In today’s highly competitive landscape, finding and clinching new customers can be a challenging task.

Studies show that over 80% of companies that adopted marketing automation technology like Salesforce CRM have experienced a massive increase in the number of qualified leads they generate.

Lead generation is just one of the many benefits that CRM technology offers organisations. CRM is particularly beneficial in improving the performance and effectiveness of outbound sales campaigns. Research shows that over 65% of sales representatives and companies who have adopted mobile CRM technology achieve their sales quotas much faster, compared to just 22% of those who do not use any form of marketing automation.

Here are five other ways in which Salesforce CRM can help organisations improve their outbound sales performance:

Gather and share important prospect information

The success of an outbound sales program lies in data. It is only when sales representatives, cold callers and fulfilment teams have the right information on hand that they can effectively engage with prospects.

Salesforce CRM technology allows organisations to collate a wide variety of information about hundreds of prospects, in the form of lists. These lists can be edited to contain as much information as the organisation needs. Another advantage is that these lists can be shared with numerous teams and can be worked on by many people.

In fact, the availability of relevant and timely prospect information helps organisations predict customer service needs well in advance, which helps them plan their outbound communication much better.

Identify key decision makers within target markets and client organisations

Cold calling is ineffective almost 97% of the time. Research shows that prospects are usually 2/3rd of the way through their decision-making process before they speak to the organisation for the very first time. To ensure a successful outcome, cold callers must first understand whether their efforts are being directed towards the right people or not. This is where Salesforce CRM helps.

The decision-making process in B2C & B2B markets involve four people – the gatekeeper (the first point of contact), the influencer (the person entrusted with researching the product/service), the blocker (the person who plays the devil’s advocate), and the decision maker (the powerholder who makes the final decision).

CRM technology allows organisations to collect information about each person and the roles they play. This helps them decide who the outbound communication must be directed to and what type of communication must go to them.

Integrate social media marketing with outbound sales campaigns

Social media is an excellent hunting ground for prospective customers. There will be many consumers and B2B leads online who the organisation does not actively target but who may still be prospective customers. Salesforce CRM helps the organisation find such leads by integrating the organisation’s social media marketing campaign with the outbound sales campaign. CRM does this by creating lead profiles and narrowing down on accounts which match these profiles.

Next, CRM can be used to track the prospect’s purchase history through account and timeline-study, and then isolate leads who may be serviced by competitors and who may be nearing their reorder period.

Finally, CRM can use social media information to understand the lead’s personal preferences and send targeted messages or communications about products/services.

Improve customer engagement

One of the biggest Salesforce benefits is in scheduling. It can help sales teams schedule their calls, appointments, and social media posts and track the status of their outbound sales performance.

When the outbound sales team have efficiently scheduled operations, they can implement a more focused lead engagement strategy, which can help them get more business. Repeat calls can be made, and posts can be shared on time to ensure the prospect remembers the organisation and considers them during purchase.

Additionally, CRM automation also helps organisations develop an insights-backed email segmentation strategy, which can be used to send targeted and personalised communication. This has been found to improve email open rates by 39%, leads by 24%, and customer acquisition by 15%.

Enable timely reporting

CRM technology can be used to generate five types of reports:

• Lead reports: A report of the number, type, quantity and source of leads.
• Pipeline report: A report that provides an overview of the entire sales cycle for each customer.
• Open issues report: A report that identifies the various issues plaguing the sales cycle, their status, suggested solutions and customer attrition rate as a result of these issues.
• Lost sales report: A report of customer attrition, reason and date of attrition and competitor analysis.
• Activity report: A report accounting every activity of each member of your outbound and inbound sales teams and their success and failure rates.

All of these reports help the organisation understand what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong and what they can do differently at each stage of the sales cycle. Managers can utilise these reports to re-design their outbound sales programs to ensure they don’t repeat the mistakes of the past and lose out on valuable sales.

At SalesFix, we are Salesforce implementation, integration, and service specialists based out of Brisbane and Melbourne. We can help you integrate CRM technology into your outbound sales campaigns. Contact us for more information.