Benefits of Sales Force Automation (SFA) software
Reduces the Need for Paperwork
Thinking further ahead, it can also be used to help you decide what new products and services to offer in the future. When you have the demographics and buying patterns of your customers in an easy to understand format, you can better plan every aspect of your marketing campaigns.
Increase Customer Satisfaction
Easy Access to Information
There are hundreds of ready-made sales force automation software programs on the market and there are offers for companies of any size – from huge multinational corporations to middle-sized enterprises to the small shop on the corner. Also, there are solutions targeted for specific branches – consumer goods, technical sales, financial services, real estate, etc.
Better Contact With Customers
In addition to making your sales team more efficient, SFA software can do a lot for your marketing research and lead development process. This software takes all of the data that customers send your way and organizes it into useful information. This can help you to form more strategic marketing campaigns and more useful follow-ups to existing customers.
Web Based SFA, or sales force automation is a way for businesses to take advantage of the latest technology and upgrade many aspects of their operations.
Sales Force Automation Solution for Marketing
Sales force automation software has hundreds of applications on the market, but when it comes to choosing which one to implement, it gets very complicated.
Businesses and consumers shop online, so you gain revenue by maximizing the lead-generation potential of your Web site. Sales Force Automation generally includes “Web forms” that Web site visitors can fill out. These can be automatically routed to the most appropriate sales representative. The sales rep is able to see immediately both the prospect’s contact information and interests, and follow up quickly while the prospect is showing interest.
· SFA Systems Can Improve Sales Training
· Encourages Better Teamwork
Think big, but start small. Starting in one department or even one region will allow you to get some quick wins and you’ll be amazed at how fast word of your success travels. Have a vision to go beyond one area of the business, but don’t let a broader vision slow you down. The most important thing is to get started.
By making sales lead tracking easy you can see specific areas to improve. Your marketing analysis and sales processes tuning becomes a snap. And, individual sales reps are not spending their time typing reports or entering data.
Sales force automation is easy and intuitive. It makes jobs easier for users like professional sales representatives by giving them quick access to data (online, offline, mobile devices) links to tools like Microsoft Outlook and Office.
Customer Relationship Management
Sales force automation software can be used to make sales training faster and more convenient. It can inform your sales people about products and sales techniques. This can cut down on the need for written instruction manuals and even live training seminars.
Automate Tasks
On the other hand, if the company wants to include other departments within the company such as accounting, purchasing, and marketing to benefit from sales force automation, then a complete system installed on the operating system should be considered. This type of sales force automation will give the company a more complete view of the entire process of the company’s business.
There will no longer be a need for sales people to fill written order forms or activity reports, as everything will be automated. E-forms can replace paper, which will save both time and the costs of paper and printing. This can also make your sales team more productive, allowing them to focus more of their time and energy on making sales.
Marketing on the Internet and social media, in this Web 2.0 world, are increasing the challenges of information overload on sales forces. Sales people don’t have time to figure out software, set-up confusing processes, or feed a system data.
Electronic, Paperless Reporting
SFA can tell you valuable things about your products, customers and industry. It allows you to recognize trends and patterns in your sector of the economy. This can help you decide what products to increase, which to discontinue, as well as give you ideas for new products that might be profitable for your business.
Marketing Advantages
Make it about business process. Sales analytics and the lead-to-cash cycle is a great place to start. And given that this is an analytics initiative, be sure to set clear goals and measure your success against those goals at every step along the way.
e-Business
Because of this, custom development of sales force automation solutions has become more and more popular. Custom solutions allow one to add new features, like access from the Web or from mobile devices, or to integrate the sales force automation module with the company database or ERP system.
Essentially, it allows companies to manage a contract’s lifespan by shortening approval cycles for contracts, renewing contracts sooner, and reducing administrative costs. This Sales Force Automation component improves tracking and management of contract information, such as terms, conditions, and evaluations.
Access to Better Leads
After having studied some of the available solutions, it was decided that a custom sales force automation solution was better. There was already accounting software in the restaurant, so one of the conditions was to integrate them together. Invoices were also issued electronically, but there was no way to calculate discounts for loyal customers, for quantity or for promotional dishes.
Lead Capture
SFA is related to CRM, or customer relationship management. These two types of software have overlapping functions and the two are often combined as a single service package. The purpose of CRM is to collect and analyze customer data and to manage contact with customers. Being able to communicate easily with customers is a major benefit. The focus of SFA software is on the automation of tasks related to sales. Both CRM and SFA are software systems that link your whole company in a way that everyone has access to the same information. They also enable you to analyze this information for the benefit of your sales and marketing teams.
