Robotic Process Automation For Sales Teams
Sales representatives are under constant pressure to bring in new business. When an organization uses time-consuming manual processes, sales professionals often feel bogged down and stuck in an endless cycle of wasting valuable time that could be better spent generating and nurturing leads.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) offers a solution to this common pitfall.
RPA can automate at least a third of all time-consuming, manual sales tasks like lead filtering, reporting, and CRM management. This then enables sales teams to reach more customers and focus on nurturing leads, leading to higher conversions.
What is RPA?
RPA uses software to carry out business processes that are traditionally performed manually by human staff. Using RPA solutions, an organization can configure “bots” to perform any repetitive, mundane business tasks that would typically eat away at your team’s time and waste valuable resources.
RWhen an organization implements RPA solutions, these processes can be fulfilled more rapidly than if they were performed manually. This gives your staff more time to focus on higher priority, higher-value tasks, and helps reduce operational costs.
Benefits of RPA
When it Comes to Sales
When it comes to sales teams, RPA can automate traditional sales processes, leading to increased productivity and more leads.
In fact, according to a report from McKinsey & Company, early adopters of sales automation experience the following benefits:
- More time spent customer-facing
- Higher customer satisfaction
- Efficiency improvements of 10 to 15 percent
- Sales uplift potential of up to 10 percent
Even still, only one in four organizations have leveraged the power of automation within their sales departments.
Let’s take a deeper dive into the numerous benefits RPA can offer your sales department.
Benefits of RPA When it Comes to Sales
When it comes to sales teams, RPA can automate traditional sales processes, leading to increased productivity and more leads.
In fact, according to a report from McKinsey & Company, early adopters of sales automation experience the following benefits:
- More time spent customer-facing
- Higher customer satisfaction
- Efficiency improvements of 10 to 15 percent
- Sales uplift potential of up to 10 percent
Even still, only one in four organizations have leveraged the power of automation within their sales departments.
Let’s take a deeper dive into the numerous benefits RPA can offer your sales department.
Exploring The Benefits of RPA For Sales Teams
More Conversions
RPA bots can help ensure that all leads are properly qualified and nurtured to increase the chances of a conversion.
Cost Reductions
Organizations that have implemented automation within their sales department are estimated to benefit from a 10 to 15 percent cost reduction, according to McKinsey & Company.
Increased Productivity
When monotonous manual tasks are eliminated, sales teams have more time to spend on higher-value priorities and won’t feel bogged down. Instead, they will feel more productive, focused, and motivated.
Optimized Workloads
With RPA bots acting as virtual assistants and taking care of manual procedures related to your CRM, emails, spreadsheets, and more, your sales team is able to optimize their workflow and provide better service to existing customers and potential leads.
Improved Client Relationships
RPA bots are able to collect data from leads and answer basic product questions 24/7 through live chat, giving your sales team more time to focus on the human element of building customer relationships.
Clear Reporting
Reporting is essential to the success of any sales team. Unfortunately, though, it can be incredibly time-consuming. Automating the reporting process enables RPA bots to aggregate data from multiple sources and compile the information into a single report, giving your team much greater insight.
Align Customer Data Across Systems
RPA bots can integrate all customer and third-party data across multiple systems, resulting in simplified, more seamless reporting.
Shorter Sales Cycles
By automating tasks like customer research, quote creation, and even paperwork, deals can be closed more quickly, which speeds up the sales cycle and gives your team more time to find new leads.
Manual Sales Processes Automated By RPA
Now that you’ve learned about the benefits of RPA for sales processes, let’s take a look at which individual process can be automated using RPA bots.
Data Aggregation & Management
RPA bots can be deployed to aggregate customer contact information for your sales team. This means that sales reps no longer have to waste time searching for critical contact information, such as companies, names, phone numbers, etc. These bots can also input this data into your CRM, and crawl the web and other software programs to find more data to add to your existing CRM contacts.
