Using Digital Tools to Expedite the Sales Process

If there is one process that is worth the effort of refining it would be the sales process. For most SaaS companies, the sales process can be long, uncertain, and cumbersome. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Especially, in this digital age, technological solutions can be found for almost every problem.

Are you losing customers at the top of your funnel due to stale communication? Utilize video communication tools.

Are your customers bored during sales interactions? Use sales enablement software. 

Are you struggling to close deals? Incorporate a personalized proposal through a digital sales room.

Or are you missing out on customer patterns and common behaviors? Utilize a data analytics platform.

Because technology has evolved to become so effective and useful, today we are going to be looking at several different types of digital sales tools and how they can help SaaS companies scale their sales process.

Video Communication Resources

Integrated Video Messaging

Dubb

Async Video Communication

Loom

Tools in a Digital Sales Room

A digital sales room, as defined by Saleslion, is an asynchronous online space that allows companies to share information and resources with buyers, enabling a streamlined buying experience.

Digital sales rooms usually function as follows:

1. Content is added to a central sales enablement page by sales teams.
2. A personalized link is then sent to the client, providing them with access to a variety of materials and content hosted on that page.
3. The sales room is continually updated throughout the process by sales representatives, allowing for a fully tailored and individualized sales experience.

As with most sales enablement tools, digital sales rooms are vitally important for SaaS businesses because they enhance customer satisfaction, increase sales conversion rates, and improve customer LTV (lifetime value).

While there is a wide range of tools that digital sales rooms provide, the 3 specific tools that are going to look at today are product configurators, pricing calculators, and personalized proposal pages.

Product Configuration

A product configurator is a software that helps businesses create, market, and sell complex products. It enables customers to customize their desired product without special knowledge and change the design or features of the product to meet their individual needs.

Product configurator software is usually included as part of CPQ (Configure Price Quote) software, which allows companies to configure, price, and quote products more effectively. Below is a straightforward example of what a product configuration software might look like for a wooden chair.

Overall, product configurator software helps businesses offer customized solutions to their customers while streamlining the sales cycle.

Pricing Calculator

While slightly different from a CPQ software, a pricing calculator is a simple tool that allows users to quickly calculate the price based on certain parameters such as quantity, solution, or customer type. They can be used to generate pricing estimates quickly.

On the other hand, CPQ solutions create accurate quotes for their customers. It automates quoting by allowing users to quickly configure products, calculate prices, and generate quotes in real-time. This eliminates manual errors and ensures that quotes are always up-to-date with the latest pricing information.

While both CPQ solutions and pricing calculators are common for digital sales rooms, pricing calculators are often easier to implement on your company’s website and more suitable for engaging prospective customers by providing transparent pricing estimates upfront.

Personalized Proposals

Having a great business proposal is essential for any SaaS or enterprise company looking to close a deal.

But what makes a sales proposal great?

When crafting a great B2B sales proposal, it's important to ensure that it is clear, captivating, and compelling. The proposal should address the potential customer's specific needs and provide content that is easy to understand and relevant to their current situation. It should also be well organized and coherent, with specific details that demonstrate your knowledge of the product or service.

By taking these measures, you'll create a personalized sales proposal that stands out from the competition and will convince potential customers to invest in your solution.

Saleslion

Revolutionizing the way companies approach sales processes, Saleslion has doubled Insivia’s close rates by developing a personalized sales experience for Insivia’s customers. Below is an example of the sales process timeline found in each customer’s personalized digital sales room.

Including customized videos at the top of the proposal page, the brand colors and logos of customers, and accurate pricing that reflects the customer’s exact needs, wants, and goals, this personalized proposal effectively helps companies close more deals, faster.

Key Systems in Data Analytics Platform

Understanding data is fundamental to the success of your SaaS company.

Think about your social media page:

• What is the demographic of people liking your posts? CEOs? Marketing associates? Or is it your grandmother?

• How many followers are you gaining per month?

• Which types of content perform the best? Polls? Short videos? Or something else?

Or think about your company’s website:

• What is the click-through rate of the main CTA buttons on your homepage?

• Which pages are getting the most views?

• How long do visitors stay on your website before hopping off?

Understanding the answers to these questions equates to understanding data.

Data analytics platforms are becoming increasingly important in the modern world.  With the amount of data being generated every day, SaaS companies need to find ways to make sense of it all, both in real-time and over several weeks and months. Data analytics platforms provide a way for businesses to track, analyze, and visualize data to gain insights and make smarter, more informed decisions. This can also help them improve their customer relationship management, resulting in happy customers and happier companies.

Out of the many processes data analytics platforms offer, two key systems that we are going to look at today are data acquisition and data visualization.

Data Acquisition Tools

While data storage and processing are vitally important, if you are collecting irrelevant or unimportant data, you will not benefit from that tracking. Data acquisition is important because it is the first step in monitoring potential customer behavior. Quality data acquisition sets the stage for a productive analytics process.

As expertly articulated by Sherlock Holmes, “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

Data acquisition is important because it provides an efficient way to collect and store high volumes of data in a single place for production use. This helps to ensure that data is accurate and up-to-date, and since the process can be automated, it saves time and money.

Additionally, data acquisition allows for the collection of raw data which can then be processed and analyzed to uncover meaningful insights. Without data acquisition systems, it would be much more difficult and time-consuming to gather the necessary data needed to make informed decisions.

One great digital sales tool to use to assist with data acquisition is Google Tag Manager.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a free and simplified tool that helps businesses manage marketing tags and code snippets on their websites. With Google Tag Manager, marketers can track website user behavior, such as clicks, downloads, and purchases, and store that information securely so that it can be analyzed later. It can also help your marketers customize the experience of different users on your website by deploying tags and custom scripts.

All of this information can then be used and analyzed to learn more about your customers’ preferences so that you can create a more engaged and customized sales experience for them.

If you are interested in learning more about Google Tag Manager and how you can implement it into your business to help expedite your sales process, reach out to us today.

Data Visualization Tools

Data visualization is also an essential part of data analytics. If you have all the information you need, but you read it wrong, you can drastically affect your company in negative ways.

Data visualization as defined by Tableau is the graphical representation of information and data and it allows companies to gain insights into their data that would not be possible if they only relied on analyzing the raw numbers.

By seeing a visual representation of our data, it becomes easier to discern patterns and correlations that may not have been apparent otherwise. Additionally, data visualization enables us to communicate our findings more effectively by providing an intuitive way to convey complex ideas and stories.

Overall, data visualization is an effective tool for understanding complex datasets and making informed decisions. By leveraging its power, businesses can gain valuable insights into their operations and make decisions that will lead to success.

Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool that allows businesses to process their data in intricate and compelling visualizations.

This digital tool helps its users build reports and dashboards of the data collected, easing the reading, sharing, and understanding of information. It is also extremely useful because it has a mobile application version as well as a traditional desktop application, allowing users to analyze data wherever they are.

Key Takeaways

Most SaaS companies don't utilize digital tools to expedite their sales processes. Instead, they use cut-and-dry pricing models, inadequate data tracking platforms, or stale communication systems and thus struggle to provide an effective sales experience for their customers. 

Especially in this digital and technological age, it is vitally important for companies to utilize the effective tools of today’s age, whether as video tools to boost early-stage communication and prospecting, digital sales rooms during discovery through proposal phases, or data tracking to monitor customer behavior.

If you are interested in scaling your sales process by using digital tools, reach out to us today!