How to Choose the Best Sales Force Automation Software for Your Business
What Is Sales Force Automation Software?
Salesforce automation software or SFA software is an advanced tool that optimizes all the unnecessary and time-consuming operations done by your sales team. From boosting sales scheduling to finding new sales opportunities, SFA helps you to generate reviews and shortly turn them into profit. It mainly serves as the client acquisition software while making the sales process smoother and more productive.
What Operations Does The SFA Cover?
With sales force automation, you can automate various non-revenue generating procedures such as sales inventory, account management, contact management, sales process management, customer tracking, effective communication, sales forecasting, product knowledge, sales lead tracking, team performance evaluation, and analytics.
How to opt for the best SFA software?
Before obtaining the best sales force automation software, it is advisable to pay attention to the following factors:
Purpose:
SFA software is programmed to meet the specific needs of your business. Before investing, it is vital to ask if you need SFA software as well as which operation do you want to automate? It helps to make an informed and well-calculated decision.
Free Trial:
Most of the sales force automation software vendors offer a free trial version. You should explore the features and benefits of the best free sales force automation software before locking the purchase.
Features And Offers:
You should be updated regarding the features of the software and if it is going to benefit your business. How many users does the package allow? Is it user-friendly? Does it come with an email/SMS notification function?
Budget:
There are different categories of software at different prices. Also, specific software comes with basic and premium plans. You must decide which the best SFA software is keeping the needs and your budget in mind.
What Categories Of SFA Are Currently Available?
Depending on the business needs and the budget, there are currently three categories of SFA software available for you to choose from:
On-premise SFA Software:
This software is installed on your machines, as a result it requires one-time license purchase. They are quite powerful hence suitable for massive IT infrastructures. However, they are not very secure and require maintenance of the hardware.
SaaS SFA Software:
This cloud-based software benefits Solopreneurs and SMB. It is readily accessible to its users as it only requires an internet connection. They are cheaper as they do not require separate hardware installation.
Cloud-hosted ERP Solutions:
These are high-performance software that covers a variety of features and management tasks. They possess advanced features that make them scalable. However, they are expensive and high-maintenance.
Why Do You Need SFA Software?
According to Forbes, Sales representatives spend nearly two-thirds of their time on non-revenue generating operations. If these tasks are automated and optimized with the help of the sales force management software, they can save a lot of time and focus on the main task that is selling. Not only do they automate field sales but also the salesforce automation software helps in the performance evaluation and lead generation process. It’s intergration with a Customer relation management (CRM) tool helps to increase customer experience. You save time, money and enhance productivity with the efficient automation and optimization process.
Features Of SFA Software
Contact Management
The SFA software allows its users to organize their sales schedules according to their priority. Not only can they keep the latest customer information but also keep track of all interaction history in detail. They can generate statistics and timely reports giving you full visibility of your sales team’s actions.
Sales Forecast
By analyzing the past sales interactions, the latest market trends, and current progress, the SFA software can predict future sales revenue.
Device Friendly
The software can be accessed through different devices and multiple networks. As a result, Field workers can quickly gain real-time data and updates through their smartphones from anywhere and at any time.
Reports And Analytics
SFA software offers performance-based reports and analytics based on sales, products, revenue, or salesperson to gain insights in real-time.
Personalization
The software is highly scalable therefore it can be customized as per your business requirements.
What Are The Key Benefits Of The SFA Software?
Increased productivity:
The best sales force automation software enables a smart scheduling process to create and keep track of all the appointments. It also notifies its users regarding the upcoming tasks. This ensures efficient functioning as a team and improves business as well as customer relationships.
High revenue:
With smart forecasting features, you can stay updated about customer behaviors and market trends. It helps to make informed investment decisions and campaigns aimed at generating high revenue.
Time-effective:
Automation features take care of all the mundane sales operations such as scheduling, account and contact management, tracking, and analytics freeing the salesperson to focus on other important aspects of sales.
Team management:
With real-time access to employees, opportunities, market, and sales analytics and reports, you can utilize the data to evaluate the current effectiveness of the sales team and work out the weaknesses.
Customer Performance Insights For Sfa Software
Software Suggest has created the following insights for the software:
- 45% of salesforce automation software buyers are from India and 12% from the US.
- 78.9% of customers prefer the cloud-based SFA software, and only 8.9% of customers prefer the on-premise SFA software.
- 49.4% of customers prefer up to 50 USD budget and 22.4% prefer approx. 500-10000 USD budget.
Market Trends In SFA Software
Implementation Of Ai:
With the integration of Artificial intelligence to salesforce automation software, the sales team will have much better interaction with their customers. AI will enable managers to identify the issues and offer recommendations that will directly address the problems of their customers.
Social Media Integration:
In-terms of having a robust digital presence, social media offers a great platform. Therefore, SFA must provide easy connectivity to them to increase brand awareness and generate more sales.
Mobile Application:
Most of the sales process involves on-site operations. Having mobile sales force automation software can make the sales team members gain access to data on the go and increase their work efficiency.
Why Should You Choose Fieldez SFA Software?
