Don’t give up on leads! How you can get a conversion from every contact

Your team of sales professionals works hard, day after day, to convert new leads into paying clients. Power dialers, CRM, and other telephony tools aid sales people in qualifying leads, placing calls, and closing sales, but even if they are the best group of sales agents in your field they undoubtedly still encounter prospective clients who do not convert. With the same power dialer suite they use to make calls they can also use to lead those contacts to conversion in the near future. This process is called lead nurturing.

The idea behind lead nurturing is that your product or service is so great that everyone will want it at some time. By keeping the mindset that every lead will convert at some point, leads are never automatically dumped into a “not interested” category where they are never thought of again. After all, your marketing department has gone through a lot of hard work to get those leads for the sales team.

Lead nurturing works like this; after the power dialer connects the sales rep to the contact the sales person makes sure he or she gathers a few important pieces of information. This would include name, company name, phone number, email address, and permission to email them in the future. All of this information should be saved with in the CRM (which stands for customer relationship management). If your lead was generated from a form filled out on the company website, it is still a good idea to verify both the information and whether the prospect has given permission to be emailed. With this information your sales team is prepared to help that lead move along the path to conversion even if they initially decide not to purchase your product.

After gathering these crucial data points the contact can be assigned to an enrollment campaign, which can be done right from the power dialer software. These campaigns are a series of tasks that you design to help your contacts build up a bank of positive impressions of your company. What works best is a combination of emails and phone calls. Each task is automatically scheduled by the CRM. Emails are sent at predetermined intervals, and calls are scheduled for your sales agents. The enrollment campaign solution built into the CRM saves time for your sales team, and the small time commitment they do have to give towards these leads pays off in dividends as they convert into valuable customers over time.

What are the strengths of SFA?

A customer relationship management system tracks and organizes all of the processes and tasks that are needed to be done during the sales process. The collecting and automating of all of these tasks is also called sales force automation. A sales force automation system (SFA) is most effective when it is able to integrate the many different departments needed to complete a complex sale from beginning to end. Many telephone software solutions have been developed to support an SFA.

The most basic functions of a sales force automation system are calendaring and scheduling. SFAs are able to keep track of appointments and tasks on both an individual level and for entire groups. This ensures that all follow-up and call-back appointments are kept by sales and support representatives. This simple function is very important to sales force automation, but the other innovative tools used alongside an SFA are what separate it from a simple calendaring application.

Power dialer is a perfect example. A dialer’s purpose is to automatically call through a list of contacts and prospects for a sales agent. This saves a large amount of time for the sales agent who would normally have to look up and dial each number manually. What separates a power dialer from other kinds of telephone dialers is the fact it only calls one number at a time. This straightforward way of placing calls ensures that every answered call will have a sales agent to speak to immediately, and that no call placed by the power dialer is ever dropped.

Faxing, emailing, and voice messaging are three additional tools that support sales force automation. These messages, regardless of the media, can be prerecorded and saved within the
SFA. Any sales agent can send messages with just a click of the mouse and at anytime during a call. This allows him or her to not only give the contact additional information that a sales rep may promise to send, but also leave the best impression possible by using carefully thought out and executed messages.

The true strength of an SFA is enrollment campaigns. This feature is sometimes referred to as ELF for Electronic Labor Force. If a lead or contact fits a predetermined demographic or type of prospect then it can be assigned to a specific campaign. Once enrolled the SFA does all of the work. Previously specified emails, faxes, and voice messages will be sent to the enrolled lead at specified intervals. Additionally tasks will be created for sales agents to call that lead, too. This enrollment program ensures that the lead will receive all of the attention it needs to convert, and sales force automation takes the work out of it for the sales representatives.

Voice Broadcasting

A voice message dialer allows a remote sales business to use voice broadcasting. This technology takes traditional voice message campaigns and implements them in a much more efficient manner.

Voice messaging fulfills several important roles within inside sales. First, it gives sales agents the opportunity to make positive contact with a potential client when they are unable to reach them on the phone. The best possible message a sales representative could leave can be recorded before the sales rep ever makes a call. This message is saved to be used later, whenever a message like that needs to be left. In this way voice messaging becomes a convenient tool, letting the sales rep leave the kind of quality messages he or she would like to every time. Several advances in telephony software make it possible for a sales agent to be able to move onto another call as their computer program leaves that message, which adds up to a large amount of time saved.

