Common Sales Automation Software mistakes and how to avoid them

This is one of the most common mistakes businesses tend to make when implementing latest sales automation software. You may be wondering your new CRM tool, despite having all the advanced new age features you had been looking for, isn’t delivering any better results.

That is probably because you haven’t taken the time to build a strategy and train your employees. Your team hasn’t gained traction yet and is unable to be as productive as they should have been with the tool.

Solution

Whenever a new tool is introduced at the workplace, it is important to be clear about your strategy and long-term goals using the tool. These plans should be clearly communicated to your team as well.

Start by deciding what you want to achieve with this latest sales automation software you are acquiring, what the short-term and long-term goals are, and so on. Then sit together with your team and discuss these goals. Answer their queries and supply training, if necessary, for everyone to be on the same page when they finally start using the CRM software.

Approaching it this way will make things flow much smoother.

The next big mistake with sales automation is the tendency to sell, sell, and sell. The ability to automate your communication with customers makes it easier to push more sales messages, trying to close a deal every time you interact with them. In doing this, you tend to forget the importance of nurturing your leads and customer relations.

Solution

Don’t look at sales automation software as a revenue-building solution. Look at it as a tool for building more connections instead. Look at it from the customer’s perspective and try to understand what they would expect from your brand. Understand the customer’s journey through the sales funnel and decide what message you should send out at which stage. Find what channels you should use to communicate with them for maximum impact.

Instead of pushing them to buy a product, guide them through the funnel and build trust in the process. Eventually, this would translate into many more sales if you can nurture a single lead into a returning customer.

Personalize your messages, tailor messages according to what stage the customer is in their journey and try building goodwill through your interactions.

When you have the possibility to automate your messages, it may be tempting to automate all your messages, sit back and relax. While that does sound ideal, it is not something you should be doing. By doing so, you are losing the human touch to your interactions.

Solution

None of your customers want to be talking to a robot. When your messages are completely automated, your customers can sense it. While it’s okay for some messages to be automated and your customers wouldn’t mind receiving them either, all your communication cannot be generic.

To build better relationships and make your customers feel valued, the human touch is important. Let your sales personnel handle some of the interactions themselves, particularly when there is a customer complaint, or a request involved.

Even if you are sending out automated, triggered messages, make sure to personalize them. Tailor your recommendations based on their past purchases and user behaviors.

A CRM platform gives you the capability to integrate multiple channels for your sales and marketing communications. If you are still using a single channel approach, you are missing a huge chunk of the benefits of CRM.

Solution

When your CRM tool lets you manage all your marketing and sales channels from a single platform, make use of it. Import data from all your online and offline touchpoints with customers. Find out which channels customers are most active on and where you receive the most responses from them.

Reach out to customers on various channels and make sure to offer a uniform, consistent experience across all channels. For instance, if a customer just placed an order, send them an email with the order confirmation and send the same message on WhatsApp too, if they have opted in.

Allow customers to reach you on different channels as well. Instead of just sticking to calls or email as the channels for receiving customer queries and complaints, address them on social media, messengers, and so on.

The more touchpoints you have with your customers, the better the customer experience is.

Though you are eager to boost your sales performance with the new CRM software, it is still important to go slow. Often businesses change too many variables from the word go. This makes it difficult to figure out which variable is driving results, even if you see improvements.

Solution

Start with one variable at a time. Say if you are trying the omnichannel approach we discussed above. Try adding one new channel to your strategy at a time. Measure the performance after changing this one variable and then add another. Or say, when you are trying out a new channel, avoid changing the message that you are sharing. Changing too many things together will not give you correct insights into what worked and what didn’t.

Going slow may mean you will have to run several tests, but the results will be clearer each time.