Sales force automation software belongs to the business class of software. It is similar to contact relationship management (CRM) software but unlike CRM, it focuses first on the sales process and then on managing sales contacts.
Place your business in the most positive light by giving your team standardized email templates that offer a clean, professional look, with a personalized touch. Plus save your reps the time and trouble
When one thinks of the benefits of sales force automation, nothing is more convincing that a case study of a client’s success. The case study presented in this article is about a restaurant that was growing rapidly.
How SFA Software Helps Your Sales Force
An SFA System Saves Your Sales Team Time
Not that this abundance makes choosing sales force automation easy. It is true for all types of business software that there is hardly a universal solution that fits every single company. Sometimes it turns out that it is easier to write a software solution from scratch, then to adapt a commercial product to the needs of a particular company.
• What other sources of information do people need to access and analyze in order to achieve sales success? (Note that critical sales data is often locked in financial systems – orders, bookings, billing information; or lives outside of the CRM system in spreadsheets–commissions, quotas, forecasts .)
One of the features that many companies like best about SFA software is the way it links the various departments within a single company, giving everyone access to the same information.
True Analytic Applications
Standardize your most successful sales practices across your entire sales organization. Look for a Sales Force Automation solution that offers a built-in sales checklist to guide reps through the sales process modeled after the process used by your most successful sales people. This capability increases the chances that reps will bring in business more routinely.
The biggest challenge was to manage orders. Keeping in mind that food cannot wait, proper timing was crucial. On the other hand, managing inventory was also crucial because there were cases of accepting orders for food out of stock.
Sales representatives get more time to sale and convert leads as they can avoid the hassle of administration and other similar duties. Because the information they have access to is always current, the leads are more qualified and easier to sell. The don’t have to go through lines of other sales reps to find what they’re looking for; all they have to do is get on the computer and access their company’s central database to get the information they need, wherever they are.
Unlike many CRM programs that abound on the web, sales force automation is a relatively simple program to implement and is easily understandable for the majority of users.
By helping you to better understand your customers, your SFA system can help you to serve them better. You can better coordinate contacts with your customers, so efforts are not duplicated (which can result in customer alienation if they get repeat calls, too much email, etc.). You can better anticipate their needs. All of this can increase customer satisfaction and, as a consequence, your profits.
But the biggest advantage of custom sales force automation solutions is that they can fit perfectly into your organization. The difficulty of making universal commercial software lies in the fact that companies even from the same branch are so different from one another that what is a solution for one of them might be a nightmare for the other. Not to mention that it is worthless trying to use sales force automation for medical services, for example, in a company that sells newspapers. So if you strive to have the perfect sales force automation solution, be prepared to spend some money and time on it.
In their paper, Sales Management 2.0: Metrics, Not Hunches, Barry Trailer and Jim Dickie from CSO Insights describe the key sales analytics criteria this way:
SFA is Customizable
Enforcing best practices is not only an accountability issue, but one that simplifies sales persons’ challenge with establishing their system and getting into a productive process. With sales force automation the process is there, and it will get results.
Some sales reps prefer to sell cheaper products because, frankly, they find it easier. The right Sales Force Automation solution can help by giving managers visibility into product quotations so they never have to wait to correct sales rep behavior. In addition, the most powerful SFA solutions include a sales knowledge base that you can load with valuable tips for up-selling and cross-selling.
These are tools designed for advanced report developers to create virtually any report on transactional data. Also known as “enterprise reporting”, these tools typically provide built-in scheduling of pre-authored, highly formatted, “pixel perfect” reports that may include prebuilt prompts or filters to make them seem interactive. For salesforce.com customers these tools, can create virtually any join, but the data size must be small. Attempting to replicate all of your transactional data in a desktop reporting tool in order to get the queries you need will not work. If people want to be able to ask spontaneous, iterative, or trend-based questions of their business data, these tools are not a good fit. If you have someone in house who understands SQL (and SOQL), and you just need a couple of static reports delivered, start here. Just be sure to find out about customization, support, and advanced report-writing costs up front and keep an eye on the enhancements coming in the native salesforce.com transactional reporting features. Also keep in mind what Neil Raden noted in his salesforce.com paper called, Accelerating Analytics Success with On Demand:
- Attempt
- Contact
- Proposal
- Withdraw
- Disqualified
- Do Not Call
- Closed
Time-oriented, integrated data from multiple sources
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) model is disrupting traditional approaches to business analytics. The long deployment cycles, high costs, complicated upgrade processes and IT infrastructure required of traditional on-premise business intelligence solutions are no longer acceptable in the era of on demand. Instead a new breed of analytic solutions has emerged that are simple to set-up and simple to use and deliver immediate business value.
