Sales automation is essential for businesses to improve their sales processes. They allow salespeople to shift from the traditional tedious lead management and communications tactics to more efficient methods.

Statistics indicate that businesses adopting sales automation experience increased conversions and customer satisfaction, among others. McKinsey also suggested that currently, over 30% of sales activities can be automated.

Better still, most of them can often integrate with existing processes and marketing funnels to yield even better results.

Why Use Sales Automation?

Maintain customer relationships

The sales process involves multiple relationship-building activities such as welcome messages, emails, follow-ups, etc., which can be tricky to do manually.

So, sales automation enables you to manage and maintain customer communications without any delays or inconsistencies. 

Simplify Your Reporting process

Sales automation tools enable your team to provide reports more accurately and regularly.

With manual tools like spreadsheets, they can easily miss information or record multiple errors. However, automation can generate these faster and more accurately. 

Additionally, it becomes much easier for management to access these reports on the platform in real-time.

Improve Efficiency

Sales responsibilities can often be repetitive and time-consuming, thus the need for automation tools.

For example, a salesperson may have to draft multiple emails, call multiple leads, test different sales copies, etc. With the right tools, they can create templates, schedule emails, generate reports, etc., in no time, making them more efficient and productive.

It also saves you labor costs in the long run.

Sales data accuracy

Manual sales process systems are often prone to human error. Such usually occur due to repetitive tasks involved. Continuous mistakes could cost your business productive time and money in the long run.

Sales automation tools, however, are usually more accurate, which boosts your efficiency.

Key Strategies of Sales Process Automation And How They Can Drive More Sales

1. Invest in Email Automation

Manually sending emails to each contact or lead can be quite a time-consuming and tedious task, especially if they require personalization. But, with sales automation, your teams can send the same personalized emails faster and more consistently.

In doing so, the nurturing process flows more smoothly. You can constantly stay in touch with leads and move them closer to conversion, thus driving more sales. Email automation in the sales process can handle tasks like:

• Follow up emails
• Discount emails
• Meeting confirmations, among others

Your salespeople will still have to handle some complex tasks. However, their overall workload remains lower.

2. Focus on AI-based chatbots/sales bots

For businesses seeking to increase conversion rates, sales bots could be the gamechanger. Incorporating bots in different elements of your sales funnel improves the overall customer experience.

Here’s how you can use sales bots:

• Fix customer problems

You can design chatbots within your system to identify and fix customer issues as and when they come up. Prospective leads can pose queries and concerns and get immediate help, even when your salespeople are unavailable.

It creates a smooth experience, increasing the likelihood that they will eventually convert.

• Streamline Sales

Sales bots can act as a purchase guide for prospective leads. You can easily program them to provide simple step-by-step advice to customers on the purchase process.  Such features take the pain out of the buying process, thereby boosting conversion and overall sales.

3. Manage contact information and relationships

Statistics indicate that customers are more likely to buy from brands with which they already have a good relationship. It reduces the perceived risks for them and paves the way for added benefits like discounts. Such relationships are developed through constant communication, which is now much easier with sales automation.

So, you must set up structures to collect and manage your leads data through sales automation tools. Your systems must collect adequate contact data, run well-drafted nurture email sequences, etc. Sales bots also come in handy to provide customer support when needed.

With such automated databases and processes, you can allow your team to focus on other complex tasks to support those relationships.

4. Tracking and generating sales reports

In sales, reports are critical since they provide the much-needed data to inform subsequent strategies. Reports cover several pieces of data like the number of calls made, deals completed, discount information, etc.  All these can be tedious to input and tabulate manually on a spreadsheet.

So, you must incorporate data and report generation into your automation tools. In so doing, you eliminate the manual tasks and reduce data errors.

Automating report generation further enables you to create multiple reports with predefined parameters, plus track sales team performances.

The result of this is you always have updated and accurate reports on which you can base your future tactics and strategies. You can tell what is working, what is not and what needs improvement.

5. Prioritize lead scoring capabilities

Especially for larger companies, you may often have to deal with several leads, making it hard for you to identify and work with the right ones. Sales automation systems come with lead scoring capabilities that allow you to identify and prioritize just the most promising leads.

Based on behavioral data, the system will show you leads who are more likely to convert. Your teams can then focus more time and resources on these sales-qualified leads, increasing conversion and sales chances.

Lead scoring capabilities also help in the segmentation process. Using these tools will show you the different kinds of prospects you are dealing with, which would help you provide the appropriate content or use the proper mechanisms to convert them.

Final Thoughts

Sales process automation is a must-have for businesses seeking to boost the effectiveness of their sales teams. They save time on repetitive tasks and help salespeople to manage customers and their data better.

These are some of the critical strategies your business can employ when using sales process automation. They can significantly boost customer relationships and streamline your teams’ activities which in turn increases sales.

FunnelBud can help you set up sales automation systems to help you sell more and make your sales teams more effective.

Try out our free sales automation demo and find out how it works.