Inside sales is the foundation of a successful sales organization. Inside sales is an efficient model that allows you to deliver human interactions and scale up quickly. Inside sales is a business model that involves sales representatives communicating with and selling to customers over the phone or through digital channels, rather than meeting them in person. It’s also a great way to grow your organization and your people. The technology available today provides data and insights that boost the productivity and effectiveness of an inside sales team.
It doesn’t matter if the team is making or receiving calls. It doesn’t matter if you call it inside sales, business development, or something else. Teams that advance leads by swiftly meeting customers on their preferred channels get results. We call this approach Sales Engagement. Buyers don’t have the time or patience for sales reps who push products without first understanding their needs. By the time they become a lead, the person has likely browsed your website, skimmed an e-book (or three), and perused third-party content about your solutions. Inside sales people do the early work of researching and making initial contact to set the rest of your sales process up for success.
Inside sales teams can be generalized, specialized, or segmented. A generalized sales team might work assigned territories but with a wide focus across all your products and services. Specialized sales teams might focus on certain industries or operational units of the business. Segmented sales teams focus on specific products or services and often have more in-depth knowledge in those areas.
Salesforce, like many organizations, approaches sales with a Quantity and Quality approach. Their reps use five touches to warm or nurture a lead. Business development reps use seven touches. Timing is a key to a large quantity of sales touches, and Salesforce targets their sales calls to early and late in the busy day when people are less likely to be tied up in meetings. Salesforce also has mastered the strike while the iron is hot method of inside sales. If you have ever downloaded any of their content you might have received a sales call before you finished reading the download.
Salesforce couples the quantity approach with the quality approach to inside sales. They have found that 64% of customers expect custom engagement based on past interactions, product interest, etc. Salesforce reps research the companies they are selling to further build personalized sales communications.
More interesting to us at Summit are the tools that Salesforce uses for inside sales. Armed with the right technology, sales teams are powerful. At Salesforce they use Sales Engagement as the solution that automates sales teams’ record-keeping and streamlines the selling process. It’s designed to provide a single platform for managing customer interactions, sales steps, and more. And Sales Engagement is generally available to all Salesforce customers as an add-on to Sales Cloud.
Email integration means reps can work productively whether they’re working in Salesforce directly or in their inboxes. Automated email activity capture logs and updates records with every interaction.
Automated activity logging, like call tracking, frees up our reps from manual data entry while giving managers visibility into what’s going on within each interaction, prospect, and team.
Sales Dialer is a way to make phone calls directly from Salesforce rather than switching to a physical phone. It automatically logs calls and assigns the call a local area code so the lead is more likely to answer. It also includes prerecorded voicemails, call monitoring, and more. Lightning Dialer is an additional product available in Sales Cloud.
The Work Queue in Sales Engagement takes the guesswork out of the sales process by generating an ordered task list for each rep. This tells them which activities they should be focusing on next, and with whom. The tool not only arranges reps’ workflows to maximize revenue, it also simplifies access to the information they need for a successful sales call.
Artificial intelligence (AI) helps sales teams work smarter. Research shows that high-performing sales teams are 3.1 times more likely to use AI than their underperforming peers.
Here are two key ways Salesforce sales teams use AI and machine learning for Virtual Selling at Salesforce:
Einstein Lead Scoring analyzes all of the factors on a lead record, such as the contact’s job title and company size, to score each lead. It predicts which leads are most likely to convert and displays the factors behind the scores. The leads in the Work Queue are also prioritized based on these scores. This ensures that reps always know who the most valuable leads are – so they can contact them first.
Einstein Conversation Insights uses natural language processing to home in on key call moments in reps’ conversations with prospects, such as mentions of competitors or specific products. Managers use these highlighted moments to understand where reps are succeeding or where they may need additional coaching.
As customers grow more connected, inside sales teams remain essential for winning and keeping new business. When the inside sales reps have the right tools, they can deliver a seamless experience.
Summit LLC recognizes how important the role of inside sales is for our clients. Salesforce’s Sales Engagement tool helps your inside sales reps engage buyers more effective more efficiently, and more with agility. Sales Engagement, formerly known as Salesforce’s High Velocity Sales tool, will help you close more deals with less busywork.