Broad range of uses for SFA
Putting off sales analytics is like putting off winning. But for many organizations, getting started can be equated to getting fit and joining a gym. You know you need to do it, but there always seems to be a good excuse not to. In order to get more out of your CRM investment and drive sales performance with data, not opinions, here are a few suggestions to help make sales analytics a top business priority for your company:
Sales Accountability and Consistency
By improving efficiency and understanding your customers more thoroughly, you can make people feel better about doing business with you. Your entire company can become better coordinated, so that customer contacts are more productive. You will also be able to reduce annoying redundant phone calls or emails to customers, as your online system can instantly tell everyone who has been contacted about something.
Now you have leads. Let’s start calling. It seems like the logical next step, but many CRM software even makes this process challenging. Many sales force applications leave the sales person wondering:
Immediate Access to Information
If you are looking for a way to make your business more efficient, you should consider sales force automation software, or SFA. SFA is a kind of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application that can automate many procedures that now take up a large chunk of time for your sales team.
If you are looking for a way to make your UK business more efficient and profitable, you should consider a sales force automation system.
One of the ultimate goals of every company is to expand its business, sell more and generate more profit. But with the expansion of a business, it becomes more difficult to manage all aspects of the company’s activities and to maintain relationships with customers. This is where software helps.
Sales force automation can turn sales lead tracking a simple and passive activity.
The sales force automation application is completely customizable, down to the color of bar graph you want on your analytics report. Many websites, like Salesforce.com, offer to work with you to develop the unique application you want.
By transforming order forms, activity reports and other paperwork into an electronic format, SFA software cuts back significantly on the need for paper and printing. This saves money on expense, but more importantly it saves time and makes procedures much faster and more efficient. For example, a salesperson in the field can instantly inform you about what’s going on without having to reach you by phone or send you a paper form.
In other cases sales force automation solutions might include hardware as well – i.e., you get everything you need bundled together. If the application allows access from the Web or from PDAs and other mobile devices, there is a chance that all these components will be included too.
Sales force automation can make your business more profitable by keeping you better informed and increasing the productivity and efficiency of your sales force.
But beware of tools approaches. Instead look for true applications that deliver prebuilt best-practices and are designed for specific industries and roles.
Conduct Better Marketing Research
The restaurant was the biggest in the region but because of its unique cuisine, which included hundreds of dishes, it was famous beyond the boundaries of the neighborhood. Like many other restaurants, this one offered home deliveries and subscriptions with discounts. The business was growing and so were the problems.
• Make analytics a business initiative. Determine the metrics that matter and build a plan. Executive sponsorship is critical to analytics success.
This automation process will save time for you and your entire staff. It will also cut down on costs such as paper and printing.
SFA can also generate new leads, based on the buying patterns of your present customers. It can also help you to decide which products to continue with, which to discontinue and which new products you might want to introduce.
- Plaxo
SFA allows you to concentrate more on your business
Customers Are Better Served
In these trying economic times, you need every advantage you can get. SFA can give you the essential competitive edge. By automating so many everyday tasks, it frees your sales and marketing people to focus on more essential and profitable things –like making sales and coming up with creative ideas.
Process support
Eliminate lead sources that don’t produce revenue. A powerful Sales Force Automation solution can identify where good, bad and mediocre leads come from. This helps you strengthen your investment with productive sources and stop wasting money on sources that don’t bring in business.
Marketing And Research
By organizing the information you collect from your customers, the SFA system enables you to conduct better marketing campaigns. You know more about customers’ preferences and buying patterns.
Having all of your departments linked to the same sales force automation software can mean better teamwork –not only within departments, but from one department to another. Since everyone has access to the data, information can more easily be shared.
Sales force automation can be targeted to specific departments or areas of the company. Companies can use sales force automation strictly in the sales department or maybe in the order processing department. Typically in small to mid-size companies, sales force automation is used as a primary way to help the sales force increase the sales of the company.
By the same token, you will also have better knowledge concerning your employees and sales force. Just as you can analyze customer data to understand their needs and preferences, so you can learn about the strengths and weaknesses of your salespeople. For example, you may now know how many sales a particular person makes per month, but you may be missing certain patterns that might indicate someone needs training about a particular product.
