Sales is undoubtedly one of the (possibly even the) most critical functions in any business's growth (Well at least that what "we" {sales people} think!!), the efficiency and velocity of a sales process can really make or break a company. Because of factors like the Internet, COVID, AI, Technology, chatGPT etc the way customers are buying has completely changed. Therefore it’s only natural that the sales process has also needs to evolve. Recent studies have shown that buyers are up to 80% through the sales process before they actually speak to a salesperson (Source: Google - via Marcus Sheridan at Inbound 2022)
Did you know - 33% of all buyers would prefer to have a “seller free” buyer journey (Source: Gartner)
More than three quarters of buyers say they now prefer digital self serve or remote human engagement over face to face interactions → this has steadily intensified even after lockdowns have ended (Source: McKinsey & Company)
So, what is digital transformation in sales, and why does it matter?
Digital sales transformation refers to the adoption of technology in the sales process to guarantee better workflow, productivity, efficiency and to improve the overall sales cycle. When done correctly, digital transformation can help streamline your entire sales process, improve how you engage with your customers, and boost sales productivity. More importantly, as sales people, WE need to remain relevant, a good CRM implementation with strong sales & marketing alignment can ensure we are more informed about our prospects and customers and can therefore tailor better solutions for them.
Let's explore the subject of digital transformation in sales and discuss how you can upgrade your sales process with digital transformation for growth.
The Importance of Upgrading Your Sales Process with Digital Transformation
If you’re in the business of selling any product or service that is B2B or high price point B2C, you’ll already know how manual and time-consuming the traditional sales process can be. Often, the conventional sales process involves researching the right customer, cold call outreach, contacting a customer (or getting through the gatekeeper), making an appointment, giving a presentation, providing a contract/Quote/SOW, and closing a sale.
This kind of process takes a lot of time before you can actually close a sale. And with the significant shift in customer needs and purchasing behaviours, if you don't adapt and act fast you might find that your traditional sales process is fast becoming ineffective.
Today's customers have high expectations, require fast responses to their concerns and want better service delivery. And that's why upgrading to a digital sales process has become so necessary. If salespeople cannot add value beyond the information
buyers can find on their own, the buyer has no reason to engage with salespeople at all.
There are several ways you can streamline your sales process with digital transformation.
First, you can use a best of breed CRM to automate your repetitive tasks like generating and following up on leads, allowing your team to focus on different business growth aspects.
Secondly, you can use this Marketing automation software to generate personalised communications and targeted content resulting in better overall customer engagement and better leads.
Lastly, you can leverage digital platforms and processes to grow a more collaborative team. For instance, a digitised sales process gives your sales team access to reliable data and insights in real-time. By leveraging that data, you can streamline your overall sales process for better results. In other words, use the data to iron out the kinks in your process and oil the high friction areas.
Must Have CRM Sales Features
Over the years, customer relationship management (CRM) has changed from the traditional way of logging sales prospects and contacts to a business transformation enabler.
Nowadays, CRM plays a pivotal role in driving customer engagement, enhancing intuitive sales pipelines, and generating higher revenue, among other sales benefits. All this is attributable to the introduction of digital technologies like the cloud, analytics, mobility, and social.
With dramatic customer needs, tastes, and behaviour shifts, CRM has become a necessary platform for driving tangible value and we’ve put together a list of all the must-have features your CRM should have to level up your sales.
Contact Management
Contact management refers to the recording of a contact's details and all the corresponding interactions they have with you as a business. In order for sales people to be able to make the most out of every interaction they have with their clients, it’s important that they have all the context for every conversation they’re having. That’s why contact management is one of the most important features of a sales CRM.
Pipelines & Deal Stages
Pipelines are a feature that helps salespeople visualise their overall sales process as well as predict or identify potential roadblocks throughout that process. Deal stages are the steps in that pipeline that alert the sales team as to the progress of the overall sale. Pipelines are important because they give sales teams an accurate view of what’s being worked on and what needs to be worked on to boost company revenue.
Dashboards
These provide a real-time picture of a business’ sales activities, key performance indicators and overall progress in one centralised location. These are super beneficial because they help salespeople to properly manage their day to day tasks and make more informed decisions in a range of different areas whether it’s recognising potential issues, identifying opportunities, goal setting or even team coaching.
Task Management
This is a feature that allows you to store, track, manage and report on tasks for a specific project or contact. Effective task management will include a task's status, importance, time requirement, financial investment etc. Task management software improves visibility and subsequently improves overall productivity as well. Because teams can see what’s done and what needs to be done, task delegation and team collaboration becomes easier as well.
Integration with Marketing & Customer Service
It's important that your Marketing, Customer Service and Sales platforms are all integrated, and working alongside each other. Without this alignment, you risk losing a massive amount of key information, as well as potentially missing out on major opportunities. It's far more effective to have these systems operating in tandem, giving you access to data that's consistent and reliable, across every aspect of your business.
Benefits of Digital Transformation in Sales for Businesses
When you adopt digital transformation in your sales department, you can enjoy several benefits, including the following:
1. Increased Efficiency and Productivity
Productivity is a key factor in sales. If you’re spending too much time and resources on one area of the sales process, a different area is suffering, so every business needs an efficient sales transformation plan. Digital transformation streamlines your sales operations and makes workflows more efficient, boosting productivity at different levels –both organisational and individual.
For instance, if your digital transformation enables you to automate most of the time-consuming and administrative tasks, you can give your team more time to engage in other higher-value initiatives. This way, your business becomes highly productive and more efficient, with the opportunity to also drive more revenue.
2. Improved Customer Engagement and Experience
Customer expectations have changed in recent years. Nowadays, customers need personalised services aimed at meeting their specific needs. Therefore you need a better understanding of your customers to keep evolving your sales playbooks and processes.
Digital transformation allows you to achieve this by providing the platform to analyse available data about customer needs, tastes, and purchase behaviour. With this information, tailoring your engagement and service delivery for better customer engagement and experience becomes easy.
3. Improved Data Management and Analysis
In the past, making informed sales decisions took a lot of work because it was almost impossible to collect reliable data from diverse and disconnected platforms. Through digital transformation and selecting the right tech stack for your business, successful, clean data collection, centralised data storage, and analysing and translating data to promote overall decision-making becomes much easier.
Digital transformation in sales has numerous benefits, including improved data management and analysis, improved customer engagement and experience, and increased productivity and efficiency.
With the changes in customer needs and purchase behaviour, upgrading your sales processes with digital transformation can help you grow your business in the long term. Contact us today, and we will provide actionable digital transformation tips to help you bring your sales process into the future.
