TECHNOLOGY
Digital Tools
& their Impact on Sales Enablement & Effectiveness Beverley Thompson
T
echnologyhas caused a seismic shift in the sales and customer experience universe in the last five years. Furthermore, advances in technology have changed the way buyers and sellers communicate and engage. The Internet enables sellers to find and connect with target markets faster and more efficiently than ever before.
I will share two perspectives on how the sales organisation has evolved because of technology.
Prospecting and Lead Generation
In the past, companies would rely solely on sales executives or front line staff to ask customers for contact information and enter these details into a database or a stand-alone CRM system. The customer is much more mature and Sales promotion teams would often enters the sales cycle with more knowluse paper forms and spreadsheets to edge about what they want. The buyer capture customer information. These conducts the online research, compares approaches may still have a place and be and contrasts, evaluates and will probably appropriate, but for the most part things shortlist the providers they would like to have changed drastically with technology. pursue before making a final decision. Gone are the days when buyers relied on sales people to share a brochure to provide information about a product or had to visit a store to ask questions. In the Business 2 Business (B2B) context, Sales people no longer need to visit the office to be effective in their job, and organizations do not need to incur significant costs in order to improve the capability of sales team members.
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Today, mobile-enabled websites are built with multiple features backed by smart algorithms and plug-ins to provide details on who visits your website, how often they visit, capture contact details and utilise smart ways to keep them coming back. Well-designed social media channels and websites integrate an effective lead capture
system, enabling follow-up engagement of what is referred to as warm leads. The lead is considered warm because the visitor to the website expressed an interest by completing a form. Sales people can follow up with the contact offline using direct communications such as a phone call, email or personal visit. This labour intensive approach to prospecting is on the decline because technology now makes lead generation easier and offers a more efficient and effective alternative to cold calling. Buyers are leaving digital footprints when they visit a business’ online portal, so organisations need to leverage these tools to advance the sales process. Lead Capture Apps are stand-alone tools used to capture data at live events such as conferences, exhibitions, and other brand and sales activations. It is then easy to integrate the new data into a database. Using a lead capture app removes the need to complete paper work and manual data entry.