If your sales reps are keeping your customers happy, chances are they’re doing it with the help of mobile apps.
It’s official. Mobile apps have entered the business mainstream, with more salespeople demanding the same benefits they take for granted when they’re using consumer apps off the clock.
Our 2015 State of Sales report found that top sales teams today are significantly more likely to use mobile sales apps than their peers. The result is better sales performance than can be achieved by less well equipped competitors. The top performing sales reps around the world were five times more likely to rate their mobile sales capabilities as outstanding or very good.
UK sales go mobile
In the UK, nearly 60 percent of high performers are using or are planning to use mobile apps for anything from lead management to sales forecasting. That’s almost double the rate found among underperformers, where it’s only a third.
And the numbers are headed north. Among all sales leaders surveyed, mobile sales app use is expected to grow by 125 percent, more than doubling, in the next two years.
Mobile sales in action
Online beauty bookings service Wahanda handles many of its orders through its customer app, but behind the scenes it also benefits from powerful mobile sales technology.
Leigh Phillipson, UK Sales Director at Wahanda, recognised the need for a CRM solution that gives salespeople the mobility and ease of use you get with consumer apps.
“A sales rep might be out of the office for weeks on end,” he explains. “With the Salesforce1 Mobile App, they can access and share data as they move around the country. If a salon calls them up, they can look up their record to remind them of previous conversations.”
Tracking sales and keeping in touch
Reporting functionality was also an important factor. With Salesforce, Wahanda’s management team can track sales productivity and performance.
“I look at our daily metrics on the train every morning,” says Phillipson. “I can see how many new venues have been signed and segment them by type and location to gain a better insight into our growing network.”
To keep sales teams connected when they’re out on the road, Wahanda use Chatter, the Salesforce enterprise social network, as a common communications channel accessible by all. This helps individual teams share insight on sales campaigns, and lets the whole company interact on the move.
Results in plain view
With the help of mobile-enabled CRM, Wahanda has boosted sales performance and speed of execution no matter where a deal takes them. The result: a growth rate of 240 percent.
As well as the bigger picture, Wahanda can zoom in on individual performance and tailor staff development plans. “We can see who are the stars and who needs more support,” explains Phillipson. “If someone is logging in new leads but the conversion rate is low, we can step in and mentor them.”
Don’t forget customer experience
Of course it’s not just about helping out salespeople. Buyers want to make their purchase in a user-friendly interface, on the move, whenever they need it. Hence the unsurprising finding that consumer-facing mobile apps are on the rise.
Of the international sales teams surveyed by Salesforce, 51 percent of the high-performing teams currently deliver or plan to provide customer-facing apps in the next two years. In the UK, high-performers are just ahead of the global pack with 52 percent.
And sales teams are readying themselves for the wearables revolution. According to a research report Salesforce conducted in April 2015, "Putting Wearables to Work," 83 percent of all sales teams are currently using or planning to use wearables in the next two years.
The freedom to sell
Even the best-optimised sales team can’t perform if they don’t have the time to sell, so Wahanda wanted to free them from repetitive administrative tasks.
“We don't want our people spending hours on reports; we want them to be out helping to grow the business,” says Phillipson.
With Sales Cloud, Wahanda has saved £40,000 in annual administrative costs, and can now run reports in just a few seconds. Now the company is looking to expand these savings in other areas. It is exploring the Salesforce AppExchange for apps that will enable electronic contract signing and telesales routing.
“We want to bring more choice to consumers, and that means we need to sign up more salons and spas. With Salesforce we can get to where we want to be faster. It enables us to scale quickly and succeed quickly,” says Phillipson.
Read the Salesforce 2015 State of Sales report to see how you can help your mobile sales teams sell better.
