Sales force automation puts back the days of slow and steady. The world recognizes that a boost in productivity increases profits many folds. A SFA solution is the magic potion to put the business on track. And what’s more it is a sure shot method of impressing the customer by proving efficiency. It goes hand in hand with comprehensive customer relation management software CRM. When coupled with smart business intelligence software (BI) for periodic analysis, projections and displays the management is assuredly in the right directions to guaranteed success.
Sales Force Automation
Quite simply put SFA is a system to automate the sales process and manage the salesforce or the field force and proves to be an indispensible subset of the integrated customer relation management (CRM) system. It starts from lead tracking to delivering the order all by winning the customer’s confidence by sheer efficiency.
SFA integrates step by step with other departments like marketing, servicing, accounts and customer relations to automate as much as possible resulting in impressive speed and turnaround. A successful implementation enhances the team performance by increasing speed, productivity and sales.
Speed, Productivity, Sales with Sales Force Automation
Contact Management
A methodical contact management aids the field force to easily schedule appointments, follow ups and also plan routes in an optimized manner with the help of contact details like address in the automated system. An integrated calendar makes scheduling very easy. A record of happenings in the visit and feedback can give insight to the management in the approach to be taken to manage the contact.
Lead Tracking Software Module
A robust SFA captures possible leads from a variety of sources like website inquiries, marketing email responses, website visits and calls. The authorized person in the hierarchy analyzes and categorizes the leads and the worthy ones get back into the SFA as sales leads automatically getting assigned to sales representatives for follow up.
Quotes and Orders – Sales Order Software Module
A systematic conversion of lead to quote is recorded into the SFA itself. The quote itself is generated from the SFA and handed over to the prospective customer instantly, increasing the chances of closing the deal. The promptness of the fields force staff leads to increase in confidence and probably quicker conversion of a quote into an order.
Trust when once instilled may lead to a loyal customer for the organization.
Order Tracking and Management
The sales force can keep a track of the order status and send updates to the customer as and when required, increasing the confidence of the customer with assurance. Formalities of the law and invoicing are integrated into the established accounting system to make the transaction records ready for use by the finance department.
Sales Force Management
Monitoring the activities of the sales force out in the field provides critical information to an organization in improving productivity resulting in better efficiency. Tracking and records of visit durations, customer feedbacks, visit fruitfulness to the device usage patterns and device safety are a part of a mobile SFA.
Reports & Analytics
Integration with smart Business intelligence tools can lead to availability of real time information of the on goings in the form of smart dash boards or diligent reports. Reports and dash boards can be designed varying from overview to be drilled down to the detailed ones. The usual territory based, geography based or sales person based reports help in keeping the concerned workforce updated on a day to day basis accurately and aid in prudent sales territory and sales force performance management.
Field staff activities report can be automatically emailed to the superiors for automated reporting as an aid to managing the field staff.
Sales and Marketing Automation
An efficient sales force automation system is equipped with tools for sales forecasting by analyzing the records of the past sales and market trends. This helps the company to keep procurement and production in sync with the projections and be ready to deliver.
Competitor Knowledge
SFA is not only geared up to improve business, but like a true business man, keeps a tab on the competitors as well. Analysis of unculminated leads and quotes along with co-related competitor information can be put to practical use in the future. These feedbacks can be of use in strategizing marketing techniques as well as for improvising the product itself.
Mobile Sales Force Automation
Enterprise mobility was the one of the most trending words of the year gone by. The market is flooded with loads of devices every day. Put to use with contemporary sales force automation software with mobile sales apps; these mobile devices like the smart phones, tablets and hopefully even the smart watches are bound to make operations easier and trendier for the field force.
In a Nutshell
Sales force automation makes the end- to –end process faster for the sales team increasing quicker and efficient sales with strengthening of customer relations because of increase in customer confidence and satisfaction.