Streamlining Sales: The Role of Technology and Automation

Business today requires strategic tool use to stay ahead of the competition. A fractional CRO or another on-demand sales expert working with your fractional sales management team or in-house team can assist you in making the best use of these tools.

Here is what you should know about integrating technology and automation into your sales force:

• Brief timeline of sales throughout the digital age
• How automation has changed business practices
• Role of the human touch in making sales today
• Integrating technology and humanity in your sales strategy

There’s a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes. Let’s go!

The Evolution of Sales in the Digital Age

Recent years have changed the modern sales landscape into a more tech-centric and efficient machine. Knowing the history of sales and the drivers of this drastic shift is still vital for maximizing tools and channels. It also gives context for the value of a fractional CRO.

Sales began as bartering – a trade of items of roughly equal value. It took several thousand years for money as we know and use it today to appear and change how people bought and sold goods. Sales continued to evolve as financial institutions improved on currency.

Credit cards and online banking heavily changed sales. The invention of new mediums such as print media, radio, television, the internet, and now social media pushed the evolution of sales further. Digital channels then gave rise to new marketing tools.

The notorious data mining that social media (most notably Facebook) is known for started as a direct result of its ubiquity in people’s lives. Today, many marketers and companies are utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to modernize sales. This results in faster and more efficient sales strategies.

Automation and Its Effect on Businesses

Technology is a central player in modern businesses, especially automation, which has quickly become a core of sales strategies. Ecommerce perfectly captures how sales have grown with technology over time. Below, we discuss four applications of automation that simplify sales.

     1. Keep Sales Plans Cohesive with a CRM

A critical aspect of streamlining your sales strategy is cohesion; a customer relationship management (CRM) system is the key to realizing that. CRMs allow you to centralize and organize customer data, sales activities, and interactions. Some even have email automation.

Using a CRM lets your team track leads, customer inquiries, and sales history on a unified platform. This allows you to streamline and personalize how your business interacts with leads and customers. Easy access to a prospect’s profile greatly enhances the odds of a conversion.

For instance, a call center agent handling a mobile phone service provider’s customer service can quickly review a client’s detailed history on a CRM. This lets them review the person’s recurring concerns, allowing them to better adapt to meet their needs.

     2. Tap Into High-Quality Leads with Automation

Automation also plays a key role in lead generation. It most commonly works by calculating the scores for every action or event that signals interest in your business. Letting machines run the numbers for your business gives you more time to refine your marketing and sales strategies.

This combines AI and machine learning (ML) to create a business process that requires little to no human intervention once perfected. However, building a reliable lead generation and scoring system is a taxing job. The need for systems to track actions further complicates this.

Hiring a fractional CRO scoring system helps the sales team prioritize leads and focus all their efforts on those with the highest potential for conversion. Common actions in lead scoring are website visits, ebook downloads, and webinar signups, but it depends on the desired outcome.

     3. Convert More Leads with an AI Chatbot

One of the more effective ways to employ automation is in customer service, where speed is the most important factor for your audience. Installing an AI chatbot gives website visitors a fast and reliable method of getting answers. A good user experience is central to streamlining sales activities.

This is evident in how most customers have simple concerns, but putting them on hold for too long turns them away. Providing automated assistance helps filter out basic issues and lets your team give priority to serious matters. AI chatbots also help in collecting user feedback.

Though the many options for AI chatbots today have a user-friendly design, correctly setting one up is tricky. Working with an experienced fractional CSO makes finding trigger phrases simpler because they understand how customers think. This leads to smarter chatbot design.

     4. Boost Your Sales with Predictive Analytics

Anticipating customer behavior is crucial to building a solid sales strategy, and no one does that better than a fractional CRO. As the ones in charge of monitoring sales trends from all angles, it falls on them to identify patterns in historical data. Predictive analytics is one way to achieve that.

For instance, a CRO in an ecommerce company can identify customers likely to make repeat purchases based on their habits. The CRO can significantly increase sales and boost customer retention rates by targeting these customers with promotions or recommendations.

Predictive analytics also helps businesses adjust their pricing strategies, identify high-value customer segments, and forecast demand more accurately. All of these highlight how tech tools and fractional CROs contribute to improved revenue and sales performance for your business. 

Is the Human Touch Still Important in Sales?

Despite the enormous utility of technology and automation in modern sales strategies, human intervention remains indispensable for business success. Human expertise still drives success.

For instance, human customer service agents are better at helping people solve more complex issues because they interact actively rather than passively. In other words, they work with the other person to resolve issues. Tech tools (even AI chatbots) are still very limited in that sense.

Moreover, sales is — in part — driven by emotions and personal connections, so ads are often built to tug at people’s heartstrings. Appealing to a person or their values opens a door to their mindset. That, in turn, makes it much easier to tailor experiences to their wants and needs.

Think of how many businesses have leveraged influencer marketing in recent years. This is only possible because of the personal connections between their target market and the influencer. It is a powerful driving force in sales, and a reliable fractional CRO can help you use it just as well.

Complementing Technology with Human Connection

Technology now plays a central role in every successful sales strategy. Automation speeds up many critical processes, such as analysis and lead scoring. It has reached the point where machines can seamlessly perform tedious tasks within seconds.

Despite this, the human touch is still a critical element in sales and has no equivalent tech tools, not even AI. Emotions play a key role in customer behavior, and having a personal connection drives sales and loyalty. People want to feel valued, and showing empathy is central to that.

A fractional CRO is invaluable in this balance because they create a holistic sales approach that integrates technology, automates routine tasks, and guides your team. Their expertise is vital in accurately detecting your target market’s pain points and making tailored solutions for them.

For instance, a luxury travel agency hires a fractional CRO who implements a chatbot to answer common inquiries and facilitate initial booking inquiries. When potential clients express interest in custom packages, the chatbot connects the person to a travel agent for personalized service.

Summing Up

Modern sales requires technology and automation to remain competitive, especially to streamline business processes. Though these tools are becoming increasingly simpler to use, hiring a fractional CRO with both sales expertise and tech know-how is a smart choice.

They have valuable insight into the evolving sales landscape and a keen eye for new avenues and tools to maximize your revenue streams. Embracing advancements under the guidance of a fractional CRO allows your business to upgrade its sales strategies and thrive in the digital age.

Need help streamlining your sales strategies with automation tools? Contact Digital Authority Partners to learn how we can help.