Streamlining your company’s sales process with FieldEZ SFA software can have enormous benefits for your business. It provides you with a platform where you can collect, store, analyze, and distribute customer data to your tea members. FieldEZ sales force automation software is a part of CRM that allows a comprehensive view of all the interaction history and details of the customers. Not only do you save time but also improve your customer relationship. In conclusion, FieldEZ SFA solves the issues of small to medium businesses and is available at affordable prices.
FAQs:
- What should you choose – SaaS or On-Premise Sales Force Automation software?
It would be best if you went for SaaS as their pricing models are flexible and the cost of upgrading is relatively low as compared to On-premise Sales Force Automation software. Additionally, Saas provides much better security than on-premise.
- What functionalities should my SFA software include?
Good SFA software must include functionalities such as compatibility, accessibility, multi-language & multi-currency features, geo-localization, and analytics.
- Can the Sales Force Automation system be used across all the verticals?
Yes, sales force automation is accessible across all the verticals.
- How will Sales Force Automation Software help my business in making more sales?
Advanced features of sales force automation help you in making a compelling choice for investing money, track leads and deals in real-time, and optimize all your current campaigns to help you gain maximum leads and stay ahead of your competition.
- Is an SFA system worth the investment for a small business?
Investing in the SFA system is in the best interest of small businesses. It now only optimizes sales strategies but also has proven effective in driving more leads.
- What is SFA in CRM?
SFA is the integrated software of CRM tool that helps to automate and optimize sale leads, forecasting, performance, and analysis. Automation helps to increase efficiency in business which in turn helps in better customer relations.
- Why is Sales Force Automation Important?
SFA organizes and streamlines all the repetitive operations of sales, helping you to save a lot of time and generate maximum leads.
- Which industries use Sales Force Automation software?
Manufacturing industries mainly use SFA software for manufacturing distribution and pharmaceutical companies.
sales force automation software (SFA) enables you to streamline your company’s sales processes. It helps in managing your sales pipelines, track contacts, and configures products by providing a mechanism for collecting, storing, analyzing, and distributing customer data to the salespersons and managers.
The software is part of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and allows a comprehensive view of all the interactions and activities between your company and the customers, including customer support and marketing interactions. This ensures that you contact the customer only when needed and avoid over-contacting.
Sales force automation software also offers a lead tracking feature to maintain sales leads acquired through marketing and sales campaigns. This improves your up-selling and cross-selling. Moreover, SFA enables sales forecasting, order management, and product knowledge in addition to integrated scheduling as well as calendar and email synchronization.
There are different types of SFA tools available in the market; from free and basic to costly and accurate programs. Features may also differ, as some solutions do nothing but consolidate leads, while others are more robust and ensure automated sales insights and track the entire sales cycle in addition to performing custom branding. To select the suitable software, make sure that it fits your needs. Below are some of the points that we think are important in choosing the best SFA software:
1. Cloud or on-premises: Based on the installation, a sales force automation software is categorized into two types; SaaS and On-premises. The SaaS software is paid monthly and is hosted on the server of the vendor. Thus, the business owner does not have to install, update, and maintain the software. On the other hand, the on-premises software is hosted on the company’s local server and is covered with a single license. This is the most expensive type and requires a complex setup and regular extra hardware installation.
2. Contact Management: Keeping track of every lead in the pipeline is tough. The beauty of a sales force automation system, especially in the field service management industry, is its ability to manage the contact list of the team. A good sales force automation system will schedule and reschedule the sales meetings automatically. This structures your team’s time efficiently. Additionally, the automation software updates the status of the deals as they develop in the pipeline and automatically follow-up with the opportunities based on the parameters you have set.
3. Reporting and Tracking: SFA software can automatically track the revenue your field technician is bringing-in on each deal. This is great as it gives you an insight into your team’s performance and trains the technician who is falling behind. Moreover, it can track results for multiple product lines and give you a detailed analysis so that you can focus on the products that need help. Thus, a good automation system will automate a ton of the administrative work of the sales teams making them more productive.
4. Trend Analysis and Sales Enablement: Monitoring business trends is essential for discovering new opportunities. A good sales force automation system will analyze your data and find trends you can monetize. Moreover, it will provide your sales team with everything they need to close a deal. A sales force automation software when used appropriately, will allow you to build a solid sales strategy.
5. Free Trial: Prior to making a decision and investing a huge chunk of your hard earned money, be sure if the software actually fits your needs. Register for a free trial and try out its tools. Also, find out whether the vendor can help you to pilot the platform. Although this may cost some money, it is worth the effort as it will give you the requisite results and points to analyze before making a crucial investment.
In addition to these factors, make sure that you can scale it to your sales team. Ensure that your sales team has had a comprehensive training of the software. In conclusion, your sales force automation system goes hand-in-hand with your CRM. Choosing the right software with the right features requires you to make an honest analysis of your current setup and your future goals.
FieldEZ’s Field Service Management Software
FieldEZ offers a sales force automation software tailored differently for small enterprises and large organizations. With this field force management software, you can carry out all the key tasks needed to manage a remote workforce such as-
- Location Tracking
- Route Optimization
- Contract Management
- Invoices and Payments Management
- Reports and Dashboards
- Lawn Care Software
- Dispatch Management
Avail the sales force automation software that is just right for you and your needs.
