This is a guest post by Neha Batra, Senior Manager of Digital Marketing at Ozonetel Communications.
The question: Why automate? The answer: To maximize results and minimize effort. Is there scope for such effective automation within your sales team? Yes, there is. This article outlines six tried and tested ideas for automation that are guaranteed to produce better results while reducing your workload.
Automation Idea 1: Ensure that new web leads are contacted in minutes.
Web leads are precious. You must ensure they are contacted within minutes. In fact, according to an MIT study, if you make first contact within 5 minutes, the lead is 22 times more likely to convert. But how do you ensure that your sales team follows up on every lead so promptly? The answer is automation:
As soon as the web form is filled, it gets registered in your CRM
Your CRM taps into your telephony software, and prompts your sales representative on their system and mobile phones.
In case the rep is busy, the system automatically forwards the call to the next, and so on, until a free sales agent makes a call to the given number.
The rep gets all the relevant customer details on their system/phone. They just need to click to call.
And as simple as that, you ensure that every web lead is contacted when they are white hot. In under 5 minutes? No sweat.
Automation Idea 2: Automate follow-up calls on email campaigns.
Whether your email campaign is about a new product launch, a demo, or a meet up—it’s tough getting leads to open your emails. So when they do, doesn’t it make sense to follow up? I’ve seen successful sales teams who ensure follow up calls to every client/lead who opens their email. Here’s how they manage it: with just three clicks.
They see email campaign reports in their CRM. (Click 1 )
With a single click, they select all contacts that opened their mail. (Click 2)
Then with another click they push all the contacts into their dialer. (Click 3)
From here on, they leave their dialers to do the job. Dialers have a great advantage. They persist, automatically. They ensure every lead is dialed, and connected to a representative. (Who is then free to work their charm on the prospect)
Automation Idea 3: Ensure that abandoned and missed calls don’t become missed leads.
Capture incoming leads 24/7. You can miss calls after work hours, during holidays, or when lines are busy. But missing a call shouldn’t mean missing a lead. Here’s the easy workflow you can setup to ensure that you never miss following up on a missed call:
Your telephony system can compare any number that goes unanswered with CRM data.
If the call is from a new lead, you can set up your system to ensure that a new ticket is automatically generated.
An alert on the missed call can be sent to your inbox. If there is a voice message, this will get attached and sent to your inbox too.
Automation Idea 4: Keep your rep connected.
Sales reps are often on the go. But successful sales teams always stay connected. Their mobile phones are configured to tap into their CRM, make and take calls, and get alerts, at any time.
Automation Idea 5: Send voice message, greetings and notifications to entire contact lists in one go.
Do you need to remind qualified leads about an approaching last date, a payment due date, or a subscription renewal? You should use a configurable IVR to create a message, and create a workflow that lets you broadcast it to any or all of the contact lists within your CRM with a single click.
Automation Idea 6: Create personal connections using sticky agents.
You can contact your leads whenever they want, but what if they would prefer to call back? Do your sales reps need to hand out personal numbers, so their lead can reach them? You can create a simple workflow, so that whenever a lead calls in, they automatically connect to their assigned sales representative.
Essentially every single one of these ideas depends upon a deep, smooth integration between the two systems your sales team depends upon most: Your CRM and their telephone systems. Get detailed information and demonstration of each workflow in a webinar on August 8, at 10:30 AM Pacific Time. Register now.
Great article! Do you have people that we can hire to make these connections within our CRM system? I use ring central and would love to implement this. Thank you! Jesse