Did you know that 75% of businesses say that closing more sales deals is their number one priority? However, in a survey by HubSpot 40% of sales representatives said it is becoming more difficult to get replies from their prospective customers.
Fortunately, there are tools to revolutionize the sales workflow and even change the way sales teams engage with their prospects. Among these are sales engagement platforms and sales proposal software. According to a study by Aragon Research, they rose in popularity among businesses of all sizes beginning in 2015. The institution also notes that the sales engagement platform is likely to grow to over $5 billion by the year 2021.
That is a testament to the fact that this piece of technology has become more relevant in the field of sales.
But closing more deals and getting responses from prospects are just part of a parcel. SEPs have more to offer because of the various technologies they incorporate under the hood.
Sales Engagement Platforms ensure a consistent sales process
Whatever your sales team setup is, you are likely to have a workflow you follow when taking care of sales tasks. But how about the rules of engagement with clients and prospects?
That is where sales engagement platforms come in. With their predictive technology, they can walk sales representatives through every sales scenario. This can be apparent in a solution that has a Guided Selling playbook. This triggers relevant questions depending on the choices or answers of the user.
Because of that, agents can tailor their actions specifically to the scenario at hand and the type of customer they are dealing with currently.
Sales interactions are personalized
Smart selling is not just about hitting the right buttons at the most opportune times. It also involves acting on-the-fly when it comes to your customers’ needs and preferences. Best in class sales engagement software is equipped with the technology to measure a prospect’s qualification and assist sales reps in producing relevant value-added content to help stakeholders make decisions.
The right sales platform will include sales proposal software that produces micro-websites which are shared with prospects and are accessible to their internal stakeholders. This also makes the interaction with the clients dynamic because your sales representatives can share personalized price quotes, contracts, content and media. That means that even if you have a general template, you can customize it to suit your clients’ requirements and make it available to them with ease.
Automated administrative tasks
An article by Salesforce mentions that sales professionals only spend 34% of their time actually trying to sell. According to the survey respondents, they spend too much time on administrative tasks like generating quotes and data entry.
Thankfully, sales engagement platforms are equipped with automation capabilities. These put redundant tasks in autopilot mode so that your reps can spend more time selling your products or services. On top of that, automation can reduce data entry errors and prevent issues that may arise because of mistakes.
What’s more, automation makes sure that your sales team can respond to customers’ queries quickly. For example, when a contact requests a document that needs approval before sharing, the sales representative in charge can route the request to the right party with a single click. You will reduce the chances of losing a client due to long lead time.
Sync customer information with your CRM
Among the sales engagement tools you can enjoy when you invest in a platform is the connection with your CRM. APIs allow sales tools to communicate with third-party systems. Because of this, one solution can draw information from another for various purposes.
For example, a sales engagement solution can relay sales representatives’ inputs to your CRM. And the CRM tool can tell your sales engagement application about the products and services a prospect is interested in. There is no need for double data entry, and you can avoid mistakes that come with that, too.
Real-time insights into deal progress
Even the best sales techniques can fail when they are not used in the right context. That is why it is important to have data to work with. Your sales engagement solution will have tracking technology that lets you know how customers are engaging with your content.
Eases the management of email communications
Sales involve plenty of communication, with most of it being done through email. This includes inquiries, quotes for clients, email campaigns, and internal exchanges. Having a platform can help trim the number of emails sent and ensure efficient email management. The system can log email activities for tracking purposes and store customizable documents and templates.
Moreover, a sales engagement application is likely to provide an option for email reminders. However, if that is not as important, you can opt to receive alerts within the system so you can reduce your volume of emails. If you are worried about missing notifications, you can simply check on the activity stream and see what you may not have noticed.
Keeping the doors open for customers
Customers like to review quotes and proposals at their convenience. This is why e-commerce platforms are booming. A sales engagement solution with built-in CPQ and sales proposal software can do the same for your business. A customer-facing micro-site allows customers to view their proposal and share with key internal stakeholders whenever they want. There, they can read about your products and services and how exactly they can add value to their own organization. They can review it anytime and make a decision even when your agents are not on the line.
“DealHub is a great tool to easily generate professional proposals and quotes, which are always accurate and personalized to the customer’s needs. The Sales Playbook makes it extremely easy to configure the best offering for a relevant customer.”
– Amit E., DealHub Customer
A Sales Engagement Platform is not just for customers alone–it can also work for your reps, especially new hires. Because of its walkthrough feature, there is no need for recently hired agents to undergo lengthy training and costly workshops. All they have to know is on the interface, which guides them accordingly. Thus, you can slash more expenses from your list while growing your company.
We invite you to schedule a demo of our Sales Engagement Platform, which includes Sales Proposal Software and Configure Price Quote Software that are helping our clients achieve higher efficiency and greater revenue from their sales operations.