As sales enablement – arming sales reps with the tools they need to improve execution and efficiency – moves away from being just a buzzword to become a top sales management priority, sales managers are coming up with more ways to help their reps. Sales managers need to identify these powerful and simple tools and implement them into the team’s sales process.
Which brings us to Click-to-Dial integration with Salesforce.com.
Click-to-Dial means that sales reps can pull up information, including phone numbers, on a lead or contact in Salesforce.com and, with one click, connect with that person over the phone. Reps no longer have to dig up phone numbers and then manually dial them on their archaic telephones. There are many great options available, including ShoreTel Sky and InsideSales.com, when shopping for Click-to-Dial connectors.
But Click-to-Dial integration provides so much more than just one-click dialing. There are a wealth of benefits associated with this feature. Here are some of the powerful benefits of using Click-to-Dial in Salesforce.com:
-
Increased efficiency – We’ve already touched on this, but this truly is a huge benefit that both sales managers and reps will appreciate. Time is the most precious resource a sales rep has, so being able to work efficiently and get through simple tasks quickly can add up to a lot of saved time over a week. Even something as simple as one-click dialing – instead of looking up the phone number and then manually dialing – will have huge efficiency benefits down the line. You can also quickly hold or transfer calls, or loop leads into a conference call, through the connector.
-
More immediate pre-call information – When pulling up a lead and before making a call, sales reps can quickly get up to speed on the progress with this lead or contact, based on information logged in Salesforce.com. How many times has this person been contacted? How successful were each of these attempts? How many more times – based on your sales call workflow – should we continue to try and call this person?
-
EVERYTHING gets logged – Data-driven Sales VPs crave more and more information on their sales reps and the activities they’re performing; after all, how else can they be expected to improve, other than by analyzing the relevant sales performance metrics? With these Click-to-Dial connectors, all calls are immediately logged in Salesforce.com, with information such as call duration and number of attempts. Sales reps have to record a call result, even if the call is not a productive one. Reps and managers can then pull up the activity history on any lead or contact. Not sure if your sales reps are hitting their daily activity quotas, in terms of calls made? With a Click-to-Dial connector synched with Salesforce.com, you can find out pretty quickly.
-
Recording options – Sales reps can record certain calls to go back over with their sales managers during one-on-one sales coaching sessions. After all, the film review is a critical aspect of improving a rep’s performance. Being able to talk through calls and pinpoint specific mistakes or highlight strong showings will lead to team-wide improvement. Managers can also listen in live on some of their reps calls, to provide silent real-time coaching.
-
Save time with templates – Reps can also produce and save certain templates in Salesforce.com, to be reused again in the right situation. If the situation calls for a generic voicemail or email reply – letting the prospect know you’ll call back later in the day, for example – reps can choose from their saved template options and quickly send the right message.
-
Schedule reminders – Did you catch the contact at a busy time and need to call back in a few hours, after lunch? With these connectors, you can schedule callback times that synch with Salesforce tasks to shoot you a reminder or an alert when the time is right to call someone back.
The tremendous gains in efficiency that a sales rep will see when using Click-to-Dial connectors in Salesforce.com will greatly improve their overall job performance. Additionally, with everything automatically logged in Salesforce.com, managers will be able to review, track and analyze their reps’ sales performance metrics with activities and activity ratios. When starting out with sales enablement tools, a Click-to-Dial integration with Salesforce.com is a no brainer.
