It’s easy to list off all the reasons that sales acceleration boosts profitability for businesses. What can be forgotten, however, is how much its performance is improved by utilizing business intelligence.
Sales acceleration thrives off of accurate business intelligence. In essence, it is the fuel that drives the process. Sales acceleration is a series of mechanisms that work in tandem to push leads through the sales funnel at a faster rate. By feeding this “machine” with qualitative information, it can pump out better results.
As automation techniques become the gold standard, businesses everywhere are more willing to revolutionize their workplace. They may not know exactly how to capture the full potential of their new tools, but they know they certainly need the upgrade to compete with rival businesses. However, many new adopters are initially unaware that automation tools do not completely take control of the sales process on their own.
Knowledge is power
Although sales acceleration removes an enormous burden from employees by completing tasks smarter, faster, and more efficiently, it is intended to enhance an already-existing sales chain with proven success. It does not fix a broken process, but it can make a functioning business perform better than ever before.
Like any other mechanical process, the quality of the inputs will affect the machine’s performance and, therefore, the quality of the results. In the case of sales acceleration, the power of business intelligence helps sales departments understand their customers and cater to their needs much more effectively.
Business intelligence is fundamental to every stage of the sales acceleration chain. As soon as the marketing team passes qualified leads to sales, they should have collected some useful information already – after all; every lead should have a reason to be labeled “qualified.”
Turning knowledge into sales
Sales teams can begin by plugging any customer information into their sales acceleration tools. The technology is quite powerful, and even minuscule details can help paint a bigger picture that feeds into statistical analyses. Sales acceleration will make sense of data such as the number of times a lead was contacted, their preferred medium of communication (whether telephone, email, social media, etc.), and the products or services they showed interest in purchasing.
It is obviously useful to record customers’ preferences simply to tailor your sales approach around them. Sales acceleration, however, will go the extra mile by making the most of this information. For example, customers contacted via email or social media can be sent customized promotional offers through their respective channels at opportune times. If they displayed interest in specific products, offers could be centered on those products as well as complimentary merchandise. Contacting a lead with a great offer at the perfect time can be the missing link in guiding them through the sales funnel.
As communications progress, sales acceleration takes note and automatically adds to the growing database of business intelligence. The software can analyze data to calculate probabilities of success for each lead at any stage in the game. These individual estimates can then be fed into more encompassing statistics affecting the entire firm, such as revenue projections, allowing businesses to plan ahead with confidence. Uncertainty is often called the greatest weakness of businesses. Although it can never be perfectly eliminated through predictive analysis, it can be greatly reduced by utilizing business intelligence to its full potential.
Taking advantage of business intelligence helps close more deals faster than ever. Today’s technology pushes the limits of what can be achieved using acquired data. When coupled with the latest sales acceleration tools, business intelligence can help better address the needs of customers and bring higher sales revenues – all while reducing human labor from the sales department.