Sales force automation software can save you time and expenses, and also improve your customer relations.
Sales force automation also improves the rate and consistency of follow-up. It is amazing the percentage of leads that never get a second call or contact. Charging your contact management with a set of automated follow-up routines will increase you deals immediately.
In difficult economic times, more and more companies are relying on sales analytics to give them the competitive edge and win. Make sure you’re one of them. No more excuses. No more surprises.
SFA offers real-time analytics & reports
Make your team more effective by automating the tedious aspects of selling. Far too often, time is wasted setting up repetitive emails, tasks and appointments. Imagine instead a world in which each time a new lead is created a welcome email goes out, a task is created for a sales rep to call a prospect, and a follow-up email with a brochure is sent a few days later-all automatically. The right SFA tool lets you create an entire set of activities that can be triggered to run automatically, saving your reps countless hours of boredom each week.
You can use an SFA system to improve your market research. It can help you target your customers based on their needs and preferences; it can help you to identify new customer bases that you may not have considered; it can give you ideas for new products to develop.
Contract management comes with SFA
As stated earlier, definitely download the relevant free native AppExchange dashboard applications to jumpstart your sales analytics initiatives and to get comfortable with the AppExchange experience.
Sales People Spend More Time Selling
Sales force automation is either a piece of software or a whole solution that automates the sales efforts of a company. Generally, sales force automation solutions include management of activities like order processing, contact management, monitoring of reserves, sales analyses and forecasts.
Every hour spent on paperwork or searching for information is an hour that a sale is not being made. Having an efficient SFA system allows your sales team to spend more of its time doing what is most profitable –selling.
To understand your sales analytics requirements, you need to consider the following:
In a competitive environment, sales reps can’t afford to be disconnected from prospects. Look for vendors that offer a mobile SFA solution. This will give your team instant access to all sales information on their mobile phones. They can work deals even when away from their computer.
The Advantages of Web based SFA
Also be sure to find out about the trial process and how easy it is to get up and running with an on-demand analytic application on your company’s data.
An SFA system will drastically reduce the amount of forms and other paperwork you now have to deal with on a daily basis. Salespeople, for example, can send out automated e-forms rather than paper orders and activity reports. They can also report back to you instantly from the field, so you don’t have to wait for weekly calls.
Successful sales executives know that “time kills deals.” Sales Force Automation immediately routes leads from any source to the sales rep best suited to close the deal. It can also be set up to ensure that no single rep has too many or too few leads to work on. As a result, leads stay warm, increasing the odds a deal will materialize with you instead of a competitor.
Understand Your Sales Analytics Requirements
A Sales force automation system is something that UK businesses can use to improve efficiency and help their company function more smoothly as a unit. Sales force automation (SFA) is a kind of software application that can be either web-based or installed on your own computer system. There are many possible benefits to using SFA software. They include:
“Porting a desktop application by removing its user interface and replacing it with a Web front-end masks the fact that its internal operations have not been migrated to an on-demand, multi-tenant architecture. The result is likely to perform poorly, to require time-consuming labor for upgrades and patches, and quite possibly to be discontinued when the vendor releases its “real” on-demand product at some point in the future, likely with no satisfactory conversion path.”
The most basic lead capture methods your sales force automation should include are:
CRM has some of the highest failure and lowest adoption rates of any software category. Customer Relationship Management software is famous for complex implementations, confusing features, and the killer–requiring lots of data entry to make it useful. These are the characteristics that make soles force automation so critical to your CRM success.
One of the most important benefits of an SFA system is that it automates so many tasks that would otherwise take valuable time from the schedules of your sales people. With this kind of software, your sales team can easily report back to you online, reducing the need for paperwork, order forms, activity reports and phone calls. SFA is designed to reduce the time taken up by mundane tasks so that more time can be focused on selling. This alone can increase the productivity and morale of your sales team.
Since customer satisfaction is what ultimately determines your success, SFA can help to improve your bottom line. If you can consistently contact customers with the most relevant information and anticipate their needs, you are likely to get their repeat business. They are also likely to refer other customers to you.
When Henry Morris coined the term “analytic application” over 10 years ago, he defined three key criteria as being essential:
Better Market Research
How SFA and CRM Software Work
Here are some common sales actions you want to know about in your sales force automation:
Sales force automations can work for any company, from the largest corporation to the smallest boutique. It offers a number of uses, from sales management, analytics and forecasting to product information, workflow and integration.
