These days we can see due to introduction of globalization and liberal government policies starting any business is not a difficult task. We can find everyday new companies in various niche are coming joining the business world. All these factors have created massive competition in market. In contemporary business world is very difficult for any company to generate exceptionally high profit. In order to get competitive edge in market the companies require sound sales strategy and sales forces. Implementing sales force automation software will automate the routine tasks of sales force and allow them to hit the targets effectively.
What is sales force automation software?
Sales force automation software, sometimes shortened to SFA (sales force automation), is an integrated application that automates frequent sales processes and tasks such as tracking customer interactions, as well as analyzing sales performance and forecasts.
Sales force automation software typically comes with a web accessible database, an email application, tracking software, and sales email templates.
Some sales force automation software features can include:
- Salesperson tasks and goals tracking
- Customer contact records
- Appointment scheduling and tracking
- Lead scoring and assignment
- Workflow management
- eLearning
- Key performance indicators
Effective SFA ensures full integration among all departments. The sales person is not the only person dealing with the customer, various other departments such as marketing, customer service, accounts and technical experts are also involved. If all these different departments are communicating with the customer at the same time or worse still, sending duplicate information to the customer, you’ll end up with one frustrated customer. Excessive communication is a sure-fire way to irritate the customer. SFA ensures that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing – all departments have easy access to see what interaction the other has had with the customer.
Ultimately, a successful implementation of sales force automation software should maximise the sales team’s efficiency, productivity and lead to increased sales.
Benefits of sales force automation software:
- 360 degree visibility into accounts, leads, opportunities and cases across
- Better collaboration and consistency across the organization
- Automated workflows enhance the promptness of field force
- Reduce sales cycle and administrative cost
- Optimize sales resources and processes via repeatable best practices
- Service provided in a better and quicker way
- Effectively predict future sales by effectively managing past sales history, current trends, number of orders and opportunities
- Generate accurate reports ranging from a birds-eye view of across the board sales to drilling down into specific sales territories, per sales rep, geographical regions or demographics
- Instant access to information and leads while being on the road
To summarize, sales force automation software streamlines the sales team’s job, making the end-to-end process faster. With the increased efficiency in conversions and closing deals plus the reduced effort on non-core activities, sales professionals can build better rapport with leads and contacts, request referrals and cross sell – increasing your bottom line in the short term through quicker sales and in the long term through customer retention!