Some of the biggest challenges organizations face are related to the way content is captured, stored and managed, usually spread around multiple repositories, with different multichannel sources, and not providing enough insights if only basic search and business intelligence tools are used. The way to tackle these challenges and become a data-driven company is to handle this process from the first stage of the content management lifecycle where the information touches the entry point. This means that field teams will be in the best position to capture valuable input. The traditional model of considering business intelligence and iteration of what’s on legacy systems is still an option, but there’s a substantial amount of information that companies are not considering and analyzing. That data resides on the entry and offline points. Within retail and wholesale, where more complex sales happen, it tends to be even worse. So, what are the gains of a data-driven sales model? Continue reading.
There are three stages of dealing with the huge amount of data that complex sales originate:
CONTRACT MANAGEMENT
Service conditions (the legal component), products and services definition (logic sequence according to the product selected and connection with the logistics area), consent (client e-signature), and KYC (Know Your Customer) diligence (guaranteeing that customer data is accurate and that the onboarding process does not carry future risks).
PRODUCT/SERVICE ACTIVATION
After selecting the product/service bundle, it’s necessary to activate it by inserting data into the corporate systems without changing customer’s legacy process.
ANALYTICS
According to the customer buying journey, it’s possible to understand behaviors, get alerts and act upon them. For instance, how much time he is in each phase of the buying journey, difficulties in the engagement with the salesperson, errors in the capture process, sales locations, whether to recommend product B to a customer who buys product A or what spending limit is appropriate for customers with certain characteristics, and so on. All of this data will allow making informed decisions, to train better, sell better and upsell better.
What does your company gain with a data-driven approach?
Immediate, tangible and long-term business growth and profit:
1. Increase sales conversion
It’s possible to quantify the benefits of this approach: an average of 20% increase in sales conversion! It is striking, and it happens because it solves two main problems. Before, the seller didn’t have the right tools for client onboarding and sometimes the sales process took so long that the client left. Now, a substantial portion of previously lost sales will be captured.
2. Increase customer satisfaction and staff
There’s also an increase in customer and staff satisfaction. The customer can leave the store assured that all the services are activated and there will be no need to come back later, saying there was an overcharge or criticizing that some services are not available because there’s a due diligence process. From the staff’s perspective, there will be a transparent process put in place. They will know how their commission is processed and they will receive hints on what to do to improve their sales process, mitigating common mistakes and increasing upselling options.
3. Increase margin per transaction
The margin per transaction also increases, thanks to automation. After the sales process is closed, the system goes through the information and automatically inserts the info in all the available legacy platforms. Therefore, the transactional cost will be lower.
4. Reduce transaction time
Similarly, transaction times are reduced. This is key within the current environment where customers want to have things immediately available. There’s an expectation due to the consumerization of technology that things are easy to do and ready in real-time. From the seller point of view, that transaction can be immediately invoiced, benefiting its bottom line.
5. Data-driven approach with transformational sales operation platform
By focusing on the data capture process, you can start building a data-driven approach with a transformational sales operational platform.
- Coach: real-time individual and team analytics and coaching to help sales team – You can coach your team for real-time analytics, both at individual and team levels, and train them to sell more.
- Communicate: colleague tool that ensures that every individual has reviewed and read key messages – When you make any change everyone will be notified. Salespeople will get a push notification explaining the new process, informing how to sell this product and how it matches with the full portfolio already in place.
- Motivate: sales gamification and improvement goals to engage sales team – The layer of motivation based on sales gamification and improvement of goals to engage the sales team cannot be underestimated. Sales teams will be more transparent, will make fewer mistakes and will be inspired to monitor their progress towards a certain goal.
- Track: real-time collection of data points in all channels – Another advantage is the tracking system, which ensures data collection is done in real-time in multiple channels. Everything is collected into a central point, and that is where the manager can access real-time analytics.
- Analyze: analytics to rapidly ascertain proposition and customer journey performance – Now the full circle is complete. This is where the journey ends. Through analytics, it is possible to understand the customer journey performance. If the customer usually takes a lot of time to choose between two products, what can you do to improve that process? If the transaction takes an unusual amount of time when it gets to the payment option, what kind of alternatives should the customer be offered? This will give you analytics to make better decisions and change your operational process.
- Manage: set immediate tasks to employees to drive business performance – In terms of management, this sets immediate tasks to employees that will drive their business performance. They will be driven to fix things and be empowered to resolve issues that might happen. With the customer in front of them, they’ll be able to get notifications and make an up sale right on the spot.
We have the experience, the tools, and the knowledge to support you on this journey and leverage this gains of a data-driven sales model. Let’s talk? We will be glad to help you succeed.
To Dos:
– Look across the range of your sales activities to see where content analytics could provide business insight to understand customer needs, improve competitive advantage, increase sales, leverage sales people performance, help to solve cases and investigations or prevent non-compliance and fraud!
– Inbound content handling can rapidly overload your staff and reduce the speed of response to customers. Use automated data recognition, routing, and data extraction.
– Unless your staff is diligent and consistent at declaring, classifying and tagging records, consider providing auto-classification assistance or full auto-classification. Be aware that your information governance policies need to be updated and consistent as they will provide the rules for automation.
– Clearly define your offering bundles, goals, team, and targets.
– Train and create an effective sales network.
– Implement a data-driven client onboarding solution that gives you the insights you need to grow and comply with existing regulations.
– See how Papersoft approach to Large Service Providers can help improve your business and bring you more revenues.
– Subscribe to our blog to receive valuable insights about mobile and paper-free processes.
– Ask for a demo that will enable you to materialize a data-driven sales model!
– Download our ebook “How to become a data-driven company? Start from the entry point” and know more about how to move beyond having data to being data-driven.
Let’s Talk