These voice messages can still be interactive, for times when a client answers the phone after the sales agent directs the message to be left. Interactive Voice Response, often refereed to by the acronym IVR, grants the contact the option of pressing specific keys on their dial pad to direct the computer program what to do. This could include having their number placed on a do not call list or having a call routed through to a live agent immediately.

Voice broadcasting takes this technology one step further. Voice broadcasting means no longer will a sales agent call through a large volume of calls one by one and leave messages only when a new lead is not contacted. Voice broadcasting takes care of all of that for the sales representatives.

Voice broadcasting works by having a prerecorded message uploaded into its system. Additionally a phone list of potential clients needs to be provided. The voice broadcasting system will dial through to each of those phone numbers automatically. Once those calls are either answered or a voice message system picks up the voice broadcasting system then relays the message saved within it. These messages traditionally are compatible with IVR. Because of this clients are able to speak to a live agent if they choose to do so.

Voice broadcasting not only speeds the contact process, but it also frees sales agents to perform other calls. Voice broadcasting can serve as a powerful way to contact a large volume of contacts in a short period of time.

Sales Lead Tracking

Sales lead tracking is a very important part of the remote sales process. Without it, it is impossible to ensure that the most amount of contacts and leads convert into profitable clients. With it, a remote sales organization can really flourish. There are many B2B software solutions available to help with sales lead tracking. This includes Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems that track and calendar all of the processes associated with lead tracking.

Sales lead tracking starts with importing sales leads from the CRM to prospecting teams. These individuals are responsible for qualifying leads before they are handed over to the men and women on the sales teams. Power dialers help with this process considerably by increasing the number of leads each member of the prospecting team can contact and qualify. Often this number is three or four times greater than what any particular sales individual can call manually. Once these leads are qualified they are transferred from leads to prospects in the CRM.

These prospects are then routed through to available sales representatives. The customer relationship management system can be set to record any or all of these phone calls. These can be saved with an individual’s contacts information within the CRM for future reference, or can be reviewed for quality control. Each action that a sales agent takes with the contact is recorded within the CRM as well, tracking where in the sales process each lead is. Future tasks that need to be completed concerning that lead, such as a follow up call, can be calendared by the CRM. The CRM will automatically remind the sales representative when that scheduled item needs to be completed.

Real time statistics and analytics are an important part of a CRM’s sales lead tracking functionality. These reports are highly customizable so the configuration can be altered to best suit any remote sales organization. The sales lead tracking software built into a CRM can import, export, organize, format, and forecast all of the data it collects through the sales process. By creating visibility reports for management, individuals, teams, or companies can each be accurately evaluated based on their return on investment. By using forecasting reports, in both graphical summaries and detailed sales deal records, sales representatives can accurately forecast revenue flow and prepare the organizations support teams to adequately support the sales and marketing efforts.

Even sales leads that do not instantly convert should be kept track of by the CRM. These contacts often become valuable clients in the future. Sales lead tracking software can make sure that these individuals are kept in regular contact with the company.

Avoid company burnout with an Auto Dialer

Burnout is a serious problem in any profession, including inside sales. This exhaustion often arises when an employee is required to do monotonous tasks over and over again. Disinterest and a lack of efficiency are common symptoms of burnout. To prevent burnout simple and monotonous tasks need to be automated so that the sales representatives don’t have to manually accomplish all of these tasks. An example of a telephony software solution designed to fix this problem is the autodialer.

An autodialer allows a single sales team representative to make a large amount of outbound calls, and to make them quickly. To do this the autodialer needs to be loaded with a list of phone numbers. The autodialer then calls through this list one at a time. As the calls are being completed the autodialer patches the call through to the sales representative. Not only does this remove the monotony of manually dialing, it also speeds up the process. Typical sales agents can increase their sales volume as much as four times when they switch to using an autodialer. Sales professionals can then call three hundred or more people in a single workday.

Dialing is not the only common task that an autodialer can help a sales agent accomplish. This is especially true when an autodialer is used in conjunction with a Customer Relationship Manager. For example, many dialers are integrated with Customer Relationship Managers (CRMs) to provide instant email messaging for sales agents. A significant amount of time a sales representative spends at work is used to fulfill promises he or she made to his or her contact. For every five or six hours spent on the phone two or three them are typically spent sending emails or faxes in response to those conversations.

