We spoke to ValueFirst, Cosmo Films and Sectona to get first-hand insights on ensuring efficient and effective sales automation.
Tip 1: Keep employees and customers at the centre of your journey
[Cosmo Films] Identify processes that are pain points for your customers and employees. Filter these to identify which process, when automated, can create the biggest positive impact for your customer.
[ValueFirst] Companies must identify process champions. These are senior and mid-level employees who will ensure full adoption of the new process and also relay team feedback about the change to the management.
[Sectona] Automation shouldn't become an operational bottleneck for your employees during their learning curve. Define control points and milestones, and improvise to ensure that automation provides the desired benefits.
Tip 2: Create a scientific approach: Define key deliverables and scale
[Cosmo Films] Lay out the short, medium and long-term automation deliverables clearly. Relook at these deliverables once the complexity associated with automation becomes clear, and adjust as needed.
[ValueFirst] A structured approach to sales automation is essential. This should include identifying specific goals, evaluating different implementation options, preparing user adoption strategy, ensuring product access and mobility, robust documentation, and reporting progress with tangible KPIs.
[Sectona] Think about the scale of automation you want to experiment with initially. Do you want to deploy automation to a specific business area or process and then scale it up? Or can you monitor, manage and maintain a one-time sales automation overhaul?
Tip 3: To drive adoption, alleviate concerns and dispel myths that can cause resistance
[Cosmo Films] A common myth is that automation will lead to job redundancies and layoffs. In fact, it frees up sales professionals to understand customers and their business problems better, and work with product teams to bring out more impactful offerings.
ValueFirst] [The biggest myth is that sales automation is expensive. Sales automation is an investment that gives high RoI in terms of efficiency and greater sales.
[Sectona] It is believed that sales automation is only suitable for large-sized companies. Sales process automation is equally effective for lean MSMEs to achieve a level playing ground and improve operational efficiency.
