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For most people, sales are considered more a game of knowing how to read people, and how to convince them to buy what you’ve got. It’s an art that only the best “people person” can master. But the best salesperson understands that certain scientific tools can help when it comes to this art. Technology has become more and more critical to sales in the modern age. In fact, over 82% of top-selling salespeople cite sales software as critical to their jobs, according to a LinkedIn survey in 2016.
Evaluate and Decide with Data
One of the biggest uses of technology in sales today is gathering data to help sales teams make better decisions. Data on what customers want, what they buy, when they buy it, how often they buy, and much more, is vital for sales development. And what’s more, the use of data collection in sales has changed the way customers expect to be treated. Now, with so many sales teams relying on personal data to better sell to individuals, customers expect to be treated with personal touches. Emails with a name included, sales triggered by GPS location, and much more are all a part of the way customers now expect to interact with businesses.
According to Activayte, there are four main benefits to using technology to collect data on your customers:
- It helps you maintain consistency. Your customers will always know exactly what to expect because your relationship with them will be standardized based on the data you’ve collected. For example, you won’t be asking the same repeat customer over and over to sign up for a new customer deal when they visit your website – the website will automatically recognize that they’ve been there before.
- It helps you develop organized contacts and accounts that can be classified into profiles. This allows you to build email campaigns and message templates directly to targeted members of your audience.
- It helps you integrate the many points of sale into a single experience for the consumer. This means that they can seamlessly switch between mobile, desktop, and in-person shopping at their convenience.
- It helps you better understand what your target market is, and how you serve them. That allows you to set better goals and measure your success.
The Future of Sales Technology is AI
Wondering what the wave of the future will bring for sales professionals? Artificial intelligence is the next thing on the horizon that will change the way we sell to consumers. AI in sales can make administrative tasks, like sending out automated emails and categorizing data, much simpler. AI can also help you determine what deals should be invested in, and which should be passed up, by analyzing market data, predicting outcomes, and more. For sales teams, this means you could, for example, accurately predict the outcome of potential promotions based on your customer history.
Together, both present-day and future technology are working to make sales even more effective and easy.