While a sales rep is on a call using an autodialer, he or she can send en email with barely any effort at all. The CRM stores several email templates that are used often by sales people. With only a couple of mouse clicks the sales representative can have the contact receiving exactly what they wanted within moments of asking for it. This reduces burnout by automating the writing and sending of the myriads of emails a typical sale’s agent is asked to send in a day. That added time can be spent on more dynamic calls to live contacts.

Even the most basic of tasks, creating phone lists for the autodialer, can be automated by the CRM and loaded into the autodialer. The automation of these simple sales chores reduces employee burnout and increases customer satisfaction.

Automatic Call Distribution and what it can do for your business

Inside sales operations spend a most of their time calling people, at least that’s what they should be doing. These outbound calls are often what receive the single greatest amount of a sales representative’s time. Inbound calls are usually more valuable than the individual outbound calls because they can represent existing clients or those contacts who are actively seeking out a company’s product or service.

There are telephony software solutions that increase the efficiency of receiving these inbound calls regardless of whether an inside sales business uses in-house agents or if those agents work remotely. One of these solutions is ACD, or Automatic Call Distribution. The purpose of this telephony tool is not only to allow sales agents to receive inbound calls, but also to route those calls to the right personnel automatically.

ACD call routing works well in combination with toll free phone numbers. Managers of the system can establish which toll free numbers should be answered by which sales representatives. This can be determined by which geographic location the toll free number is advertised in, by which department that toll free number is associated with, or any other delineation. By automatically routing calls based on which sales agents can best responds instantly improves customer relations. In the event that there are no designated sales reps that call is not dropped. Instead, the Automatic Call Distribution system can be directed to route that incoming call to a fail–over number. This fail-over number could be anything from the general office line to voice messaging systems. ACD could even route the call through to one of the agents’ personal cell phones. There is no need for any inbound call to be unanswered or dropped when using ACD call routing.

This telephony solution often offers many quality control features. Usually this includes the option to record calls being completed. These recordings can be stored along with every other bit of data associated with a particular caller. These calls can be retrieved and played back if ever the need arises.

All of this makes it faster and easier to connect incoming calls to the right people. By decreasing customer wait time ACD raises customer satisfaction. When this is linked to an outbound dialer all agents that receive inbound calls can also be actively making outbound calls. ACD removes the slow, down times that can occur in a business day, generating the greatest amount of calls made and sales closed.

Dialer Software that meets the Demands of Inside Sales

Several problems are faced by inside sales teams. Those problems may include—what can be done to increase productivity by making more calls and closing more sales? How is a high level of quality and customer care going to be assured? What measures are going to be taken to ensure that all promises made to contacts will be fulfilled? There are probably numerous answers for each of these problems, but to remain efficient a sales team needs to use one simple and effective solution to meet all of these needs. Power dialer software is such a solution.

Power dialer software, in its simplest form, is a program that automatically dials phone numbers from a contact list for a sales agent. This alone decreases the amount of time spent on each individual call and increase the volume of calls each sales person is able to make in a typical work day. Power dialers are designed to help a sales representative to make three hundred dials in a day, compared to a manual dialing average that is around seventy five.

Phone dialer software increases productivity further when that dialer is integrated with email or voice messaging solutions. From the dialer software previously composed emails and voice messages can automatically be sent. This frees the sales agent from using valuable calling time waiting to leave messages himself on voice mail systems or sending various different emails to many different customers at the end of his or her work day. A typical sales person spends only five or six hours of their day making phone calls and upwards of three hours sending emails or other messages to those contacts. Phone dialer software cuts this time down to a fraction of what it commonly takes, all with only a couple of mouse clicks.

Using carefully constructed emails and voice messages is also one of the steps dialer software takes to ensuring quality control. Instead of fumbling over their messages sales agents can record one in their own voice that says exactly what they and their employers want said. An additional way phone dialers assure quality from a sales team’s performance is with optional call recording. By recording and monitoring sales calls training can be planned to strengthen the sales agents and help them be more efficient in their job.

Each of these functions of well designed dialer software works together to create an easy to use system that meets the demands of inside sales.

