Why Businesses Needs Sales Force Automation?

Sales force automation is the technique of automating business sales activities using sales force automation software which can be customized according to the client’s requirements or be bought from the market having the client’s specifications.

Some of sales force automation software available in the market entails salesforce.com, Infusionsoft, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Prophet and PlanPlus offline amongst many other sales force automation software applications.

The benefits of sales force automation are numerous crowned by the SFA’s applicability in approximately any size of business enterprise due to its scalability as the SFA software abbreviates sales cycles thus ensuring optimal sales and productivity.

The main benefits of sales force automation entail; saving on time, management of sales, sales forecasting, cross-selling and lead management. Recent research on sales scales indicated that 58% of business organizations benefit from sales force automation while 48% don’t; however, the number of SFA users is rising with every day due to the many benefits of sales force automation.

The benefits of SFA may be fixed or dynamic that’s changing randomly with changing trends in the marketing field. Current competition levels guarantee no assurance of the next sales events hence one must always keep in touch with the new developments in the sales field as well as developments in the sales force automation software.

They tend to increase with each upgrade of SFA software since every update is meant to offer new and additional functionality to the existing sales force automation versions. Time is a key resource in every business operation, and there have been always a gap between what the employer expects and what employees really manage to output. One essential benefit of sales force automation is that the employees save time used working on necessary but time-consuming tasks associated with the sales department that could be manageable via the automation software.

Benefits of Sales Force Automation

Most businesses are turning to sales force automation to rip the numerous benefits of sales force automation systems which in summary entail; increased productivity, competitive advantage that’s on cost and market as well as revenues, Timely information, Reduced response time hence guaranteeing customer satisfaction, proper record keeping, accurate sales forecasts, efficient resource utilization,  and optimum utilization of time by employees. An SFA is also part of the organization’s customer relationship management system which facilitates the recording of every sales process. This customer relationship management system is also called Customer relations management Software.

Some of the key benefits of sales force automation entail:

1. Time-saving

Approximately 80%of employee’s time in the sales department is spent on scheduling sales appointments, tracking of leads via emails and tracking contacts as well as updating sales information. The use of sales force automation software would ensure that the above tasks are handled fast and not to forget, sales people will have the details in hand as one of the benefits of sales force automation.

2. Forecasting sales

Using the past and recent sales trends, the sales force automation software will be able to assess the opportunities as recorded in each particular sales pipeline. Using the past and recent sales data, the SFA software is able to give accurate forecasts of the future of possible events. As a benefit of sales force automation, improving sales forecast also requires the input of the sales team. The sales team is tasked with the responsibility of tracking customer behaviors and market swings thus provide information which the sales force automation software will base its forecast on.

3. The sales team management

The sales management team is usually tied up in responsibilities such as tallying sale-calls, sales-emails, and sales-texts sheets received daily or weekly. With the sales force automation software, all that work is put to an end and gives the management team a transparent view of the metrics for measuring revenues and returns. Due to the accuracy offered by the SFA metrics, the sales manager is able to set flexible territory that’s with a low risk of covering wide ranges of customers as the software should evolve with the changing number of customers. Using the real-time data on various sales entities that are the individual sales representatives, the sales management team is able to know the performance, activities, and output per sales person hence they can always make well-informed decisions.

4. Managing Leads

One of the key benefits of sales force automation is the software’s ability to convert leads using programs that extract the leads from the organization’s website, marketing campaigns, and outbound calls. After extracting the leads, the software automation system will notify the sales rep of the new leads hence sales representatives will be able to view leads quickly every day and set a time to contact the potential customers. Through the quick and easy tracking of customers benefit from sales force automation, the management can also identify any changes of order details by customers in time and effect accordingly.

5. Upselling and cross-selling campaigns

Upselling entails convincing customers to buy an alternative product to the one they are considering while cross-selling entails convincing the customer to buy a complementary/related product to the one in question. The sales force automation software stores past customer information hence sales managers can use this information to comprehend customer’s details on; demographics, order patterns and the customer’s overall preference in a brand. This improves marketing campaigns and sales experts are able to be more specific and thus able to generate more prospects within the least time possible.

6. Improved scheduling

A good sales force automation system keeps track of the sales team appointments and can even remind them of the appointments prior to their time hence avoiding unnecessary delays. Also using the collected leads, the SFA software can help in their scheduling as per the sales force requested criteria.

Benefits of sales force automation: Conclusion

From all the benefits of sales force automation given above, businesses can increase customer base, reduce sales cycle duration, improve sales reps productivity and eventually realize higher revenues returns. Benefits of using sales force automation software seem critical and necessary for every business’ sales wing thus essential for market campaigns and bridging the gap between sales management expectation of the sales team and the sales force output.

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