Also known as online analytical processing (OLAP), it’s important to look for analytic applications that are built on a separate data platform designed from the ground up with user interactivity and information analysis in mind. They will allow you to monitor and track historical trends and get answers to ad hoc questions, not just static reports. These applications must be simple to set up and simple to use. They should also be built on an underlying on demand business intelligence platform that takes care of the “heavy lifting” by integrating, cleansing, and aggregating data from multiple sources into a single reporting and analysis interface.
Contact Management
How do managers prefer to access and analyze business information–dynamic dashboards, spreadsheets, pdf, PowerPoint, email, mobile device, etc.?
Unless you’re happy managing and maintaining those unwieldy spreadsheets, pivot tables, disconnected Access databases, and numbers that often don’t even add up, here is primer to help you move from sales force automation to salesforce.com acceleration with on-demand business analytics:
“You can decide whether you need to pull and analyze data from multiple data sources (e.g., accounting, inventory, sales, etc.) or just one (CRM). Solutions are available either way; what you want is an application that will allow you to defi ne business rules, historic trends and exception reporting with a minimum of administrative/set up effort.”
SFA is easy to use
Know Your AppExchange Analytics Options
This is where sales force automation can save your CRM implementation from a costly disaster. Sales force automation is the digital assistant every sales associate or call center agent wished they had. Simple, intuitive, consistent systems that move deals forward and inherently tracks your leads is the magic of good sales force automation.
Go for e- Competition
Once you have efficiently captured, tracked, and analyzed your leads, you know what works! But, nothing is more frustrating than individuals on the sales team not adopting best practices. With sales force automation you can drive basic compliance with proven sales processes.
We think so-and we’re confident you’ll agree.
Sales force automation offers a comprehensive analytics program that allows you to track ROI on marketing campaigns, traffic levels, lead conversion ratios, content effectiveness, and more. Users can access information to evaluate their company’s past performance and point out its strengths and weaknesses with the intent to repair those deficiencies. It allows you to customize reports based on the data processed by the analytics program. All the information you get is in real-time and fresh, so that you never have to handle or see old data unless you want to.
By utilizing sales force automation software in the sales department, it allows each sales rep the ability to stay on top of their daily activities such as sales calls, target customers, and helps keep them on task. If used properly, sales force automation software will keep the salesperson in contact with their customers and clients throughout the sales process and is a great tool for follow up contact.
The architecture of sales force automation allows for a decrease in total ownership cost, risk reduction, less wasted time, and the ability to concentrate on business and management instead of technology. This means that you have more time and energy to give to the success of your business.
The software development took about half a year, although the first module “delivery scheduler” was deployed a month after the start. The next urgent module was the products inventory module, which was implemented second. Then support for PDAs and mobiles was made, as well as improvements to the invoicing module to allow calculation of different discounts. Finally, the new sales force automation solution was integrated with the existing accounting system.
When the sales team is globally dispersed and constantly on the road, communication using conventional means is difficult, and the lack of real-time communication is one of the biggest problems for businesses. Sales force automation software solutions address this threat and provide instant communication with sales forces all around the globe.
SFA systems can provide easy training regarding products and sales techniques. This saves time and reduces the need for printed instruction manuals and live training.
Sales Forecasting
Just what is Sales Force Automation? Commonly abbreviated SFA, it’s a powerful software strategy that streamlines sales-force management tasks into a cohesive whole. Using SFA, sales teams can see everything that’s going on with each sales prospect-from the first contact with your company through to becoming a customer. SFA helps sales teams save time, increase capacity and maximize productivity. Will the following strategies help your team achieve greater sales success?
- Individual quotas
- Team and division production
- Territories and product segmentation
The consistency of sales process, provided by sales force automation, makes setting quotas, benchmarks, and forecasts easier and more accurate.
Web based SFA and CRM software are more than simply new software applications. They are designed to transform the way you do business, helping you to make better use of information, make your tasks faster and more efficient and enable you to communicate more productively with your customers. Web based sales force automation can help almost any UK business become more efficient and profitable.
Using simple statuses like these can give you additional opportunities. Incorporating the status data in your marketing automation system will enable you to give each customer a unique experience.
What business questions are the most difficult to answer today? Who is asking these questions? When and why?
Sales force automation software is a way to make your business more efficient and savvy. It can help to increase satisfaction among your employees as well as your customers.
Up-to-date information via SFA
Using a lead management software with sales force automation can give you the flexibility to forecast and drill into answers. Find out who and how your sales force is producing revenue by viewing:
Many companies will jump on the newest sales force automation software before thoroughly investigating and determining their needs and requirements. They therefore end up with a package they are unhappy with and the sales force automation idea goes out the window never allowing the company to realize the full potential of exactly what the sales force automation system could have done to help them achieve greater customer satisfaction, greater sales and of course, more profits.