Complex Sales require the Power Dialer

An outbound phone dialer is a kind of telephony software that automatically calls through a list of phone numbers for a sales agent. Power dialers are one specific kind of dialer that is particularly effective. A sales representative who switches from dialing manually to using an outbound power dialer can expect a large increase in the volume of sales calls they can make in a business day. Research has shown it is not uncommon for this increase to be as much as four times the previous call volume. Some sales reps report that they are able to make three hundred to upwards of three hundred and fifty calls using a power dialer. That is equivalent to doing eight hours worth of work in only two or three

Outbound dialers work by loading a telephone number list of contacts or leads and then dialing them one at a time for the sales agent. The agent receives a phone call, from the dialer. When he or she answers the call, the dialer automatically patches through the phone call with the lead. After the call the sales representative stays on the line, and the dialer automatically patches through another call. This continues for as long as the agent stays on the line.

Power dialers call through this list one number at a time. Other outbound dialers that call a group of leads simultaneously are called ratio or predictive dialers. This allows these other dialers to call more leads, but only one of those calls can be routed through to the sales agent at a time. If more than one lead answers during each round of calling those extra calls are dropped, cutting off the other contacts who answer their phones. Additionally, it takes a moment for the outbound dialer to recognize when one of the many calls they are making is answered. This small time is referred to as a telemarketer pause, and often annoys leads being contacted.

Power dialers eliminate both the problems of the telemarketer pause and dropped calls. This makes the power dialer especially suited for complex sales processes, including B2B (business to business) sales. Since B2B sales often involves speaking to secretaries before a decision maker, and since they also tend to be high stakes sales, it is especially important to give each contact a personalized and streamlined approach. Other types of dialers just cannot do this.

Four telephony software solutions that increase lead management

Proper lead generation and response management requires a whole collection of complementary communication and telephony software tools. These lead management solutions work to better the sales experience during the entire sales process.

A power dialer helps you reach more leads quicker. Dialing manually sales agents generally average thirty to fifty calls in a standard work day. With a power dialer sales representatives can contact one to two hundred leads in a workday. In addition, when a power dialer is integrated in other telephony software such as an online CRM, the dialer is able to organize, guide, and prompt the sales agents using it to follow a pre-defined sales process.

Generally, a sales rep who spends five or six hours a day on the phone will need to spend two or three hours off the phone fulfilling promises to provide proposals, faxes and emails. Email or fax messaging telephony software provides a sales team with templates for all of these collateral processes. Sales agents are then able to fulfill these tasks while they are still on the phone with a lead. Sales team members can then spend a full day contacting newly generated lead, and all without sacrificing any customer service.

The addition of inbound outbound call blending to a telephony software suite allows sales reps to address customer needs even further. With this software solution every sales agent can be actively calling newly generated leads. These lists of leads are programmed into the dialer, and they are automatically routed through to the sales agent. With inbound outbound call blending, these outbound dialing sales reps can also receive calls. When an inbound call is received the dialer patches that call through to the sales agent instead of dialing a new lead for them. This ensures that every existing customer is adequately taken care of without sacrificing important time reaching out to prospective clients.

Voice messaging is another important piece of telephony software. It is not rare for sales agents to sit through many voice mail messages while dialing leads. With a voice messaging system this wasted time is eliminated. In order to work a message needs to be recorded by the sales rep. This message is then saved in the voice messaging system. When the agent gets a lead’s voice mail system, the sales agent can simply direct the dialer to continue to another call automatically, and leave that prerecorded message. While the telephony software completes this task the sales agent can continue on to another call.

This is not an exhausting list of telephony software solutions. There are many different tools available for the sales professional that sells remotely.

Great Telemarketing Software Options

Telemarketing, or telesales, is a form of direct marketing, where individual sales agents contact leads and solicit the prospective client to buy their products or services. It is a form of remote, or inside sales, which means the lead interacts with the company over the phone and not in person. To support this industry a wide range of useful telemarketing software has been developed. Telemarketing software solutions offer different usability to sales teams, and not all solutions are necessary to create a functioning sales operation.

A Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) is one of the most useful forms of telemarketing software. The CRM stores and tracks all of the data and processes associated with the sales process. A CRM allows many of the needed tasks associated with taking care of current or prospective clients to be automated.

