autodialersystem.net

A lot of people like to proclaim just how much the Sales 2.0 technologies have changed the business world, but for a lot of companies, the actual changes to sales activities and processes have been negligible.

iPhones are a powerful piece of technology–but does having an app for everything really change the way sales actually works? Does a mobile device really change how your typical sales agent works with their sales inquiries?

In high-powered, business-to-business sales, regardless of industry, you’re still on the phone–a lot. You’re still performing an analysis of customer needs. Your focus is still on the customer’s real issue. You’re sending correspondence, creating proposals, and meeting with supervisors.

There’d be a typewriter on the desks instead of a computer, but to an outside observer, your typical 2011 sales rep isn’t going to look or act much different than one from 1961.

So what’s the big deal with Sales 2.0? If very little has really changed, why is it pretty much just accepted that the Web has changed everything?

Here’s the answer: Business 2.0 hasn’t changed the “what,” of what sales reps do, it’s changed the “why”—and the patterns behind the “what.”

Something to think about:

Before there was a Web-connected computer on every desk, the telephone was the only thing that allowed a sales agent to engage with a prospect in real time unless they went directly on-site. We forget just how many communication channels the Web has actually given us, but before that happened, the phone was the ONLY real-time, far-reaching communications medium availble.

It’s not hard to see why the telemarketing craze of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s happened. The telephone equaled more prospects, but the rationale for using a dialer was never focused on the prospect, it was centered on the sales rep.

Today, organizations that promote dialer tools are still associated with that paradigm. The real difference is that clients now expect more subtle approaches than a ham-fisted sales call.

So how does a power dialer system become important now that it’s not 40 or 50 years ago? It teaches us to approach sales calling from a different angle. The next generation of sales dialer tools from companies such as Five9, VanillaSoft, and InsideSales.com follow a different paradigm. They’re not just about powering through call lists, but about what the prospect sees. New dialers help agents know how to connect with prospects, not just in the actual dialing. They calculate and organize data to give the rep more chances to contact. They use tools to give a professional face to agents. It’s about getting to a level of sophistication the prospect deserves.

A study produced by Marketing Sherpa in the last 24 months revealed that between 70 and 80 percent of sales prospects will eventually turn into paying customers at some point in the next 18-24 months.

Simply put, the commonly expressed whining from sales reps about the lack of potential in their sales leads are at least moderately exaggerated. Some opportunities aren’t going to become customers right away, or even on the schedule the rep expects. But the data pretty clearly shows that most people that are actively seeking new solutions are doing so because they really are going to buy.

This fact highlights that it remains critical to to keep leads in the pipeline with quality lead nurturing, even if progress towards being a valid prospect is likely to be slow—and a dialer tool can act as a vital component of a long-term lead generation plan.

But if they’re not careful, some sales teams may find that the lead nurturing tool becomes a crutch for other lead generation activities. Suddenly “Lead nurturing” becomes an excuse for not performing critical prospecting activities like immediate response and consistent follow-up.

This is a dangerous state of affairs, because as the Sales 2.0 Network states, when a sale gets lost it’s almost always for one of two reasons—you shouldn’t have been chasing the opportunity to begin with because you weren’t the right fit, or you flat-out got outsmarted by someone who better met the prospect’s needs.

“Drip” marketing can be important, but immediate response technologies and practices are just as vital, because they inoculate companies against both causes of lost sales. Immediate response means reps are massively more likely to make contact. Your ability to set an appointment and start a viable needs analysis increases, and it happens in less time. In addition, responding quickly to your leads generates a good first impression. You give yourself a better opportunity to know right off the bat whether you’re you actually have a realistic shot of closing the deal, as well as create an environment of trust in both the short- and long-term.

Many of the best auto dialers can figure out if whether or not an answering machine is picking up the phone call or even a human. There isn’t a method to make this 100% accurate yet, because humans are mistaken as well. I mean we have all called the friend’s cell and heard the “hello” which was actually their voicemail but started talking anyways. Autodialer software may make exactly the same blunder.Some smart auto-dialers can even convert speech to text which is helpful for general concerns etc. These autodialers use speech engines to be able to convert the speech to text. These autodialers can leave detailed messages referencing an account. My secondary school had an autodialer software and it would call the home telephone number saying that I had missed class or giving a school announcement. It was successful and saved the high school attendance office time by making those telephone calls day after day.