Are you keeping pace with rapidly changing technology when it comes to your Inside Sales Team?

As the Buyer’s Journey continues to evolve, many companies are starting to rely heavily on an Inside Sales model. Without the advantage of face-to-face meetings, sales professionals are challenged with understanding the mind of their buyer based on a limited amount of data. 

Not so long ago, call center technology could only be found in telemarketing companies, collection agencies, large customer service centers and the like. The paradigm has rapidly evolved over the last few years as we’ve seen a shift from Call Center to full-blown Omnichannel Contact Center. Are you aware of the tremendous value this type of platform can add to your Inside Sales team?

First of all, what is an Omnichannel Contact Center? On a basic level, it’s a platform offering customers a seamless experience across multiple channels of interaction such as phone, email, chat, SMS, social media, etc. When a customer engages, this information is aggregated and presented to agents in real-time with a simple interface.

Obviously this evolution brings tremendous value to a classic call center, but think of all the benefits that come when applied to an Inside Sales model. What if your sales agents could instantly see a person’s name, title, and company when the call comes in? What if they could view a scrolling list of the last 5, 10, 20 interactions that client had with your company? Would this be a game changer for your team? Would it give you a leg up on your competition? 

BUSINESS ANALYTICS
Another area of advancement is around analytics. Coupled with integration into the CRM, this platform offers Sales Managers better tools for understanding overall sales performance. It provides an ability to correlate interaction data with sales and service metrics to see which channels are most effective and highlight inconsistencies before they become an issue. 

SPEECH ANALYTICS
The rapid expansion around speech analytics uses artificial intelligence to analyze agent performance and offer immediate feedback and coaching, all while the rep is on a live call.  This is a much faster and effective way to ramp new reps while providing customers with better interactions. Not only that, you can also monitor reps regardless of where they’re physically located.

POWER DIALERS
Power Dialer is yet another tool that allows an Inside Sales Team to use their time more effectively. By integrating directly into a CRM, reps can access pre-built call list campaigns with a preset or manual delay between calls for time to conduct research. This allows for a more personalized and productive engagement with the Buyer. When they can’t reach them live, Voicemail Drop allows them to leave a prerecorded voicemail so your reps can move on to the next call. 

There seems to be a widespread aversion to the term call center, especially when selling in a B2B market. I’ve witnessed this resistance many times and it really boils down to a misunderstanding around the new tools and technology available. The best contact centers in the world do not feel anything like a call center. Whether your Buyer is calling, live chatting, or sending an email, they need to feel important and valued, not stuck in a queue while trying to get answers.

There are many options in this ever-growing market and Clearest Blue can help you pare down the choice of vendors. We work with you to define your business requirements and then compare them against the tools being offered by the Service Providers. If you would like to learn more, please fill out the contact form below to schedule an introductory call.