interactions are stored in a centralized location.

Sales Force Automation Software Should Grow Your Sales

Your salespeople should be finding more time to be in the field if your sales force automation software is a good fit for your organization. The administrative tasks should be slashed significantly, and time spent poring over sales reports should be replaced by summaries that highlight areas of opportunity.

In addition, when a sales rep has customer order history and other details about interactions immediately available during a phone conversation, they can more easily identify opportunities for growing the customer’s purchases.

Sales Force Automation Software Provides High Quality Data to Sales Managers

Instead of running various reports or requesting pipeline information from individual sales reps, sales force automation allows your sales manager to have access to summaries of activity, customer complaints that occurred that week and information about potential opportunities.

The software is set up to operate in real time, so when your sales manager receives reports or summaries, they know that the data is up-to-date. When sales reps are set up with a few quality metrics that sales managers want to measure, the reports deliver high quality information for training purposes, sales forecasting and budget planning.

If your sales organization is looking for tools that deliver sales force automation software, Front Row Solutions has the technology that will grow your business. We offer mobile app customer relationship management software that can work as a stand-alone system or can be integrated with an existing software.