A telephone dialer is another one of the most basic and useful telemarketing software. A phone dialer takes a list of phone numbers and automatically makes those calls for sales agents. It then patches those calls through to the available sales rep. Dialers are able to retrieve phone lists from a customer relationship manager, or it can be programmed in some other way.

Email or fax marketing software is another option. These give many options to a remote sales team. For example, a number that is not reached may be sent an email or fax message instead, ensuring that the lead receives some sort of contact. Also, a sales rep on the phone with a customer can instantly send an email or fax when they ask for more information. The agent is able to immediately follow up on his offer and not waste time fulfilling it later or potentially forget about it.

Another useful example of telemarketing software is web form callback. This software solution is intended to make sure that new leads generated by web forms from the company’s site are contacted within minutes of that form being submitted. This works by automatically creating a lead from a submitted web form, creating a task in the CRM for that lead to be contacted, and instructing the dialer to complete that task as soon as it can. With this tool an agent can be calling that prospective client back in minutes.

These are only a few of the many different telemarketing software solutions that have been designed for the expanding industry of inside sales. Each serves to improve the sales processes, and give more customer satisfaction.

Power dialers fix several problems of predictive dialers

Telephone dialers are software solutions that allow a sales professional the ability to call through a large volume of phone numbers in a business day. There are several kinds of telephone dialers, but they have several defining traits in common.

The purpose of a telephone dialer is to increase the number of calls made. Call centers and similar inside sales organizations frequently report an increase that is four times what they were calling previously. Because number of leads called increases the number of leads contacted. The end result is the number of sales closes increases and more money is made for the business.

To operate, every telephone dialer needs to be programmed with a list of phone numbers to call. Depending on your customer management software used along with the telephone dialer when each number is called more contact information on the lead may be presented to the sales agent on their computer screen. As numbers are called by the telephone dialer, the dialer routes answered calls to sales agents. This greatly reduces the amount of time individual sales representatives spend looking up leads’ contact information, manually dialing the phone numbers, and sitting through ring tones, busy signals, and answering machines.

The differences are in the amount of calls placed by the dialer at a time. Predictive dialers call many leads at a time. The ratio of how many people called is customizable, and different from call center to call center. The predictive phone dialer automatically calls whatever number of leads it has been programmed to, and then it analyzes the response. Busy signals, disconnected numbers, and voice mail messages can all be identified by the predictive dialer and the call is disconnected. Those that are answered by a live human are routed to a sales agent. While many leads are able to be called in this manner, there are a couple serious drawbacks. First, there is a pause when the lead first answers as the dialer attempts to identify whether or not there is a live person answering. Second, if more calls are answered than there are sales reps present then those calls are dropped.

A power telephone dialer addresses these problems. Instead of calling a whole mass of leads at once, the power dialer calls one lead at a time for each sales representative. While this means a slightly smaller number of leads being called compared to a predictive dialer (though it is still significantly more than manually dialing), the “telemarketer pause” and the risk of dropping calls are almost completely eliminated.

Online dialers provide all of the benefits of other phone dialers, but with less of the stress

Standard telephone dialers offer incredible power to companies who use them. The downside is they can come with the inconvenience of purchasing, installing, and managing hardware. Many companies require the purchase of dialer hardware, or design their software to only work with specific phone lines.

A less taxing alternative is a company who has designed a phone dialer that needs no onsite hardware. Often, this requires the purchasing, installing, and upkeep of that company’s software. With each added feature or business solution the amount of software that is mandated to be downloaded on the client company’s own computers increases.

An online dialer eliminates the hassle of both the acquisition of dialer specific hardware and the installation of dialer specific software. It is by far the most convenient way to use a dialer, and it has at least as much usability as other dialers.

A dialer allows a single remote sales professional to quickly make a large number of outbound calls. Dialers are ideal for call centers, telemarketers, or any business that sells a product or service remotely. Phone dialers are first loaded with a list of potential leads. Depending on the dialer it may either automatically call through each entry on the list at a preset pace or the sales rep may place the call with a click on his computer. Once a number starts to ring, or is answered, that call is immediately routed to an available sales agent.

An online dialer accomplishes all of this, but without requiring a remote sales company to purchase the previously mentioned hardware or software. An online dialer is able to do this because of the relationship between the purchasing company and the providing company. The provider could accurately be described as a host for the online dialer, and likewise the dialer could be called a hosted dialer.