SFA is Understandable
The advent of automated sales force technology allows businesses to subscribe to already built, on-demand, customizable services without the high fees for maintenance and other costs associated with the large, daunting process and time involved in creating a large, corporate version of sales force automation.
SFA systems produce more and better targeted leads, allowing your sales team to find its customers more rapidly.
Getting leads into your sales pipeline and fueling your sales force automation needs to be a one-click process.
Basically, sales force automation deals with activities like accepting and processing orders from customers, managing inventory, tracking performance of people and sales campaigns, analyzing past market trends to make a forecast for the future, management of promotions and campaigns, etc.
It all starts with lead capture. Helping a sales person get leads or load up there own is the first step in a full and productive sales pipeline. Sales force automation should have a simple, but robust lead capture suite. An agent flush with leads is typically a motivated asset to your team. A sales person struggling to figure out how to get precious leads into their sales management system or forced to type them in is an anchor on your sales production.
The result of the implementation of the sales force automation system was that the work process went more smoothly. The introduction of discounts helped in keeping existing customers and in attracting new ones. The reports function in the new software was extremely useful to the managers to track how business was going and what could be improved further.
The solution is to customize commercial software or to get a custom-made software package. The advantage of getting a whole solution instead of a separate program is that the solution takes into account the specifics of your company.
There are many interactive, real-time charting and Adobe Flex-based analytic dashboard components on the AppExchange today. Some are easier to set up and use than others. Most are eye catching. The native dashboard applications often impress executives and non-analyst roles in the company, but because they are built on the underlying transactional Force.com platform, they typically do little for the people struggling with disparate Excel spreadsheets and historical reporting and analysis requirements. Keep in mind that a nice-looking, mashed-up dashboard widget may have “demo sizzle” and may even make sense for your business process, but all dashboard-focused applications on the AppExchange are not alike. Be sure to find out about the vendor’s vision to go beyond operational or embedded business analytics for one transactional system in order to determine if they’ll be able to meet both your short-term tactical and long-term strategic on-demand information access and analysis requirements.
Would people prefer to answer their own business questions or are they content relying upon the sales operations, business analysts, and/or IT function for information?
Go for e-Sales
Although sales force automation software initially was targeted at big corporations, soon its advantages became visible to middle-sized and small companies as well. Now there are sales force automation solutions even for one-man shops that help them to manage sales cycles and reduce administrative work to increase productivity.
As marketing channels become increasingly diverse simple to use CRM becomes increasingly important. Your customers are expecting speedy responses, unique experiences, and the right person every time.
Sales force automation is now available with mobile capacities. This means that the application is compatible with any mobile device, such as a laptop or cell phone. Thus sales representatives or marketers have access to the information they need any time, any where, both offline and online.
SFA Systems Help You Work As a Team
Have you ever wondered if your business could benefit by automating many sales and marketing tasks? If so, you should consider a sales force automation (SFA) system. These systems are designed to save time and increase the efficiency of your sales team, as well as sales and marketing managers. Some advantages of a SFA system include:
Are you making your sales force update reports on their sales activities? Are they spending their evenings going back and annotating customer records? If so you have the makings of inaccurate reporting at best and no reporting at worst.
More Efficient Training
When all of your sales functions are automated, you can keep better track of your sales force. While you may already have a general idea of how productive different sales people are, an SFA system can refine such data, telling you exactly what each person’s strengths and weaknesses are.
SFA saves you time & money
Your sales people can use automated e-forms rather than spending extra time filling out forms such as orders and activity reports. By automating these tasks, you are saving on paper and printing costs, as well as time.
SFA technology also has benefits for the marketing and research sides of your business. You will have the ability to organize customer information and use it to understand their needs and preferences. This will help you to better manage your contacts with customers and conduct more profitable marketing campaigns. SFA can also generate targeted leads for your business.
- Who do I call next?
- What are the best leads?
- When was the last time I call this lead?
- Which leads are close to closing?
- Which leads need follow-up?
SFA systems can be accessed immediately, so if a salesperson needs information they don’t have to wait for a written copy. Everything can be accessed instantly online.
Tags: ad-hoc reporting, Contract Management via SFA, CRM, Customer Relationship Management, Marketing Research, Process analysis, real-time analystics, Resource management, Sales Force Automation, SFA, SFA Software