Sales Needs A Human Touch
There is no denying that technology has drastically changed the way we work. While robots have completely replaced some jobs, technology has maximized human efficiency for others.
Take sales for example. Clipboards and landlines have been replaced with CRMs and mobile apps. However, the “human touch” of sales is still completely necessary – maybe more now than ever.
Remember the archaic period before Salesforce.com existed? I don’t. But I can imagine sales and marketing teams spending hours in front of 3-foot deep monitors plugging in each lead and then using their dial-up Internet to log into Yahoo mail to share their list of leads.
That might be an exaggeration but it doesn’t negate the fact that automation and integration have saved sales reps time to, well, sell things.
While some products may sell themselves (insert ShamWow Guy voice), it seems unlikely that robots will replace the influence of a good sales rep.
Converting Leads To Customers Is The Result Of A Good Sales Person
The ability to build relationships is the mark of a good sales person. However Don Draper would frown upon how much this key part of sales is being overshadowed by new and shiny technology. Instead of using a badge scanner as a time-saving tool (which it was meant to be), many sales teams are building strategies around it. They are focused more on capturing as many business cards as possible than building relationships with quality leads.
While your boss may give you a pat on the back for bringing home 250 new leads with the new badge scanner, s/he will not be happy with the lead to customer conversion rate.
However, when used correctly, technology can separate the good sales teams from the great ones.
Organizing And Syncing Leads Is The Result Of Good Technology
Without context, sales reps are sending the same generic follow-up email to every lead captured, which exponentially decreases the customer conversion rate. By using lead capture technology properly, sales and marketing teams can not only capture the context needed to increase the conversion rate, but they can also save time inputting each lead.
The Human Touch + The Tech Crunch
After establishing trust and likeability, sales people need to collect the context needed to send customized follow-ups. Technology makes this much easier.
By using tags in lead scanning apps like Overpass, you can sort leads into categories like “sales-ready”, “marketing qualified” or your own custom field. If the conversation is going well, you can implement an on-the-go survey to gain even more insight. And finally, you need the ability to take notes about this person – not on the back of the event brochure – but on the same device you just scanned the badge, tagged the lead and administered the survey. Then you need to be able to seamlessly integrate all that data into Salesforce, Pardot, Marketo or your chosen CRM.
Combine this simple and intuitive technology with the “human touch” and you have next-generation lead capture.
Ask us how and we’ll be happy to show you!