Key Tech to Support the Sales Process

Technology exists to make your life easier. It’s designed to streamline your sales processes to make them quicker, more efficient and more productive. So, we’ve put together a checklist of the top sales tech brokers should consider.

CRM system

A good customer relationship management (CRM) system is at the heart of your sales system as it helps you keep track of your existing customers, build a relationship with prospective ones and improve customer retention. With all your data in one place, it means you can increase your number of leads, speed up the sales process and automate your communications.

There are many different CRM systems on the market so it’s important to get one that’s right for your size of firm - take advantage of the free demo’s offered to see if their system offers what you need. Salesforce is aimed at enterprises, whereas Hubspot and Pipedrive cater for small and medium-sized companies.

Sales engagement platform

A sales engagement platform measures every interaction your customer has with your business; it gives you valuable intelligence as to where they are in the buyer journey, what their preferences are and how they respond to various marketing communications. 

The dashboards will enable you to spot trends from the analysis of the data and create automated but personalised sales journeys. You can also use it to automate workflows for repetitive tasks in the sales process, freeing up your time to add more value. In this way, you’re using the technology to work more smartly, but are retaining the personal touch.

Investigate some of the various sales engagement platforms on offer. These can be part of your CRM system or as a separate tool. Here are some examples, Hubspot Sales Hub, Mailshake and Outreach.

Zoom/video conferencing 

You may be eager to get back to face-to-face meetings with customers and colleagues after the pandemic. Or you may welcome the fact that Zoom provides a perfectly viable option for most remote presentations and discussions, saving time and transport issues. It can often be an effective way of fitting in an appointment more quickly, which could lead you to closing the sale there and then.

Document upload function

Digital signatures are the simplest example of incorporating tech into the sales process, but a document upload function is also becoming popular with lenders and brokers. It’s a fast and efficient way to ensure that all the key documents to a case have been uploaded without having to worry about any lost emails. You also have the convenience of uploading the documents whenever it suits you, day or night, and you can easily make any updates. 

Scheduling tools

Instead of wasting lots of time with emails going back and forth trying to fix up meetings with customers or colleagues, explore an appointment-setting tool such as Calendly. Many of the CRM systems also have their own, for instance Hubspot meeting scheduler.

Your phone

And don’t forget the most obvious piece of equipment - your phone! Often the best way to clinch a sale or move a sale along is simply by making a quick call. It’s easy to focus on all the sophisticated technology platforms and lose sight of the valuable insights a simple phone call can often give. Of course, you've got access to most of your documents and all the technology you need on your phone as well.