Reporting
As previously mentioned, sorting through data contained in multiple spreadsheets is incredibly time-consuming, and can make it difficult to gather crucial insights.
Fortunately, though, this is the perfect type of task for RPA bots.
When it comes to reporting, RPA can sort through data sets contained in multiple systems and:
- Identify new competitors
- Track events, campaigns, and messaging used by your competitors
- Offer insights into account activity
Lead Management
RPA chatbots can be programmed to re-engage prospects who are stuck in the purchasing funnel without any effort required from your human staff. The bots contact customers through text message or email and answer any questions they may have.
Post-Sales Customer Journey Optimization
Once a deal is closed, the journey isn’t over. Sales reps must continue to foster a strong relationship with customers to keep their business long-term.
With RPA, sales teams can optimize the customer journey by creating a seamless process for ordering, tracking, and query management online.
Invoicing
Without automation, sales professionals are required to manually enter data into their CRM system, which then has to be entered again into another system for the finance department.
When it comes to processing invoices and sales orders, manually entering data and ensuring the data is consistent is a very time-intensive task that is difficult to do without errors.
RPA bots can input data and invoice customers much more rapidly than a sales agent could do manually. The bots can correctly determine and add in the purchased items, quantity, discounts received, and total expenditure, and download it in PDF format, while also automatically transferring data between systems. This helps ensure payments are received more quickly and improves customer satisfaction.
Competitive Pricing & Monitoring
Tired of spending hours manually tracking the prices for hundreds, or even thousands of products and comparing them to your competitors? RPA is an excellent solution to this all too common pitfall.
When it comes to competitive pricing and monitoring, RPA gathers and analyzes competitor data and provides automatic updates, so you can effectively track and monitor their pricing in real-time. This enables you to optimize your pricing, improve profitability, and maintain a competitive edge.
Monitoring RFP/Bid Sites for New Opportunities
Instead of manually searching for new customers day after day, RPA bots can be deployed to crawl RFP and bid sites for new opportunities.
Custom filters can also be used to filter out certain projects so only high-value opportunities are presented.
Generating Quotes
Between coming up with a quote, recording it in multiple systems such as ERP and CRM, and sending it out to prospects, this entire process can be taxing. RPA is able to automate each step of this process so sales reps can focus on more important tasks.
Email Automation
It’s normal to send out emails to leads and customers throughout the various stages of the sales cycle. But what if pre-written emails could go out automatically without your sales team lifting a finger?
With RPA, certain actions can trigger an email being sent out to existing customers and prospects. This includes:
- Email marketing materials
- ‘Thank you’ emails when deals are closed
- Sales pitch emails
- … and more
Challenges Sales Teams Face Without RPA
Time is Wasted
As with any process, tasks performed manually by sales teams take away from time that could be spent nurturing leads and closing deals. As a result, staff feel less productive and unmotivated.
Errors Can Occur
Manual data entry and sifting through multiple spreadsheets ultimately lead to errors and inconsistencies, resulting in inaccurate reporting.
Fewer Leads
As previously mentioned, when time is wasted on time-consuming manual processes, sales reps have less time to find new leads and convert them.
Time is Wasted
As with any process, tasks performed manually by sales teams take away from time that could be spent nurturing leads and closing deals. As a result, staff feel less productive and unmotivated.
Errors Can Occur
Manual data entry and sifting through multiple spreadsheets ultimately lead to errors and inconsistencies, resulting in inaccurate reporting.
Fewer Leads
As previously mentioned, when time is wasted on time-consuming manual processes, sales reps have less time to find new leads and convert them.
Think RPA is Right For You?
Whether you are a beginner to the world of Robotic Process Automation and require some guidance, or you are already familiar with RPA solutions, our goal at Thrive Automation is to ensure your sales team is fully supported and empowered to implement RPA in a way that helps your business reach its full potential.
We offer custom training packages, audits, educational materials, roadmaps, and plenty of ongoing support for any organization looking to utilize RPA to streamline their reconciliation and close processes while saving time and money.