7 Ways To Save Your Sales Team’s Time & Be More Productive Using Sales CRM Software

Research shows that out of the total time spent, less than 1/3rd of a sales team’s time is actually spent on core selling and getting new business. How do you then ensure that the time which is usually spent on repetitive tasks be utilized for actual core selling?

Before answering this let’s point out the time-sapping tasks and then go ahead with overcoming all of these.

A sales team, on an average, spends most of their time on repetitive tasks such as:

• Data entry, capturing entering leads in excel sheet or basic CRM
• Lead assignment among the team
• Task management
• Manually adding the communication details of calls/meetings with contacts/deals
• Follow-up with prospects
• Daily/weekly/monthly reporting to managers
• Setting up workflows or no workflow set-up at all

All these activities are inseparable parts of a salesperson’s routine and consume most of the productive time which can be utilized for core selling. If observed closely, all these tasks can be skipped using automated sales CRM software and will let you and your team spend more time with prospects and customers.

We’ll get back to your problems and now see how you can actually solve them:

#1 Data entry, capturing entering leads in an excel sheet or basic CRM

Businesses make the most of all marketing channels online and offline to reach to their target audience and get maximum leads. The problem lies in capturing all these leads/customer data in one place, maybe in an excel sheet or a CRM. With an automated sales CRM you can integrate your website/contact-us-form or social media, Google Ads with your CRM and get all the leads automatically into the CRM software.

The time that your sales team spends on capturing all this data can be completely transformed on focusing more on the deals that can be closed fastest and generate new business.

#2 Lead assignment among the team

The way you capture leads you can also be done automatically right at the time of capturing the leads which saves your managers time as there is no need to do it manually. Manual lead assignments can become a huge task once the team size starts to increase and can consume the productive time of your team.

#3 Task management

Task management is an inseparable factor of contact management and it is often observed that a sales team fails to complete tasks or follow-ups with customers due to lack of automated suggestions. You can actually close 2x more deals if your team gets automated task reminders using a smart CRM that sets automated tasks right when the task or deal is created and your team will never miss a follow-up again.

#4 Manually adding communication details

Another big deal with your sales team is adding the communication details with customers or contacts into the CRM or manually keeping a track of it. Plus, if you miss recording one detail, you might miss out on an important piece of information. With auto email sync and flexibility to add a call conversation, you don’t need to enter these details manually and spend less time on this mundane task. Instead, utilize this time for meeting your prospects and ensure that you maintain healthy relations with them.

#5 Following-up with prospects

Following up is the key to sales closure and that’s where most salespeople fail. There can be many reasons to miss following up with prospects and as the volume of leads increases, the possibility of your sales team missing up on follow-ups does too. Using a smart CRM you can automate the complete follow-up cycle and set automated personalized emails so you never miss a follow-up.

#6 Daily/weekly/monthly reporting to managers

With powerful reports which can be created in the CRM itself, managers can track the daily activities of all their team members in the real-time which is absolutely time-saving for the team members as they don’t need to spend hours creating and sending such reports to managers.

#7 Setting up workflows or no workflow set-up at all

If you are a manager and need a notification when your team member gives more than x% discount to a prospect or you want to create a deal immediately when a contact is created, these routines and many more can easily be covered by a customized and automated CRM so you do not spend time on setting up these workflows every morning when you come to the office.

Key Takeaways

Overall, there are two takeaways I’d like you to get from this article:

1. It is vital to check the technology that you are investing in and see if it fits all your requirements as per your workflows.
2. Investing in better technology can always save you valuable time which can be utilized in actual core selling or relationship building.

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