Instead of needing specialized equipment, the online dialer requires three things: a PC, a phone line and with a phone, and an internet connection. All other hardware is kept at the host company and maintained by them. All software is hosted on the provider’s servers. Everything the client company needs is provided through the internet.

Online dialers eliminate much of the hassle of purchasing a telephone dialer. They also lower the initial capital need to invest in a dialer system. They still provide all of the important business solutions that phone dialers are none to provide. These include inbound / outbound call blending, integrated email and fax messaging with templates, real time data management and analytics, immediate response callback, and call transfer and recording. Online dialers provide the simplest way to receive all the benefits of using a phone dialer.

Who should use a CRM?

Any business who sells products or services would do well to use a Customer Relationship Manager, or CRM, especially for a business that sells remotely. Additionally, a CRM is an important efficiency enhancing solution for any organization that uses a call center. The purpose of a Customer Relationship Manager is to organize and track all of the processes and data associated with each lead and client.

A CRM automatically fulfills many of the responsibilities a sales agent would have to perform. The many software solutions designed to compliment the data and task management of a CRM increases the versatility of it dynamically. With supporting computer telephony integration software, a Customer Relationship Manager can instantly capture leads from web forms filled out and submitted by interested contacts via the company’s website. Coupled with a telephone auto dialer, a CRM will upload its list of leads and route those calls through to the best available sales rep for each call. A CRM can even quickly send templated email messages or leave prerecorded voice messages to the lead that the sales rep is contacting with only a single mouse click by the agent.

By acquiring the services of an outside company, Customer Relationship Managers can be provided for remote sales operations without the capital investment into software design or hardware purchase. Instead, all of the necessary components of the CRM are hosted by the providing company. These Customer Relationship Managers are referred to as hosted CRMs or online CRMs.

These hosted Customer Relationship Management tools often provide a very high level of customization within their programs, in addition to having an outside firm that can specifically develop software solutions for a particular business’ or organization’s needs. This includes options such as “drag and drop” functionality. This is a common software function, when applied to CRMs, allows CRM users to individually customize their CRM to their specific business model. The users can add new layouts and fields, customize size, color, and placement of fields, and do so at either the company or sales rep level. Data can be dragged and dropped in whatever position the sales agents want on the screen.

A hosted CRM provides remote sales businesses the tools needed to effectively use all prime business time by reducing wasted time and making the tasks associated with sales easier to accomplish. It is a worthwhile investment even for very small operations, and scales to be productive for much large businesses as well.

Customer Relationship Managers are powerful, but they need a supporting cast

Customer Relationship Managers are powerful players in the remote or inside sales world. These software databases record and store all of the important data on each lead and client for a company. They also track and enable all of the processes used to contact those leads, close sales, and keep their clients.

Customer Relationship Manager is often abbreviated to CRM. A company that is only using a Customer Relationship Manager but is not utilizing other telephony software tools is failing to get all it can out of its CRM. Many different telephony software solutions are able to integrate perfectly with a Customer Relationship Manager. Adding a telephony solution will help each sales agent make more contacts, close more sales, and increase revenue.

While there are many kinds of helpful software, the telephone dialer is the flagship of these telephone tools that support a CRM. Phone dialers are available in several variations, though most work on the same principles. Dialers call through a list of lead information automatically and route those calls through to a sales agent. Dialers pull this phone list from the CRM, which is able to generate these lists of leads automatically from forms submitted by the customer on the company’s website or from spreadsheets containing contact information that had been created previously. Without a dialer sales agents would be forced to call through each individual number in the CRM manually. They also would have to suffer through the long list of wrong numbers and busy signals that a dialer would simply avoid routing through to a sales rep.

These two telephony solutions, the CRM and the phone dialer, benefit from other tools available, such as a voice messaging system. This would allow a sales agent to leave prerecorded messages on voicemail machines. Instead of waiting to leave a message of his own he can then move on to the next call while the dialer and CRM continue to leave the message. Email messaging, inbound/outbound call blending, and up to date call analytics are other examples.

When using these software tools to instantly capture leads, route the calls to the agents, and provide the additional features to allow sales agents be more effective at following up more leads are contacted, more sales and closed, and more revenue is produced.