3 minute read
There’s no doubt that salespeople are grateful for technology assists. Remember having to memorize every client’s kid’s name and baseball average to make them feel special? Or toting around a bulky Rolodex that included everything you ever wanted to know about your client – including birthdays and favorite restaurants – on a 2” by 4” card? It’s hard to imagine how businesses functioned at all without the convenience and accessibility of technology.
Let’s welcome the newest member of the sales team: automation. Here to make business processes, including the sales cycle, that much more efficient, automated technology solutions have become critical players in the revenue game. Taking on the prospecting and lead nurturing processes, marketing automation engines move buyers down the sales funnel and spoon-feed high quality, ready to buy, prospects right into the open arms of your sales team.
Automation can include anything from business mapping—providing sales territory optimization and service alignments—to simulating, which can mean learning a client’s potential behavior or simulating weather patterns in order to assess risk management. One company’s automation story starts with a one-and-done customer transaction model and ends with annually renewing clients and a substantial increase in revenue. Now that’s technology to be thankful for!
The Automation Engine That Could
California-based business MyCorporation, formerly an Intuit company, helps small businesses incorporate and offers online document filing services. These small businesses often also need intellectual property information, and MyCorporation offers trademark searches, copyright registrations, and other information services.
Traditionally, incorporation and intellectual property searches are a one-touch service. MyCorporation, however, wanted to build long-term, enduring relationships and retain clients in an extremely competitive industry. They needed to provide a service that offered real value to clients, was automated, and would consistently keep MyCorporation in front of its customers.
The result was MyIncGuard™, an automated small business compliance engine that creates multiple touch points with each MyCorporation client. After the initial service is performed, MyIncGuard continues to provide further benefits to the customer, and consequently, additional earnings to the business.
The compliance engine provides an automated process that alerts MyCorporation’s clients to urgent matters such as quarterly tax and annual report reminders, as well as process activities such as online form completion.
MyCorporation went to market with the new service and saw revenue results instantly. The service was an immediate hit with customers and significantly grew revenue during its very first year. By creating consistent contact with each client, and providing meaningful information with each contact, the business discovered its niche in the world of automation.
Every single business stands to benefit from employing the latest technology and automated services. Whether it is by opening up a new channel of communication, becoming continuously visible, or by simply freeing up employees to focus on customers rather than on performing repetitive and programmable tasks—automation is the next step to increasing productivity and efficiency, and to realizing the goal of revenue growth.
If your sales team is grateful for having the baseball stats for Mr. Smith’s son with just a glance at their smart phones, imagine their gratitude when all they have to do is focus on Mr. Smith’s bottom line: an automated engine will do the busy work quickly and more efficiently.
